Dave Chappelle's Charlie Kirk Joke and America's New Hobby: Gas Station Gossip

On Saturday night at Madison Square Garden, on a stop of his Karmageddon tour, Dave Chappelle told a sold-out crowd that ever since Charlie Kirk was killed, he feels better. He said he shouldn't say it publicly. He said it was just a feeling, that he didn't ask to feel this way, and that he'd catch himself driving around wondering why he was in such a good mood. The show was supposed to be phone-free. That lasted about as long as phone-free shows ever do, which is until the first person in row 40 decides history needs him.

By Sunday it was everywhere. Piers Morgan called it disgusting and noted that Chappelle himself was attacked on stage in 2022. Erika Kirk, Charlie Kirk's widow, posted that a culture that laughs at assassination is in moral decay, without naming him. Elon Musk said shame three times, the way you do when once seems cheap. Benny Johnson called it sick. Meghan McCain asked what was wrong with him. Several people pointed out that Kirk had defended Chappelle after that 2022 attack, which is a fair point and a sad one, and the sort of thing a comedian ought to have to sit with. Chappelle's people didn't respond. They rarely do. It's the most successful public relations strategy in show business and nobody else will try it.

Now, what did he mean? I'd say he meant what comedians have meant for a hundred years when they confess something ugly in front of a sold-out arena: here is a terrible feeling I had, and the joke is that I had it. The bit isn't a policy. It's a man admitting he's not as good a person as he'd like, out loud, for money, which is the entire job description. You can think it was too soon, too cruel or just not funny, and plenty of people do. That's what tickets are for. Nobody was forced to clap.

But here's my real question. Who cares? I mean that sincerely. The news has turned into small-town gossip, and not even good gossip. It's the lady at the post office telling you what the pastor's son said at the Fourth of July picnic, except the post office is the whole country and the lady is every website at once. I've never once seen an article titled Did You Hear What the Homeless Guy by the Gas Station Said, and I'll tell you, he's said worse things than Chappelle. He's done worse things. I know, because I was saying bad things back to him. Nobody reports it because nobody's selling ads next to him. Outrage, it turns out, has a minimum price.

That fellow once told me about a time he put a bug up his own behind. It was consensual on one end. I don't believe it was consensual from the bug's point of view, and if we're going to be a nation that writes ten thousand words about a joke, I'd like a few hundred about that bug. Was he homeless too? Was he out there working the corner for a crumb of something? Or did he have a home to get back to, and had to take the bus, or walk five hours on six legs, back to his wife and his boys, Ricky and Mort, having missed the Tuesday soccer game they're so proud of interrupting? Where is the outcry for him? Where is his statement from the Live Nation board? No one has asked. No one will. He has no Netflix special.

That's the whole trick of it. A rich man said a dark sentence in a big room, and a lot of other rich people got paid to be upset about it, and you were invited to be upset for free. Chappelle will sell out the next arena. The people angry at him will have a better week than usual. And the bug, God rest him, will remain the only party in this story who truly suffered and kept his mouth shut about it.

Gossip used to be what you did when there wasn't any news. Now it's what we call the news, and the only difference is the gossip at the gas station was more honest about who it was trying to impress.