How Hasan Minhaj and other ‘clapter’ comedians changed comedy
Ian Haworth
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Unless comedians are collectively the most fortunate people on the planet in that their lives involve a constant revolving door of punchline-addled experiences, it’s been assumed for the longest time that most of their “this really happened” stories are just that: stories.
They might be based on scraps of truth, sure, but to assume that reality is as amusing as comedians like to suggest would be just…silly.
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In recent years, the infusion of politics with culture spread into the world of comedy, and this common understanding faded into the background. As comedians became political orators, the goal soon became ideological speech-making in search of clapter — clapping exaggeratedly while, as Donald Glover in 2016 explained, saying, “So true, yes, so, so true,” despite the comedian not being funny. “They’re just clapping and laughing to be on the right side of history,” Glover added.
But with true comedy being replaced by comedians lecturing their audience on politics in search of clapter, certain comedians continue to take advantage of the old way of judging comedy: as entertainment rather than fact-based commentary.
An obvious example is Hasan Minhaj, whose comedy (through his Netflix series Patriot Act or multiple specials) has been built on supposedly autobiographical accounts of life in the United States as an Asian and Muslim American, “telling harrowing stories of law-enforcement entrapment and personal threats,” as the New Yorker explained.
Except … by Minhaj’s own admission, every one of his stories “is built around a seed of truth.”
“My comedy ‘Arnold Palmer’ is 70% emotional truth — this happened — and then 30% hyperbole, exaggeration, fiction,” he said.
Emotional truth?
Social justice allies in the world of entertainment have rushed to defend Minhaj, with The View’s Whoopi Goldberg saying, “That’s what we do.”
“If you’re gonna hold a comic to the point where you’re gonna check up on stories, you have to understand, a lot of it is not the exact thing that happened because why would we tell exactly what happened? It ain’t that interesting,” Goldberg said. “There’s information that we will give you as comics that will have grains of truth, but don’t take it to the bank. That’s our job, a seed of truth. Sometimes truth and sometimes total BS.”
But here’s the problem: People such as Minhaj and Goldberg are trying to exist within two contradictory forms of comedy.
They want the freedom of old comedy, where nothing is assumed to be true and content is judged entirely on its entertainment value, and new comedy, where comedy is judged on the strength of its political and cultural commentary with clapter and then used as a tool to effect societal change.
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You cannot have both.
If we’re going to build and rebuild societal structures based on the words of a comedian, then their words should be based on reality. Instead, maybe we should just be satisfied with entertainment alone and look elsewhere for insightful guidance on morality.
Ian Haworth is a columnist, speaker, and host of Off Limits. You can follow him on X at @ighaworth. You can also find him on Substack.