Nimesh Patel: I'm Not Your Mascot and This Isn't a Pep Rally

Don't know Kids have changed or whatever. No, no, no, they haven't changed. They just think that this is the thing to do now Mm-hmm. Look when I was in when I was doing colleges way back in the day. I was in my 20s I did a college in Connecticut and right after I did their college I I was talking to the kids I would do I would do my set and then I would like open up for Q&A. Yeah But it was I was probably 24 25 maybe maybe 25 at the oldest. So just a couple years older than them Okay And so it was fun for me to talk to them About what life is like when you actually have to pay your own bills and you're out you're out free and some guy goes You know you got like I was doing the question thing and some guy goes I go, you know, I lift his hand up. He goes tell a joke I go tell a joke and I go to Jews walk into a bar They buy it It's an old street. Yeah street joke after the show, you know, the show goes great. I say, thank you I really appreciate you guys for coming out. It was really a lot of fun. Thank you. Good night So afterwards I would always hang around say hi to people and there was no picture taken back then because you had to have an actual Camera. Yeah, I had a fucking camera. It was a long time long time ago. This is I'm 51. So this is a 90 91 Oh 22 somewhere on that so This one guy comes up to me goes the joke. He said about Jewish people is very fun. So I Thought he was joking. Uh-huh. I go you serious and he was yes very offensive He's like nervous and shit and like has a hard time looking me in the eye I go dude, I could think about what the joke says It's about Jewish people being really good at business right walk into a bar. They decide to buy it It's such a nothing offensive about it at all You know what's crazy is like it's like people now and maybe forever I've always heard shit and they immediately think This means if I'm thinking something bad about this that means that someone is thinking bad about it They decided this is a taboo subject Even if you're not even say anything negative about it, you know, like say if you do a joke about interracial relationships The best kind interracial race just say it if you just do a joke about that There are people that are gonna put red flags up instantly and look to misinterpret anything that you say on purpose Yeah, because they don't want they don't want that thought in their head. They don't want the thought of You know like this guy's looking for anti-semitism in that joke Two guys walk into a bar they buy there's none there you could look all day long It's a joke about Jewish folks buying stuff. Right? It does. There's nothing negative positive stereotypes It's like a big dick black-eyed Joe. Yeah, it's not negative. There's nothing negative about it Nobody gets upset that you think they have a big dick. Right? Let's have a little bit. It's a lot of letdown it's It's young people that also flexing right? They're free from the control their parents and I find them you're dealing with that more in like rich or Upper-middle-class families because I think they're more hands-on with their kids and more controlling and those kids get free They want to exert their own freedom and when they get free of their parents They want to establish that they're different and that they have their own mind their own and then we're part of the new generation The new generation is not gonna tolerate racism Sis hetero activity and they just decide that they're gonna fucking put their foot down But it's a pattern that repeats itself over and over and over again. It's just today they have social media This is the difference the difference is they feel like they're empowered because they get online And other morons that are the same age as them confirm with them You can just confirm any belief that you want like that's another lesson. I've gotten from this is like Confirmation bias is like the wildest shit ever you can you can be like there's one lady who wrote some shit I'm anti-gay and anti-black and other areas. I'm like in the comments. Yes, this is clearly This is clearly what he was saying. I'm like what that you took that from my set me I'm anti-gay man. I don't think there's a solution here. Yeah, I've looked at this hard for a long time No, we need safe spaces for comedians There's no solution because you're dealing with immature people in terms of like the literally the development of their frontal lobe They're not fully formed yet How much do you think of it is like I put it in my the op-ed that I wrote but it's like I was thinking about like how much of it Now is a function of the fact that like we immediately get whatever we want in our hands You know, I mean like there's instant gratification So there's like instant kind of thought process where there's no real thinking that occurs It's more just like this comes in my brain. I hear gay black this has to be yes, this is wrong. It's coming out Yeah, for sure. I mean if you say gay black on stage today in a really liberal very progressive environment You but you have to say something like pro Super pro gay and super pro black and it it doesn't even have to be a joke, right? Like it you're better off just going for that applause break move Comedian, I mean people want rose people want their comedians to be their leaders That's really that's what it feels like No People I'm when I say people I mean like this next group of of comedy The people that don't because the comedians that are gonna be their leaders aren't even gonna be funny They're gonna fucking die to starve to death you get once you get out in the real world Fuck man. If you're not funny, you're fucked. Yeah, nothing But like it's like like if I went up there and I said Asians all the shit and fuck whitey I Would have been out on the fucking chairs they would have carried me out like this is our motherfucker You know, but like that's the thing. I think like people want like I'm not a hero, man I'm not just trying to be heard, you know, well your comic. Yeah, you're trying to be funny. Yes That's all it is. This is a I really believe that this is just a symptom of growing up And you just giving these people the power to express themselves where there's there's no mature wiser person That's around them. It says hold on. Let's look at the context of what he's doing, right? Examine what he's doing and then you're gonna apologize to him because this is clearly a fucking joke you hired a guy to tell jokes He tells jokes and you say not that joke, right? You know this specific thing is strange because they're like everyone's like he did not respect what the event was. I'm like, hey I'm like what I mean This is not your mascot here. I'm not this is not a pep rally dog. I'm here to tell jokes We weren't hired to do a speech about this event. Right? I'm here to do your act my fucking act