Jaboukie Young-White talks working on The Daily Show during quarantine and getting suspended on Twitter

Vulture

Young-White says he's been suspended "somewhere between three and seven" times for impersonating other people or networks on Twitter. "So the reason why I liked making all those fake tweets was because this country has no media literacy," he says. "People are just inclined to believe whatever they see online. And a lot of those tweets were so farfetched, but people wanted them to be true so bad. They liked it and didn’t look twice at it. I feel like I’ve succeeded a little bit. I just wanted more people to look at every tweet like, Is this real or am I getting got right now? Because that sort of is what we need to approach it with. And I feel like in the same breath, the blue-check thing is kind of an extension of that. There was a period of time where I wanted it so, so, so bad. And even when I got the blue checkmark, what pissed me off so much is that I had already been a figure on Twitter for a long time. It wasn’t until I was associated with a big, reputable organization (Comedy Central) that I got a checkmark, and that organization just so happens to be white. I think the checkmark is just a badge of institutional access. It’s not an actual badge of influence or critical thought or opinion or expertise. I just don’t think that it really means that much." As for working on The Daily Social Distancing Show, Young-White says: "We’re not livestreaming, but everyone is essentially recording everything on their laptop and/or phone. It’s been interesting. We did a Zoom table read, which honestly was pretty smooth. It was not bad. Any writing projects and stuff that I’ve been working on has just been over FaceTime, instead of someone coming over or going to someone’s place to write."