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The way I let that thread know about it was clumsier than I intended. I didn't mean to shut everything down, I just thought it was an important story to know about. I also had initially felt it best not to post the accusation directly, rather just let them know they existed because I didn't want to send a bunch of fans directly to this woman who was already being harassed, that if they were curious they would find the information. And then they replies were very mean and defensive, I realize I should have actually posted more specifically, because the information was not actually easy to find. It hasn't been written up anywhere yet so it doesn't really show up on search engines. So I posted it with the information anonymized. I initially wasn't going to talk about it at all but I want to discuss why and how I decided I should let that thread know about it. The reason is I found out about this two days ago and thought "God that sucks, well I'm not going to be liking or sharing any more Norm stuff" but then later I felt guilty. Cause I didn't offer that person any support or call out any of the people harassing her. I just ignored it. Then yesterday I saw a mutual friend talking about it and saying how hurt she was that there are so many men who follow her and like her discussions about the challenge of being a woman and the dangers of men, and then something like this happens and nobody says anything, they just pretend they don't see it. A lack of support for Norm now was not enough anymore in my eyes after I read that. So I looked at this woman's telling of the story and looked at the people quoting it, and I looked at the people quoting my friend who was supporting her, and it was just absolutely vile responses. Nobody was saying anything in support to these monsters hurling abuse. Maybe it's just screaming at the ether but I went into those quotes for a couple hours and berated men about how horrible they were being. Some of them had the immediate response of slurs so they got banned. Some just blocked. Some locked. None really apologized or said "Yeah I was wrong". But I saw later the accuser said she really appreciated a lot of people went to bat for her. It wasn't just me, there were lots of people who stepped up around the same time and fought back and this literally made her feel safer. So I felt if there are people who didn't know about this story then they should know. I shouldn't ignore it for everyone's benefit. And I came away with a larger general sense that when there's a comedian or actor or writer(but especially comedian or writer) I love and a lot of guys love but I never see women in their industry talking about them, I really need to examine that. It doesn't necessarily mean anything but a lot of the times it does and I should ask myself "Why does this guy seem to only appeal to people who look like me?"
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Sep 16, 2021 14:50
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I was done with Norm MacDonald the instant I read about the joke he made at the expense of Brandon Teena after his death. It wasn't even "gallows humor" it was just straight up "I think a trans man dying after being raped is funny". Norm MacDonald would be another conservative talk radio host like Rush Limbaugh if he hadn't successfully broke into comedy. In fact a lot of modern conservative commentators tried and failed at comedy. In another universe, Norm MacDonald would've been reading the obituaries of gay people who died of AIDS with upbeat music playing over it. He was a piece of poo poo who I thought was funny once, then I realized he was a giant turd who was just good at hiding what a giant turd he was.
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Sep 16, 2021 15:45
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King Vidiot posted:In fact a lot of modern conservative commentators tried and failed at comedy. The is absolutely true. The idiot who founded the proudboys is a failed comedian.
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Sep 16, 2021 15:51
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The Norm stuff is appalling because, as that first woman pointed out in her tweet thread, Norm admitted in 2015 to faking being drunk to grope women and no one seemed to care: https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-news/norm-macdonald-a-raw-uncensored-819420/ quote:Have you ever bombed on stage?
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Sep 16, 2021 16:08
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King Vidiot posted:I was done with Norm MacDonald the instant I read about the joke he made at the expense of Brandon Teena after his death. It wasn't even "gallows humor" it was just straight up "I think a trans man dying after being raped is funny". loving poo poo, you weren't kidding. He just states the incident then literally says, "They all deserved to die." I was expecting a really gross joke, but there wasn't even a loving joke. Jesus.
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Sep 16, 2021 20:12
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Yeah the more you know about Norm's personal politics, the less surprising it is that he would be a poo poo towards women he is interacting with. He did not make a tremendous effort to hide his opinions, and was the variety of conservative that insists they are apolitical/independent but come down on the Trump side of everything. Norm also ruined his last Netflix gig by going to bat for Roseanne and Louis CK.
Name Change fucked around with this message at 12:04 on Sep 17, 2021 |
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Sep 16, 2021 20:33
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Nobody would've gone to bat for the guy if he didn't get that SNL gig and a standup career, if he'd been a conservative talk radio guy instead. But he made it into the Comedy Boys Club and had other comics and his fans as a buffer to let him say and do anything. And certain people tend to get really defensive if you try and say one bad thing about him.
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Sep 16, 2021 20:48
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It's alright guys, he's dead now.
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Sep 16, 2021 21:11
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Sodomy Hussein posted:Yeah the more you know about Norm's personal politics, the less surprising it is that he would be a poo poo towards women he is interacting with. He did not make a tremendous effort to hide his opinions, and was the variety of conservative that insists they are apolitical/independent but come down on the Trump side of everything. Norm also ruined his last Netflix gig by going to bat for Rosie O'Donnell and Louis CK. What did Rosie O'Donnell do?
