The difference in Jon Stewart's take on cancel culture from 2018 to 2022

I watched his HBO interview from 2018 where he defended calling out bad behavior in comedy, then caught his 2022 podcast where he said the same mob mentality is now hurting open debate. Over those 4 years it seems like one side got louder and the other side got scared to push back. Do you think his change came from watching real consequences play out, or just shifting the goalposts?

2 comments

2 Comments

scott.shane27d ago

Had a buddy who used to do open mics in Brooklyn around 2018, same vibe as Jon was talking about back then. He told me this guy got roasted online for a joke about pronouns and within a week his gigs dried up, no club would touch him. Fast forward to 2022 and my friend’s own podcast episode got flagged because he pushed back on some Twitter mob stuff, even though his real name wasn’t even attached. He just stopped talking about anything edgy after that, said it wasn’t worth the headache.

taylor_young27d ago

That buddy’s story lines up perfectly with what a lot of comics were whispering about in 2022, how the fear of losing gigs made everyone play it safe. It wasn’t just one big change from Jon, it was watching the practical fallout from that 2018 energy turn into a full system where even mild pushback became a career risk.