A few weeks ago Bill Maher cracked a joke about how Zayn Malik from One Direction looks like now-convicted Boston Bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. This spiraled into outrage on Twitter, getting ripped-apart by Buzzfeed and others looking to capitalize on the outrage from One Direction fans. But that’s just what social media does in 2015 — stomps its feet and cries like a six-year-old being told “no” from his parents in the toy aisle. In some ways, Twitter has basically become a 24-7 temper tantrum machine about how offended people are by… everything and anything. Case in point? The Trevor Noah saga.
Responding to the #RespectForZayn controversy, last night on Real Time with Bill Maher, Maher unleashed a new segment called “Explaining Jokes To Idiots.” He’s not apologizing for the joke. In fact, he puts “the PC police” on blast, along with the outrage machine that enables comedians from doing their thing.
Even if you don’t like Maher, it’s a great segment about how stupidly oversensitive public opinion has become in the social media age.