Reverse cancel culture is here, so to speak.
For years, leftists hounded any and all offenders against politicalcorrectness — meaning they’d root out anyone they disagreed with, including for saying anodyne things like “women are adult female humans and men are adult male humans” — directing hysterical online mobs against offenders’ employers, advertisers, and even ISPs.
Now it appears rightists are doing the same. People have lost their jobs for saying horrific — tasteless, hateful — things regarding the killing of Charlie Kirk. And Jimmy Kimmel just lost his high-profile late-night “comedy show” with ABC.
He’s literally been cancelled.
What happened? The Sinclair and Nexstar affiliate groups announced they will not (barring some apology) air Kimmel’s show anymore, and the two, together, own over 70 ABC affiliates — suggesting a substantial hit to the network’s bottom line.
“‘Jimmy Kimmel Live will be pre-empted indefinitely,’ a spokesperson for the Disney-owned network said in a statement,” reports the BBC.
The offense? “In his Monday night monologue, Kimmel said: ‘The Maga Gang desperately trying to characterise this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them and doing everything they can to score political points from it.’”
One could nitpick.
It has, after all, been embarrassing to watch the anti-MAGA folks desperately try to pin the accused shooter’s motive on some bizarre theory about “groyper” culture and “furry” larping; truth is, after an obviously political assassination, nearly everyone will aim to “score political points.” Kimmel one-sidedly points only to his opponents.
Missing in the back-and-forth? The Federal Communications Commission (FCC), which regulates broadcast TV in the first place.
The FCC actually has a case that what Kimmel said was offensive and not “in the public interest.” But why should that count for anything? Were the broadcast spectrum privately owned — slots sold to the highest bidder, getting government out of any regulatory role whatsoever over media outlets — then, maybe, ABC wouldstand by its divisive host to satisfy only their core audience of partisan MAGA-haters.
And keep losing money . . . as is its right.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
One reply on “Cancel Kimmel Culture”
I suspect that Disney is getting EXACTLY what they want out of this whole thing. Broadcast TV is down to less than 20% of TV viewership, but ABC is still coddling more than 200 affiliate broadcast stations that they don’t own, splitting ad time / revenues with them.
The FCC pressure gives them an excuse to fire Kimmel from broadcast, move him to Hulu at a lower salary, pick up some hardcore Kimmel fans as paying subscribers, and start winding down their broadcast TV business by declining to renew affiliate agreements.