The popularity of Dane Cook is killing comedy

Asheville Citizen-Times - NC, USA - Where is the funny?

For most of my childhood, I wanted to be a stand-up comedian. No, seriously. Then I realized it involved being considered humorous by more than just your brain-dead friends and having the ability to tell jokes that had beginnings, middles and ends.
Advertisement

Then Dane Cook became famous, and I reconsidered my dream.

I’ve ranted on this moron before, but things are getting out of hand. Somehow this dork keeps getting placed in movies and selling out arenas to adoring dorks just like him. The only discernable characteristic of his brand of “comedy” seems to be volume. The louder he speaks, the higher his income.

And I’m not coming from an uneducated place here. Regrettably, I bought his first album.

If I knew that saying, “Dude, I’m scared of drowning,” or “Working at Burger King sucks” could make me millions of dollars and score me a meeting between the sheets with Jessica Simpson, I probably wouldn’t be tossing out this unimaginative, unreadable gibberish every now and then.

I’d be dead. By my own hand.

Real stand-up comedy is something I hold dear. I grew up watching HBO specials of Dave Chappelle, Dave Attell, Louis CK and Dennis Miller. I scour the Internet for clips of Norm MacDonald, Todd Barry and Zach Galifianakis. These are comedians, and they all have something in common. They told jokes to avoid being beaten up or further ostracized by their peers.