⚡ CFB Dashboard

So the PC police got all bent because Arch Manning, a 22-year-old college student, had the temerity to laugh at an AI-generated video intended to provoke that very reaction … Please. Gimme a flipping break. Yes, the video in question showed a woman being slapped by a man. Specifically, ESPN sideline reporter being slapped by Steve Sarkisian, a humor-intended play on Sark’s skipping his postgame interview to go celebrate with his team a memorable and momentous come-from-behind victory over the No.1 team in the land. Holy crap, Batman, the video was a JOKE. Nobody got slapped. Sark didn’t slap Holly Rowe, nor would he. Arch finding the absurdity of the AI video to be humorous wasn’t an endorsement of violence by men against women. It's sad that an atmosphere caused by the PC police pressure campaign from click-baiting social media “influencers” would actually make Arch feel he had a darn thing to apologize for. He laughed at something meant to be laughed at. cut the guy some effing slack. If Arch needing to make a public apology because a funny thing made him laugh, we all better buckle up, because that AI slap vid is just the tip of a thousand spears. As more folks in the laugh-creating business figure out how to make AI work for them a whole bunch of sacred cows are going to get slaughtered in the process. Comedy can be darkly off-putting and funny at the same time. It can get tense, too. When I lived in the Bay Area in the 1980s I went to stand-up comedy shows at least twice a month, and there was a lot of envelope-pushing going on. I think in today’s world of PC police wielding smart-phone cameras, maybe some of those acts might have felt the need to dial back the edge that made some of them so dang hilarious. I remember one show at the Punchline in which Bobby Slayton, then referred to as the pit bull of comedy, was in the middle of his own very real marriage crisis that gave his routine a distinctly misogynistic edge to it. People were still laughing. Well, most of the men were, anyway. But finally, a woman at a table right up front that Slayton had turned his acerbic barbs upon one too many times loudly announced to him, “you’re lucky I don’t have a gun.” I guess I’m using this example to say we all need to laugh when we can, because there’s always going to be serious stuff out there we can’t (or aren’t supposed to) find humor in. No, there’s nothing funny about a man striking a woman. But that wasn’t what Arch found funny. It was AI. Nobody got slapped. And we better buckle up and tune out the social media PC police before the Bobby Slaytons of the world all get really adept at this AI thing, cuz we all gonna get caught laughing at stuff that’ll make us look insensitive. Laughter is the instant holiday and the miracle cure. Arch, you keep right on laughing when something strikes you funny, bro. We’ll have your back.