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Sep 16, 2021 21:15
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John Wick of Dogs posted:What did Rosie O'Donnell do? lol I meant Roseanne Rosie O'Donnell as far as I know is fine
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Sep 16, 2021 21:22
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DrVenkman posted:It's alright guys, he's dead now. Are people not meant to discuss this gross pervasive issue and other people's reactions to it if the bastard in question is dead, then?
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Sep 16, 2021 21:44
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HopperUK posted:Are people not meant to discuss this gross pervasive issue and other people's reactions to it if the bastard in question is dead, then? It's just more dead-white-male bashing from a P.C. thug.
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Sep 16, 2021 21:51
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HopperUK posted:Are people not meant to discuss this gross pervasive issue and other people's reactions to it if the bastard in question is dead, then? Most of the time it just reads as performative, to be honest. (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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Sep 16, 2021 21:56
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Whatever the case maybe people will shut the gently caress up about Norm MacDonald finally. He was a real jerk.
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Sep 16, 2021 22:06
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These accusations are surfacing, to me at least, after he died. No one's trying to perform for your dumb rear end.
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Sep 16, 2021 22:08
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Uh oh! We better stop talking about sexual assault allegations against a dead white celebrity here in the "Sexual Assault and the Culture of Hollywood" thread, lest we come across as too performative or PC! Because that's the real problem with Hollywood and also society: people giving too much of a poo poo about the victims.
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Sep 16, 2021 22:14
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I shouldn't have to specify that that was a Simpsons quote.
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Sep 16, 2021 22:16
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Yeah I never really followed norm. So when he died I see all these clips. And Holy poo poo I think I've found another comedian worth looking into. The Conan skit. The mangrate. Good stuff. Now I feel bad I've missed out on someone. Then the accusations. And the history. To me norm was milkshake duck'd in my reality because I had never really closely followed him. So this was good to learn so I could do something better to feel joy, like play "I am fish"
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Sep 16, 2021 23:24
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DrVenkman posted:Most of the time it just reads as performative, to be honest. the gently caress is this now
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Sep 16, 2021 23:24
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LIVE AMMO COSPLAY posted:I shouldn't have to specify that that was a Simpsons quote. this is a comedy website, but in the same thread people keep trying to tell lovely jokes maybe use the image meme or something rather then an out of context line
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Sep 16, 2021 23:24
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No you see people come to this thread on this thriving rocking site to pretend to give a poo poo.
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Sep 16, 2021 23:48
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Jesus Christ is there anyone in the entertainment industry that isn't a flaming pile of garbage? I had no idea Norm MacDonald was such a heinous trash person.
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Sep 17, 2021 00:41
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Jamie Lee Curtis. I think. ....I'm watching Halloween ok
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Sep 17, 2021 00:46
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SunshineDanceParty posted:No you see people come to this thread on this thriving rocking site to pretend to give a poo poo. I just want all ten of you to know that I do not in any way endorse mocking the deaths of trans people or grabbing women's bare asses while pretending to be drunk. Just in case you thought I did.
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Sep 17, 2021 00:52
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I'm not directing it at anyone in here, but in my personal life it feels like whenever something like this happens a lot of people jump out of the woodwork to say not only do they not like this person, THEY NEVER LIKED THEM, and i'm like, wait, you liked this two weeks ago, you re-watched this at my house even after i said i had already seen it, this was your halloween costume last year, and they just stone wall me. It feels so bizarre, and they act like I'm a piece of poo poo because I used to like Louis CK, even though I don't anymore. Like I was wrong for liking him back then, and it's some kind of lingering taint. Maybe some people just can't reconcile those emotions with their memory, or they don't want to feel like someone got one over on them? Or sometimes when the public tide turns and everyone starts hating a thing i already dislike , like cards against humanity. I hated that game when it was just called apples to apples cause it was dumb, and now everyone around me wants to get on their high horse about how problematic it is when they Played it ALL THE TIME for YEARS at every game night, and would brag about how they had all the expansions and the bigger and blacker box. I'm not gonna say I'm better than them, but if i wanted to giggle at people saying slurs and curse words I already had X-box live.
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Sep 17, 2021 00:52
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CPL593H posted:Jesus Christ is there anyone in the entertainment industry that isn't a flaming pile of garbage? I had no idea Norm MacDonald was such a heinous trash person. David Schwimmer, apparently.
