Okay, so to an extent I agree with what the author's saying. Trying to find a comedian that won't offend a single person in the crowd is ridiculous and isn't really something we should strive for. If a comedian does really well in front of a test audience, saying one thing that might possibly be offensive is a silly reason not to book them. And students who know that a particular comedian offends them shouldn't go to the show. But the circlejerk that literally all college students are sensitive and whiny is starting to get really old.

social-justice warriors

PC culture

flocks of ducklings

This person comes off as someone who spends too much time on reddit.

The situation has two sides that are sometimes hard to balance. On one hand, in order to grow as a human being, they need to have their views challenged. On the other, a person shouldn't be antagonized for being in the wrong.

There's a lot of comedy out there's that cheap and vapid. It's easy to find a comic that just spews hateful and irrational rants without there being a meaning or message within their piece. However, there's a lot of comedy out there that takes the uncouth route in order to explain why something is wrong. Many forms of comedy were created for the sole purpose of arguing the most absurd form of an opinion in order to explain why it's wrong. Take a look at a lot of the satirical pieces written during the Enlightenment. They used a veil of humor in order to attack the practices of the church and government, in a way that didn't directly flag the authors as traitors or heathens. They extended arguments ad Absurdum in order to point out "hey, this is kind of stupid." Look at the modern political comics. Stephen Colbert created an ultra-conservative news reporter caricature in order to point out the flaws of right wing news programs. John Stewart took the same group's serious content and mocked it to show how idiotic their thinking was. For some people, their shows were cheap entertainment, but the programs made some people think. One don't have to be as illusive as an enlightenment satirist (I remember one king really liked the work of some writer, despite him making fun of his value. I don't remember his name, however.) or as blatant as a modern comic in order to get people thinking. In the end, though, getting people to think is a good motive to have - and comedy is a way of doing that.

However, that doesn't mean open the doors and let in everyone who hides behind the argument of "it's just comedy," like many YouTubers hide behind the exclaimation of "It's just a prank," before they get a beat down for pointing a fake gun in someone's face. A "comedian" like Jeff Dunham, that uses puppets to make fun of Mexicans and Middle Easterners isn't making people think; he's just being a racist. "Silence, I keel you!" isn't a deep narrative on the differentiation between terrorists and Muslims. The Jalapeno on a stick isn't a character designed to show the idiocy of some argument that Mexican immigrants have. They're just insensitive and idiotic. However, all shock comedy isn't useless. A comic named Jim Jefferies spent half of his show making light of homosexuals and Muslims, then turned the show around to start making fun of Christians. He noted, that, when he was making fun of them, everyone laughed. However, as soon as he flipped the table to make fun of a demographic, white Christians, who made up a large portion of audience, people got quiet and tension started growing. He then went on to explain how stupid it is to make fun of another group of people, then get upset when someone set their target on you. Even if much of his humor could be considered thoughtless and offensive, that show did a great job of explaining how hypocritical it is to be bigoted against others and get mad when they throw it back into your face. Sometimes, in order to get a point across effectively, one needs to step on a few toes and say some thing that, when taken to heart, could be considered offensive.

For an establishment created to shape young adults into mature individuals that can carry their own weight, it seems counter-intuitive to try to find an entertainer that will absolutely never say anything that could be taken out of context, or construed to an extreme level, that could be considered in any way, shape, or form as offensive. Colleges shouldn't be hiring people that would fit right in at a Klan rally or a Neo-Nazi march, but they should be tolerable to people that funny and not completely straight edge. If the comic isn't funny, but just offensive and bigoted, then they should definitely refuse to pick them up. However, one shouldn't be barred for simply having an unpopular opinion. At the same time, that balance between challenging and safe should be paid attention to. To large of a dose of either side has negative effects, but the right exposure to both is a good thing. At the end of the day, people shouldn't be told what to believe, but also why. At the same time, they should be taught to constantly question the why, because if they don't, then blind followers start to be created.

(Also, that doesn't mean that everything should necessarily be challenged. The right for groups of people shouldn't have to be questioned, for example.)

But afterward, two white students from an Iowa college shook their heads: no. He was “perpetuating stereotypes,” one of them said, firmly. “We’re a very forward-thinking school,” she told me. “That thing about the ‘sassy black friend’? That wouldn’t work for us.”

The loss of white privilege is to be a shared felicitation ... not a lament. But it will be painful and ugly. I think that for everyone to rise up some must first recede. And maybe some of those that never thought that their world would be restricted by their ancestry have learned perspective.

Surprise.

I have wondered as college becomes more and more universal if it is delaying the onset of adulthood into later age. Before college was more widespread, after high school (and many times before it was completed) was the time to get a job, get married, have kids, and wait to die. Not that time is later and later and I wonder if it's partially due to the effect of continued education without real responsibility.

Being an adult means being able to ignore things that bother you when it's not that big of a deal in the grand scheme of things. And more over, being an adult is knowing what is and isn't a big deal. If you didn't care about it before Facebook told you it was a big deal, then it might be time to examine for yourself whether or not it is a big deal. As college delays adulthood, you would expect to see similar delays in this development of self and context.

I think the changing culture of colleges is one part of it, but a bigger issue IMO is that comedians aren't allowed to fail as much as they used to. Comedy is a process, a performance which uses the audience as its instrument. Comedians have to stand in front of an audience and be allowed to see what falls flat and what succeeds. With the ubiquity of social media you're now just one step away from having your bad joke - which would probably be cut from a set if it bombed - thrown to the wolves of righteous indignation.

College students might not be able to take a joke, but some are also at the triple point of online connectedness, slactivism, and the Dunning-Kruger effect.