Did you know there was a Hollywood writers’ strike and late-night comedy shows have been airing reruns? Pfftt… I barely noticed.
It’s kind of a shame really, I can remember being a kid and staying up late to watch The Tonight Show — at least on Friday nights — or taping an episode if someone I wanted to see was going to be interviewed. And, of course, there was Saturday Night Live. That was a weekly staple.
And then, of course, everything just stopped being funny. For sure, Saturday Night Live stopped being funny at some point in the 1990s, and I’m sure some would argue it was past its prime before that. And that’s probably around the time I stopped bothering with the likes of The Tonight Show or The Late Show. And that was before they all went so ridiculously far to the left that right-leaning viewers decided they didn’t want to be lectured or have their values mocked when they just wanted to be entertained and escape the drudgeries of the day.
See also: The Media Seems to Have Lost Interest in John Fetterman. I Wonder Why.
The entertainment industry’s decline corresponds with the explicit choice to prioritize “wokeness” over appealing to the general public’s entertainment preferences and deciding they didn’t care about alienating their audience. In fact, in 2017, Jimmy Kimmel, who hosts one of the late-night shows, revealed that he couldn’t have cared less about the fact that he’d lost Republican viewers. “Three years ago, I was equally liked by Republicans and Democrats,” he told CBS Sunday Morning. “And then Republican numbers went way down, like 30%, or whatever. And you know, as a talk show host, that’s not ideal, but I would do it again in a heartbeat.”
“But if they’re so turned off by my opinion on healthcare and gun violence then, I don’t know, I probably wouldn’t want to have a conversation with them anyway,” he continued. “Not good riddance, but riddance.”
When late-night hosts don’t care that they’re alienating half the country (and trust me, Kimmel is not the only one), that means the late-night comedy shows we once went to for escapism have become exclusively partisan entertainment meant for only certain people. No thanks. Even now, if I’m watching anything for late-night comedy, it’s Gutfield! on Fox News. Would I prefer some nonpartisan escapism? Sure. But, late-night comedy is all political now — and unabashedly so — which means that through no fault of their own, left and right America are now splitting into separate entertainment ecosystems, and there’s really only one option for me to be entertained without being insulted.
It’s really too mad that the pretentious elites on the left coast decided they didn’t need middle America or conservative voters as part of their audience. So yeah, there may be a writers’ strike going on, but who cares? Certainly not me. I mean, I’m sure those late-night shows will be back to pushing their liberal agenda eventually, but for now, it’s a nice break for Americans who don’t have to endure all that left-wing propaganda wrapped in popular culture.
