Dave Chappelle doesn’t mind courting controversy. It’s a fact in keeping with his position as one of comedy’s great iconoclasts. Chappelle’s consistent fearlessness on race and other subjects has earned him a lot of fan loyalty throughout his career. An innovator like all true comedians, Chappelle is comfortable walking the line of propriety and stepping over it when necessary. (Even when it enrages people.)
It is always best to let Chappelle — and anybody, for that matter — speak for himself. See below:
But Chappelle insulting his own fans? And insulting his fans just because another iconoclast who likes to step over the line heard a few boos? That’s what happened this weekend when Chappelle brought Tesla/Twitter titan Elon Musk on stage with him in San Francisco.
Asking the Chase Center audience to “make some noise for the richest man in the world,” Chappelle then heard many in the crowd booing Musk in response. Perhaps it wasn’t the kind of noise he meant for the people to make?
Apparently, the way Musk calculated it, 90 percent of the audience cheered him while a mere 10 percent booed. (It’s tempting to ask, for those who follow all Musk’s sagas: Was the 10 percent really just bots?)
Technically, it was 90% cheers & 10% boos (except during quiet periods), but, still, that’s a lot of boos, which is a first for me in real life (frequent on Twitter).
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 12, 2022
It’s almost as if I’ve offended SF’s unhinged leftists … but nahhh.
Chappelle himself evidently heard the boos more prominently than Musk did — enough to recognize the cascade and acknowledge “all these people that are booing.”
Whether “all these people” can also be only “ten percent” of the people remains in the eye of the beholder. But whatever the true dissatisfaction metrics, Chappelle took the opportunity to make a dig at his own fans — but only those in the cheap seats.
Defending the richest man in the world from people who could only afford the least expensive seats to his show, Chappelle essentially told Musk not to worry about the boos — the boos were coming only from the poor people.
“All these people that are booing, I’m just pointing out the obvious,” Chappelle said, “They have terrible seats in the stadium.”
Mean-spirited? Chappelle losing sight of what made him? Not really, of course. Just part of the show. A joke — and a very Chappelle joke at that. Besides, every Chappelle fan loves to hear the comedian say “I’m just pointing out the obvious.” Nobody points it out quite like Chappelle does.
We asked the newly released ChatGPT info bot: “What do you know about Dave Chappelle?” The text response from ChatGPT is below:
“Dave Chappelle is an American stand-up comedian, actor, and writer. He first gained widespread recognition for his sketch comedy television series, Chappelle’s Show, which ran on Comedy Central from 2003 to 2006. Since then, Chappelle has appeared in several films and television shows, and has released several stand-up comedy specials. He is known for his sharp wit and social commentary, and has won several awards for his comedy work, including two Emmy Awards and a Grammy.”
