The Internet History Of New ‘Daily Show’ Host Trevor Noah Is Unfortunate

If TV has taught me anything, and it has, it’s that every president is a no-good adulterer with an illegitimate child, and whenever someone runs for governor, mayor, or any important government job, their internet history is picked through to the last Google Image. If you made a comment on a Dave Matthews Band message board about weed in high school, your handlers, or the online version of Mike the Cleaner from Breaking Bad, will find and delete it.

Hosting The Daily Show isn’t exactly the same thing as running for congress, obviously, but it’s still odd that certain tweets from Trevor Noah, who will replace Jon Stewart later this year, weren’t deleted. They’re not offensive, exactly, so much as dumb and disappointing.

https://twitter.com/Trevornoah/status/141229204829249536

https://twitter.com/Trevornoah/status/230326875648573440

https://twitter.com/Trevornoah/status/124793524095950848

https://twitter.com/Trevornoah/status/162296270684295168

https://twitter.com/Trevornoah/status/4081446354

Noah is 31 years old, meaning that he wrote most of those tweets when he was in his late 20s, an age when most of us did and said things we’d later regret. Now, does that make tired, Daniel Tosh-esque one-liners about Jewish women not giving blowjobs acceptable? Not really, but no good has ever come from playing comedy police, attacking someone for “good” and “bad” jokes.

After all, Stewart was in an Adam Sandler/Rob Schneider movie, and we don’t hold that against him. It’s unclear how much say Stewart had in picking Noah as his successor, but I’m assuming it’s significant. He’s also spent a lot more time with the young comedian than we have and knows him beyond a few unfortunate tweets. We’ve trusted and respected Stewart for 10-plus years.

Why stop now?