The Comedy World’s Brutal Takedowns of Hasan Minhaj’s ‘Emotional Truths’

“The punch line is worth the fictionalized premise,” Hasan Minhaj said of his act, the authenticity of which is currently the subject of much debate. Little did Minhaj know that the punchlines proving the lies’ worth would come from Twitter.

Patriot Act star and frontrunner for the vacant Daily Show hosting job Minhaj is in hot water after a New Yorker writer fact-checked his act and found that he had fabricated a few of the most dramatic, harrowing and impactful anecdotes, including the supposed anthrax attack against his family and his brush with an FBI anti-terrorism scheme. “The emotional truth is first. The factual truth is secondary,” Minhaj told the New Yorker’s Clare Malone, claiming that the explosive stories he has used onstage and in his Netflix specials are meant to illustrate the adversities faced by American Muslims. 

Though stand-up comics telling made-up stories is as old and as integral to the medium as the microphone, Minhaj’s methods of procuring pathos by sharing terrifying and untruthful trauma have been criticized by commentators across the internet as exploitative and self-aggrandizing. The comedians, however, are dealing with the touchy transgressions of one of their own the only way they know how — by clowning him mercilessly.

Minhaj’s Daily Show coworkers and Netflix colleagues have largely stayed away from the discussion, but comedy podcasters and Twitter personalities have relished the opportunity to punch up at one of the humor world’s rising stars after he embarrassed himself on a national stage. Here is what the internet's comedy community is saying about Minhaj…