Louis CK's Issue with Social Media and Twitter

Like when you do stand up, the people who are in the audience have a fucking vote on my act. Like they actually have a direct influence. I give a giant fuck about them. They paid money and they came, they fucking traveled, parked a car, got a babysitter, and they're sitting shoulder to shoulder with strangers listening. So if I see a face that goes, huh, I fucking see it, and it may not change my joke entirely, but there's a gland in me that takes all of that in, and you know what I mean, in the aggregate, and changes, and it's not about their acceptance. Sometimes it's about going to what upsets them and pushing past it, but they're involved. And I have to keep that clean that it's about me and them. Yeah. If I read something by somebody who didn't come to the show, who doesn't go to comedy shows, who's reacting to something that was written about a show, a person who wrote it to get clicks, somebody who's professionally disgruntled and says, this was a bad show, and then somebody tweets, yeah, fuck that guy. And I'm letting that person outweigh the rights of my audience. It's irresponsible. So I don't even think you should, it's not about reading it and then resisting it. You shouldn't even be aware of it. You should just say, fuck those people. If they're not there, they're not involved. I couldn't agree more. And I think that it's also, it'll change the way you do comedy if you internalize that show. If you're picturing the jokes you're telling to this audience, going out into the world and what are they going to say about it? And again, in a world that it's a sport to get upset. It's a soothing, fun sport. And I have no problem with it. They can play that game together, and that's fine. But if you let it actually change, if you actually take it in, and they don't mean it. None of these people mean it. It's just a momentary, yeah, fuck them, and then they move on to something else. They're not invested in it. You said something to me once that I tell people all the time. You said that Twitter's just talk, but it's written down. So it seems like it's more than just talk, because people always talk. That fucking sucked. Or, oh, he's a piece of shit. They say things like that. Normally, it's normal, but you're not aware of it. It's a normal thing that people do. It's even healthy as talk. This is something that my ex-girlfriend who's very close to me, still Blanche Gardin, she's a French comedian. And she's very big in France. She's huge there. And she had a bit that I can't remember as in French, about that Twitter, that there used to be talk, and talk is air. It goes out. People say, that guy fucking sucks, just to each other, and it's gone. They don't have to mean it, but then it's committed to the Library of Congress, and the person who wrote it can't even take it back. They're like, I got to stand behind that now. And then they got to double down on it. And as comedians and entertainers, we're supposed to have these people just yapping about us. They have fucked Joe Rogan. It's somebody who's even a fan. Yeah. Might just enjoy his beer for the moment. Right. Fuck him. Yeah. But then if you showed up, they'd be like, oh my God, Joe, I fucking love it. But the fact that comedians are partly responsible, because they're on Twitter, and they want to be liked there too. Yeah. They want to be there overseeing the conversations, looking for somebody saying something bad about them, and then responding? Are you fucking high? It's crazy. It's kind of conflated things, I think, Twitter. It's made it's... And it's not... I don't think that anybody on Twitter means anything, they say. I don't believe that any... I don't think a single tweet is really sincere. It's just a calculation of what's this going to do, and it's based in fear and hope, which are both dumb things. But it's not really like a sincere, this is how I feel. Right. So if you give it all that... And comedians that tweet jokes, the same exact format and type, and then tweet a political opinion in the same thing. That's one of the reasons I think folks have started to take jokes seriously, because there are comedians that want to be funny and taken seriously. So they're doing both. So of course people are confused by it. And it's not in a club, or at least a theater where it's like where comedy is this really, really fun experiment. Just for this one night, we're not going to worry about offending each other. We're not going to worry about what's right or wrong. We're just going to talk shit, and we're going to go, and I'm really good at it. I can talk shit like you wouldn't believe. I'm going to astonish you with how much I shouldn't be saying this. That's the game. But if you translated it to text and put it out like a statement, like it's a fucking statement from the senator, it's just not going to... Other people aren't going to take it right. So, I'm going to talk to you about the story of the show. I'm going to talk to you about the story of the show. I'm going to talk to you about the story of the show. I'm going to talk to you about the story of the show. I'm going to talk to you about the story of the show. I'm going to talk to you about the story of the show. I'm going to talk to you about the story of the show. I'm going to talk to you about the story of the show. I'm going to talk to you about the story of the show. I'm going to talk to you about the story of the show. I'm going to talk to you about the story of the show. I'm going to talk to you about the story of the show. I'm going to talk to you about the story of the show.