Kulturkampf

[Eric Cartman]

Does anyone actually believe the "funny" anecdotes so prevalent in American comedy actually happened?

I think the difference here is that in a 'bit' most people understand that there is not a baseball player named Who, and they've not been put on first base; this is different to 'reportage' based comedians - eg your John Oliver types, who are effectively presenting their routines as humorous political commentary on things that did in fact happen.

When Leno does his opening monologue, the expectation is that the news stories he presents are factual occurrences, and the humour is derived as the reaction to them. A 'daily show' type routine has the expectation that it is a longform version of that 'react to the news' type of comedy, not pure fabrication.

Doing a bit about how endemic racism is that you cant get a date when the truth is you got friend zoned, and the girl who was upgront about not wanting to date you is now getting harassed as a racist is fuuuuuuuuuuuucked up, and he should take responsibility for that.