Daniel Tosh on Cancel Culture: ‘It’s Great. Cancel People’
Daniel Tosh has a favorite mental wellness coach, even though he claims he’s never used one. On a recent episode of his podcast, Tosh Show, the comic welcomed wellness expert Rosie Acosta — he’s a big fan of her voice, whose soothing tones are heard on calming meditation apps. Who knew she’d be asking the tough questions?
“What’s your feeling on cancellation?” she asked.
Tosh didn’t miss a beat: “I think it’s great. Cancel people.”
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Just some of Tosh’s trademark sarcasm? Nope — he appears to believe it. “I think people deserve it,” he said. “Obviously it's not a real thing where, like, your livelihood is gone. But as someone who's done things and said horrible things constantly, I've had backlash and I deserve it.”
Um, yeah, Tosh deserved it. During a 2012 stand-up set, he was telling rape jokes (see?) when an audience member shouted out, “Actually, rape jokes are never funny!”
Tosh’s response was even worse than the bit he was performing: “Wouldn't it be funny if that girl got raped by like, 5 guys right now? Like right now? What if a bunch of guys just raped her…”
The backlash was appropriately swift and furious. Tosh “apologized” but his mea culpa brought even more criticism. Let's face it, Tosh's ‘sorry’ tweet wasn’t a textbook example of how to do this: “The point I was making before I was heckled is there are awful things in the world but you can still make jokes about them. #deadbabies On a lighter note tonight’s new episode of Tosh.0 will be featuring clowns.”
A decade later, Tosh seems to say that he deserved all the brickbats. “There has to be consequences,” he told Acosta. “I also don't think that there's a problem with evolving and ‘Oh, I used to be able to say this and now I can't.’ Well, fine. Good. I’m okay with that.”
Acosta says she’s all for giving people a chance to evolve, “but it seems like people are more interested in lashing out and ridiculing as opposed to giving people the opportunity to change.”
Just in case anyone believes all those meditation apps have made Tosh an evolved person, he admits that “I don't know that I've ever changed because of anything.”