Louis CK's new comedy special was made for an audience watching out of spite

Slate

In his self-released new comedy special, Sincerely, CK tries to offer advice for his audience to avoid masturbating in front of someone without their consent. "If you ever ask somebody, 'May I jerk off in front of you,' and they say yes, just say, 'Are you sure?' That’s the first part," he says. "And then if they say yes, just don’t f*ckin’ do it. Just don’t do it." As Matthew Dessum points out, "there’s no reason Sincerely had to be an apology tour—the smart move would have been preceding it with actual apologies—but addressing his misconduct while framing it so disingenuously (for starters, the New York Times’ reporting suggests many of C.K.’s victims never offered anything approaching their consent) is worse than not bringing it up at all. Not that you’d get that impression by watching Sincerely: Judging from the audience reaction when Louis brings up his scandal, 51 minutes into the hourlong special, that’s what everyone came to hear. Which brings us back to Louis C.K.’s audience. On Saturday, when he announced that he was releasing Sincerely, Twitter exploded with cheers from people who were watching entirely out of spite: Louis C.K.’s new fanbase. Whatever is going on there, it isn’t about comedy, it isn’t about Louis C.K., and it especially isn’t about Louis C.K.’s jokes. Serving as a proxy for such people is one way to make a living, I guess, and everyone involved in that transaction deserves one other. But it’s a waste, and I find it so depressing and boring—the special, Louis’ new fans, Louis himself—that I don’t ever want to give any of it my time or attention again." ALSO: All of this consent talk is in service of presenting Louis CK as a blameless perv who learned the hard way that nonverbal cues are important.