A local comic in my city got dropped from a festival after a joke from 2018 resurfaced

A friend of mine, a comic named Mike, had a spot at the Riverfront Comedy Fest here. A clip from a set he did six years ago got posted online last month. In it, he made a joke about a local politician that was pretty mean. The festival organizers got a bunch of emails and tweets about it, and they pulled him from the lineup with a week's notice. My friend argued it was old material from when he was starting out and his style has changed a lot. The festival said they have a 'zero tolerance' policy for that kind of personal attack, no matter when it was said. I'm split. On one hand, it feels unfair to judge someone's whole career on a single old joke. On the other, I get why the festival wouldn't want the bad press. Was this a fair call, or did they go too far over something from 2018?

4 comments

4 Comments

gray_morgan2mo ago

Yeah, that's rough... reminds me of a buddy who writes for a small paper. He had an old, angry blog from college surface where he trashed some bands he now loves. It almost cost him a gig last year. People dug it up to say he wasn't a real music fan... The editor stood by him, said people grow up. But it was a close call. Festivals are different though... they have sponsors and tickets to sell. Once that bad press train starts, they just want it gone. It's cold, but I get why they'd cut ties to stop the noise.

the_tessa2mo ago

Wait, didn't that festival drop the band before any real bad press even started? They just panicked over old tweets.

the_wendy4d ago

Wait, did you see what happened to my friend's cousin's band? They got dropped from a small venue because someone found a tweet from when the singer was 16 where he said something dumb about pizza toppings. The venue didn't even wait to hear his explanation, they just said "sorry, not worth the headache" and canceled the show.

pat7812mo ago

Seriously, it's one joke from six years ago. Are we really canceling people over ancient history now?