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Sep 17, 2021 00:56
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It's all tied together since it was a reaction to the rush of everyone jumping in front of one another to proclaim how big of a fan they were of Norm and what a wonderful person he was. This is also an annoying thing that happens when someone dies. Suddenly everyone was their biggest fan or closest friend. I saw one of the women mentioned in this thread point out that they only voiced their experience because it was just too much to see days of people insisting that he was a wonderful person. And they co-signed that it was fine if people like his comedy and were going to miss him. He was pretty talented and funny. He just also did some bad poo poo and people excused him of it and that kind of sucks too.
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Sep 17, 2021 00:57
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Parakeet vs. Phone posted:It's all tied together since it was a reaction to the rush of everyone jumping in front of one another to proclaim how big of a fan they were of Norm and what a wonderful person he was. This is also an annoying thing that happens when someone dies. Suddenly everyone was their biggest fan or closest friend. The day before he died, any white male comedian who knew him would tell you they liked his material a lot, but even they would admit that at minimum his personal life was a dumpster fire and he could be an rear end in a top hat. Norm was quite talented at pissing away show business opportunities. As old clips of him on talk shows began circulating more (which is a lot of his best material), people became interested in him, and there was enough footage of him talking about his beliefs where you could tell he leaned rightward. So the Algorithm made Norm Macdonald and right-wing dipshittery very adjacent, so it was not really hard to figure out where his fandom was growing fastest. A lot of comedians don't really care about this stuff because if you asked them they would tell you that most comedians are broken assholes, and most of the most successful ones are also male, so there's not a lot of self-reflection going on. So, Norm being a sex pest was not known to me until yesterday but again, is not terribly surprising.
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Sep 17, 2021 01:48
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I think Norm was a total manchild in a lot of ways. I think he was one of those people who loved to say extremely shocking stuff (especially in the 90s) like "trans people should die," and just thought it was funny to say extremely offensive like that, and spent a long time unwilling to examine the fact that that is still obviously transphobic (I've read that he later apologized for that specific one, but I am not personally aware of where to find it). From everything I've seen of him I think he would probably say that actually he obviously didn't think anyone should be killed, it's funny because it's so wrong to say, etc., i.e. all the standard old and bad defenses of ironic slurs and stuff. I say this only to push back against the idea that his personal politics would actually line up with having been a Rush Limbaugh type. I think he was just extremely thoughtless and immature in a way that resulted in him doing racism and sexism in his comedy sometimes by not examining the meaning of his actions. I believe Rush and those types are people who the more you dug in, the more actively conscious hate you found, and I do not get that impression about Norm. And given all this, when I finally got the chance to read the Twitter accusations I was not really surprised at all, as someone who had found Norm's actually funny stuff extremely funny for years. It's sad that he did that, and it's sad that he seemingly never matured enough to examine any of this stuff or genuinely try to fix himself or the harm he'd caused. Sometimes he would joke about sex in ways that made it pretty obvious he had some huge hangups about it. Over the last few years I had gotten the impression from some interviews that he had started to do genuine soul-searching about some of his psychological issues, possibly because of thinking about his mortality, but also in all those moments he never really mentioned women at all. Martman fucked around with this message at 02:05 on Sep 17, 2021 |
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Sep 17, 2021 02:02
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Parakeet vs. Phone posted:It's all tied together since it was a reaction to the rush of everyone jumping in front of one another to proclaim how big of a fan they were of Norm and what a wonderful person he was. This is also an annoying thing that happens when someone dies. Suddenly everyone was their biggest fan or closest friend. When DMX died and everyone was fawning over him I said that it really bothered me because the man was extremely homophobic and even wrote a song about killing gay men in the general chat thread and got dogpiled for it and everyone was accusing me of tearing him down because he just died and I was taking it out of context because he had a hard life and drug problems. So I was told that I, as a gay man, was wrong to be annoyed that everyone was praising the life and work of a guy who on at least one occasion sang a song about how murdering people like me for existing is cool and good. I was actually quite shocked at how people reacted to that because my interactions with the regulars here have never been like that and people at least appear to be overall progressive. I was a big fan of Norm MacDonald. I even met him at a show and very fondly remember it. But all this poo poo coming out about him changes that entirely and even if that wasn't an issue to me and I could just say "Separate the art from the artist." I would never try and shout down a woman who said they thought he was a piece of poo poo and they're irritated at seeing people all over shouting how awesome he was from the mountain tops. I also had never heard about that bit about Brandon Teena which is absolutely reprehensible.
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Sep 17, 2021 02:15
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CPL593H posted:But all this poo poo coming out about him changes that entirely and even if that wasn't an issue to me and I could just say "Separate the art from the artist." I would never try and shout down a woman who said they thought he was a piece of poo poo and they're irritated at seeing people all over shouting how awesome he was from the mountain tops. I think this summarizes my feelings on it pretty well. It's a personal decision for everyone how much bad they're willing to put up with in any given thing, and it's real lovely to try and scream people down because their line got crossed sooner. From what I've seen these women have been voicing their experiences, not tearing anyone down for enjoying MacDonald. All the tearing is coming from the other side because, "Don't you dare spoil my enjoyment of this thing!" Which... if you can only enjoy the immaculate, I guess that's on you.
