About three weeks ago, Louis C.K. went on a Twitter rant about ISIS. He’s not a fan. Essentially, he’d like them to put things in their holes and create new holes. Now, it seems C.K. has deleted his Twitter account. Are these two things connected? Maybe a little, but I think there’s more to this decision.
As The Washington Post points out, C.K. has spoken with disdain for Twitter previously and he also has a history of making the wrong kind of headlines with his 140 characters.
That wasn’t the first time the actor/comedian took on a hot-button topic in the 140-character format. Several months ago, he touched a nerve when he started tweeting about his hatred of the Common Core educational system, and sparred with angry teachers. (“My kids used to love math. Now it makes them cry. Thanks standardized testing and common core!”)
In 2010, C.K. went on a Twitter rant about Sarah Palin using the absolute worst word you can call a woman; two years later, a threatened boycott from cable-news host Greta Van Susteren over his history of such language prompted him to drop out of a much-hyped gig as the entertainer at a big Washington media dinner.
Louis C.K. uses his art as a comic, as a writer, and as a TV-based filmmaker to examine and mock the world in a way that can make us see things and ourselves differently. I don’t know if C.K. wanted his Twitter feed to be an extension of that effort or if it was just some kind of idea toilet for him, but as we’ve seen numerous times with comics like Patton Oswalt (who went on a Twitter hiatus over the summer) and countless others, social media isn’t always a welcoming place for one to push the envelope, and the consequences of releasing that “material” into the ether often outweigh any reward.
Maybe C.K. realized that and decided that there was no value in something like Twitter for him, or maybe he’ll be back in a little while and an intern will man his feed and simply use it to broadcast tour dates and product information. As a fan of C.K.’s comedy, these possibilities both sadden me but I can’t blame him.
Source: The Washington Post
