There is something faintly tragic about Elon Musk at this point.
Perhaps the clearest thing about the world’s richest man is that he so desperately wants people to think he’s funny. He announced with a flourish that “comedy is now legal on Twitter” once his purchase of the platform was complete. And then there was that time he turned up at headquarters carrying a sink.
The lifted memes, the empty edge-lord provocations — combined with the fact that when people make jokes at his expense he suspends their accounts — have always elicited the whole-body-tensing-inducing embarrassment of watching someone fail an audition.
And that was before he got on stage with a high-profile stand-up comedian. Of course it was Dave Chappelle, whose work has largely morphed in recent years into that of a fairly dull outrage merchant, a figurehead for people who argue they’re just centrist freedom lovers with common sense and a great sense of humour, but weirdly only seem to get particularly exercised by trans people. The only surprise is that Ricky Gervais wasn’t there too on Sunday night in San Francisco.
“Ladies and gentlemen, make some noise for the richest man in the world,” Chappelle yelled to the crowd of about 18,000.
The crowd cheered and then, to Musk and Chapelle’s surprise, viciously booed.
“Controversy, buddy,” Chappelle said, as the boos continued. “Weren’t expecting this, were you?”
The whole saga was probably best summed up by an exchange on Musk’s “My pronouns are Prosecute/Fauci” thread. The initial “joke” was a terminally online right-winger twofer: a swipe at trans and non-binary people and a stoking of conspiratorial thinking regarding COVID, which also doubled as a desperate call for attention from both leftie scolds and far-right trolls.
After the predictable ratio, Musk said “Truth resonates … ” because, as with the comedy he likes, the fact that people don’t like something is always a sign you’re making an extremely good point. A user replied with something actually funny (“So does a crowd full of boos”). Musk then made it clear he didn’t care that people booed, and it wasn’t that many, really, and if anything he found it funny:
Technically, it was 90% cheers & 10% boos (except during quiet periods), but, still, that’s a lot of boos, which is a first for me in real life (frequent on Twitter). It’s almost as if I’ve offended SF’s unhinged leftists … but nahhh.
If there is a god, may he, she, it or they please let Ricky Gervais loose on Elon Musk. Let’s see Musk try to deal with that.
The prospect is so thrilling I may lose sleep…Gervais is the master of releasing air from inflated egos.
A little off topic but what is it with RWNJ’s and Anthony Fauci?
An apolitical dude with serious scientific chops and integrity-not much in common with Trump sure.
But what is the agenda here?
Anyone?
Fauci was the first medico to draw attention to Covid in January 2020 – which, in Feb 2020, Trump dismissed as ‘a Democrat hoax’. So a black mark immediately goes next to Fauci’s name in the eyes of Trump supporters for the sin of believing in – nay, promoting – the idea of Coronavirus. In an interview a couple years later Fauci stated he had urgently needed to brief & forewarn then President Trump re the pandemic but Trump put him off for at least two weeks.
Sounds very reasonable, Kimba, but I think you’re trying to invoke a rational argument in a setting where it has no purchase. As to the agenda, I’m not sure I can answer that, but the existence of such a thing would again imply a degree of organised cognition which, again, I’m not sure is a valid assumption.
That the likes of Fauci are right : which makes them and their guts wrong.
Because he’s “an apolitical dude with serious scientific chops and integrity-not much in common with Trump sure”.
You might need to to go back to 2003 to fully understand.
When Karl Rove uttered the following, it marked a moment in time when what was then the mainstream Right formally announced that it was departing the age of reason.
“We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you’re studying that reality – judiciously, as you will – we’ll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out. We’re history’s actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.”
Those of us who still inhabit the Age of Reason (like Fauci), of course, largely still believe that ‘solutions emerge from a judicious study of discernible reality’.
Karl Rove’s acknowledgement was in response to questions on the invasion of Iraq. Then, and since, the mainstream Right has simply made shit up for whoever paid the most for them to make shit up – WMD, ivermectin, hyroxychloroquine, Covid denial, global warming denial, the stolen election, etc, etc.
It has sold itself to the market, and the market cares nothing about decency, truth, democracy, fairness, reason, evidence or human dignity.
Worse than the RWNJs in the public eye or on the street in faux ‘Freedom Rallies’ is the architecture in the background leading back to fossil fueled, climate science denying and anti (centrist) govt., Koch network present in Oz via think tanks.
A DeSmog investigation showed how the latter also supported Covid science denial and delay in:
‘How the UK’s Climate Science Deniers Turned Their Attention to COVID-19. The coronavirus crisis quickly divided the population between those putting their trust in public health experts and others quick to question the science.’ (Zak Derler Aug 10, 2020).
Musk is an insecure boy/man looking for approval. Trouble is he is making it hard for some of us. He started off on the right foot but has been tripping up for a while now.
It’s hard to think of a more peak level of irony than Twitter being completely overwhelmed with people watching video of Twitter’s owner being booed for 10 minutes by people prepared to pay money to see Dave Chappelle.
Chappelle has taken major risks during his career, fearless about shocking an audience. I disagree with your summation of him.
But it’s gratifying to know that Musk can’t buy approval.