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Sep 17, 2021 05:33
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we're gonna find out clean comedian Dan Nainan is a sex criminal and no one will be disappointed in him
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Sep 17, 2021 05:47
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I mean the Chris D'elia reaction to snapchats being saved is a ton of comedians. That's been the industry for decades. And it's been talked about so nothing coming out about Norm is new. And it's cool if you didn't know people covered for the dude.
SunshineDanceParty fucked around with this message at 07:29 on Sep 17, 2021 |
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Sep 17, 2021 06:38
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WaywardWoodwose posted:I'm not directing it at anyone in here, but in my personal life it feels like whenever something like this happens a lot of people jump out of the woodwork to say not only do they not like this person, THEY NEVER LIKED THEM, and i'm like, wait, you liked this two weeks ago, you re-watched this at my house even after i said i had already seen it, this was your halloween costume last year, and they just stone wall me. It feels so bizarre, and they act like I'm a piece of poo poo because I used to like Louis CK, even though I don't anymore. Like I was wrong for liking him back then, and it's some kind of lingering taint. Maybe some people just can't reconcile those emotions with their memory, or they don't want to feel like someone got one over on them? I don't even think it's something people necessarily need to debate and prescribe to each other about. We're not ever gonna agree on the extent to which you can separate art from artist. But it's important to ask yourself: I loved, I dunno, Polanski's movies, they had a big influence on me, he's clearly a hosed up dude, how do I deal with that moving forward? It's a personal journey. For me it's been a longstanding reminder not to lionize celebrities, to stop exalting works of art, to expect and embrace the fallibility of Great Men.
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Sep 17, 2021 06:56
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I once had the pleasure of having a personal friend of Louis CK ask me my opinion on CK and after a back and forth of "I don't want to discuss that." he told me it was fine and no matter what I said wouldn't bother him. So I offered my opinion that I no longer am a fan for obvious reasons. So then ne proceeded to berate me about how it's all totally wrong and that Louis CK only said "These stories are true." so people wouldn't bother the victims and ackshully... It was probably the single most awkward experience of my life and I wanted to float out of my body. And this went on for a solid 20 minutes. Never meet your idols, kids! Being a avid standup comedy fan a thing I've noticed is that they're often very insecure people and for many an attack on one feels like an attack on all no matter how justified said attack is. More to the point though, I don't think being a former fan of someone who turned out to be a trash bag makes you a monster. I was probably as big of a Louis CK fan as you'd ever find and I very fondly remember watching his specials and going to his live shows. How funny his FX series was and his eye for how absurd, crazy, and senseless the world is. But I just don't care about him anymore and I have no desire to revisit any of the things which I admit I still find funny.
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Sep 17, 2021 07:14
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I went through a distinct process where I felt like there was, at some point, a possible path that Louis CK could have taken that would have led towards genuinely fixing his image, and helping make up for the things he did. By now I just think he is far past the point of having decided "hmmmm naw gently caress it. I'll just keep on truckin' and see what happens"
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Sep 17, 2021 11:05
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Barreling straight through controversy is a pretty winning strategy (if you don't mind giving up your soul.)
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Sep 17, 2021 11:33
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LIVE AMMO COSPLAY posted:Barreling straight through controversy is a pretty winning strategy (if you don't mind giving up your soul.) Why work on yourself and try to make amends when you can pander to chuds and still make a lot of money? One of the things his friend lectured me about was that it was so sad that CK lost everything for one stupid mistake and how doing comedy was his dream and he lost his dream and blah blah blah as if I'm supposed to feel sorry for a millionaire who had to briefly stop doing his comedy because he sexually assaulted multiple women.
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Sep 17, 2021 14:59
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Martman posted:I went through a distinct process where I felt like there was, at some point, a possible path that Louis CK could have taken that would have led towards genuinely fixing his image, and helping make up for the things he did. By now I just think he is far past the point of having decided "hmmmm naw gently caress it. I'll just keep on truckin' and see what happens" Has anyone done that? Like shown actual contrivance and got better?
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Sep 17, 2021 16:14
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Skwirl posted:Has anyone done that? Like shown actual contrivance and got better? Aziz Ansari? I can't remember exactly what he said in his special that addressed it but I think from the beginning he's been pretty contrite. It's hard to say whether he's got better since it was an isolated report in the first place and no one is exactly monitoring his dates, but I don't think there's been any other scandals since.
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Sep 17, 2021 16:30
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