Every so often I come across a counter-intuitive idea that fundamentally changes the way I see the world. One of those ideas is what I call the rise of the intolerant:

An intolerant minority will override the preferences of a flexible majority.

In the last two days, I’ve written about how this concept applies to the spread of Veganism and Islamic Radicalism.

Today’s post is about the growth of politically correct comedy.

How Funny Became Serious

In 1996 Chris Rock did an 8-minute rant during a stand-up comedy show that made everyone watching it erupt in laughter. Watch it — I happen to think it’s quite funny!

Most of why it’s so funny is because of his incredible honesty about race. There’s NO WAY you’d hear that anymore.

But even back then, there were a few people that thought it wasn’t funny at all. The joke got a lot of criticism, and Chris Rock never told the joke again.

This is the classic case of the intolerant minority in action. The flexible majority don’t really mind if Chris tells jokes that are racist or not, but the intolerant minority really does. So, the minority wins.

In the next 20 years the trend has gone from bad to worse.

The Rise of the Twitter Lynch Mob

In 2013 Justine Sacco, senior director of corporate communications at IAC, got on a plane from London to Cape Town. Just before she left boarded, she wrote the 64 characters that would change her life forever.

When she got off the plane in Cape Town, she received a text from a friend she hadn’t heard from since high school: “I’m sorry to see what’s happening.” Then a call from her best friend, Hannah. “You’re the #1 worldwide trend on Twitter right now,” she said.

During the 11 hours in the air, thousands had shared her tweet.

“How did Justine Sacco get a job?! Her level of racist ignorance belongs on Fox News”

Her employer tweeted about it. “This is an outrageous, offensive comment. Employee in question currently unreachable on an intl flight.” Even Trump called her out!

Of course, Trump wasn’t wrong about her getting fired. Justine lost her job because of a poor attempt at light racial humour.

Justine’s story is one example of how the intolerant can make a huge impact. Even if you think that Justine’s tweet was terrible judgement, her punishment was incredible. Never before have small groups of social justice warriors been able to spread enough hate to destroy someone’s life in less than half a day.

The effects of this story weren’t limited to Justine. The attack set a strong signal for every amateur comedian to think twice before sharing something funny on the internet.

How did we get here?

There was a time when high profile comedians could be openly racist and get away with being funny. What happened?

Mostly, the internet.

30 years ago, Justine didn’t have Twitter. She could only tell jokes to her close friends, and her career would have been fine.

Even if word got out, the newspapers wouldn’t have published the story because it wouldn’t appeal to the majority. Imaging the New York Times publishing a story with the headline: “IAC Employee Makes Racist Joke About AIDS”. Wouldn’t happen.

What about the future of comedy?

Sorry to say, it doesn’t look bright.

The internet’s here to stay, and it’s unlikely the Twitter Lynch Mob is going to pack up anytime soon. The days of honest comedy from people like Chris Rock and Jeremy Clarkson featuring on mainstream media channels are all but over.

Good thing we’re not all racists, then.

Fraser McIntosh, Angus Pauley and I have challenged each other to write a blog post every day for 50 years. This is post #8.