The Chode Penaissance

We are still recovering from March 2020 and the following months, but that ain’t stoppin’ da Chode Penaissance. The third definition are the chodes I’m referring to.

My goodness, what a drastic turn comedy has taken since the world opened back up after dodging COVID-19’s wrath. I’ve been noticing the effects of it for the past year now, and it’s freakin’ weird, man.

I took a hiatus from performing stand-up from March 2020-April 2021. Fifteen months of living a regular, civilian life, being my typical funny self. Translation: making people laugh for free.

Then there were the comedians who didn’t give a fuck about an active pandemic. With some of the comedy scene’s population gone due to social distancing, the remaining aspiring comedians found an accelerated route to start their comedy careers: hella views and followers on social media.

Tony Hinchcliffe is an example. He went under fire in 2021 after a viral clip of him saying some trite, racist shit about Asian comic Peng Dang, who was on the same lineup. Sure, he lost endorsements and was dropped from his agency, but he’s since been picked up by another and now has a (unfortunately) famous podcast where millions of comedians treat it like Star Search.

His “performance” last night was worst than that moment. Telling many racist jokes and then bombing in front of thousands of racists at a Trump rally gotta be tough (*smirk*). He pissed off the right people, though, and hopefully will swing the election away from that uglass orange cult leader.

I returned to comedy in April 2021 and it was good to be back. One thing I cannot stand is the entitlement these post-pandemic inexperienced jagaloons have. These unfunny vibe-killers will never lack audacity. I’ve seen strictly open-mic’ers try to give unsolicited advice to bookers working out new material.

So many weirdos came out the wood work thinking it was easy to do stand-up comedy, that it doesn’t take years to hone the damn craft. Then the anti-woke brigade started marching in with their dumb ass gripes about how they can’t freely joke about offensive shit like they could back in the day.

Being called out for punching down on marginalized groups of people is not stifling comedy. Getting away with saying some fucked up shit doesn’t mean it was okay to say it then, just like it isn’t okay to say it now. These whiny babies complaining are the same ones who wanna take the fast lane to becoming a better comic, skipping the most important step: being funny.