Comedian Louis CK found himself in some hot water last week after posting what appeared to be a tweet of support for comedian Daniel Tosh amidst the public discussion of his controversial rape joke, but it turns out there's more to the story.
CK stopped by "The Daily Show" Monday night and took the first portion of his interview to set the record straight. He told Jon Stewart that, at the time of the tweet, he was on vacation in Vermont and participating in a self-imposed, internet-less detox period. A detox period he broke to tweet from his phone while watching an episode of "Tosh.0" on his hotel TV, because the show was making him laugh out loud and he wanted to express his appreciation.
He had no idea that Tosh was in the middle of a scandal, or that he had apologized publicly for the joke. So by the time he got home and was being referred to on the Internet as a "rape apologist," he realized something was afoot.
He joked to Stewart:
This is a fight between comedians and bloggers, which just... hyperbole and garbage comes out of those two places... It's also a fight between comedians and feminists, which are natural enemies. Because, stereotypically speaking, feminists can't take a joke... and on the other side comedians can't take criticism. Comedians are big pussies. So to one side you say, 'If you don't like the jokes stay out of the comedy clubs,' and to the other side you say, 'If you don't like the person, stop googling yourself every ten seconds. 'Cause nobody's making you read it.'
Overall, though, CK seems to think that the open dialogue the scandal has created is good.
"It's positive," he said. "To me, all dialogue is positive... I think you should listen. If someone has the opposite feeling from me, I want to listen so I can add to mine. I don't want to obliterate theirs with mine."