How To Not Get Cancelled?

You are entering the overthink tank.

Hi, guys, it's me, Sugi, and this is your favorite podcast, the Osync Tank. I know it's your favorite YouTube in Denial. And today on this episode, I have with me some really cool people. And I say that about everyone because it's true. Try to live with it. Presenting Ashi Shakya, comedian, producer, writer, and.

Cool person who has matched his shoes to your eyes and jackets.

Just yeah, overall cool person. Presenting ashish shakya. Thanks for being here, AshishI. Thanks for having me joining Ashish, who is entertainment lawyer. And just look at how chic she is.

Thank you.

Welcome to the episode Priyanka.

Thank you so much for having me.

So excited to have you. I am so glad that I could nail this combo.

It's a great combination. Comedian and lawyer.

Comedian and lawyer.

Much needed. Very symbiotic sort of situation as we've seen in the last few years.

I'm just making sure I stay of trouble. Let's become friends with the lawyer.

Absolutely. It's nice to meet a lawyer and not in, like, hello. So my tweet ma'am, can you yeah, it's way better.

Okay, guys, quick intro to the podcast again. The Overthink Tank is where I overthink people's problems with you guys. Would you like to know what we're overthinking today?

Yes, please. Absolutely, dear.

Overthink Tank, cancel culture has gained a lot of traction over the last few years, but I feel like its meaning has gotten warped. From being a tool for the marginalized voices, it's now seeming more like virtue signaling. How can I balance my beliefs in a social setting like this to achieve a holistic viewpoint? Nice. Big words coming in. I love that my listeners have such.

Diverse, so eloquent, such a coincidence that they really help you out with your programming. It's wonderful.

I know.

I had fans like this.

I know, right?

I was wondering if I want to write a set about this. And I was like, wow, I've studied for ideas. Well done.

I'm sorry, Ashish.

Unnamed fan.

Unnamed fan. Anonymous.

Yeah.

Thank you, Anonymous, for this question. But I guess the question that we have at hand today is how to sort of form an opinion when there's an abundance of opinions out there and how not to form an opinion based on somebody else's opinion. So I guess I would like to start with you, Ashish. What do you think has been the side effects of cancel culture?

Actually, before we get into that, I think the way I associate and I take a step back because I think you can't talk about cancel culture without understanding how the Internet has fundamentally changed discourse and how it has sort of changed the way people react to situations and how they respond and all that. And my understanding is that in my experience, I've found that dopamine hit that you get from the internet, right. It's super addictive. No matter what your cause is, no matter what you're talking about. The second you see the RT counter going up, it's just a human thing that you kind of like it and you want more of it. And in the worst parts of cancer that's what I've seen, is people will chase that high whether they realize it or not. They will chase that to the point where logic is overridden, knowledge and information is thrown out of the window. You just want to say something, get that reaction. Once you realize that, and it took me a while to get used to that. Once you realize that, you stop being alarmed at it. You know what I'm saying? You really understand and you really calm down because you know exactly what the driving force is. You're not the worst person in the world.

Yeah.

This is how the world is thinking right now, so you kind of got to factor that in. So that's my starting point for when I look at conversation about cancel culture. You have to address how differently people are thinking right now.

I mean, you're right, because for a lot of people, it has been about, like those 15 seconds of fame that they get through a problematic opinion and they just put it out there. And it's hard to decide. Is this like an attention seeking thing or is this actually a problem that we as a society should look into? Priyanka I wonder because you're an entertainment lawyer, you are bombarded with a lot of all your clients are like, Is this tweet okay? Is this apology video okay?

Well, I wish they actually asked me before tweeting. It's live after. More often than not, it's always after. And then you're having to do damage control. I think more than being an entertainment lawyer, we sort of call it internally as crisis management, because that's literally what, at times, your role is reduced to. You're really just helping them battle one crisis after another for the smallest of things. Right. Sometimes clients will come to you and say that, I posted this, and then before you know it, it has sort of snowballed into this reaction. What's also interesting is just how quickly we're moving from one thing to another. Like, literally every few days, there's something new, and they're like, oh, did you read about this? And I'm like, no, I'm not reading everything. Every controversial thing that's happening on the Internet. But it's just constantly correcting tweets, helping them edit their apologies or sometimes explain their tweets, and sometimes, which is actually golden advice, is just keep quiet.

Oh, my God. Difference between I need to stop doing this. What are some ways that I could get canceled on this podcast?

What do you think about the disabled, queer Muslim community of black people?

Man keep jossie. I like watermelons.

Are you saying you don't like oranges? That is sorry, that is offensive to Nappur. How dare you?

But you're right. I mean, in its in the current form of the Internet has taken a shape where, like, every opinion has a counter opinion and that counter opinion has another counter, counter opinion. As a consumer, I'm confused. How am I making sense of all of this? What is right? How do I personally be on the right side of history without being, like, too woke about things like a little balance?

No, I like what she said about being quiet because silence is great. And on the other end as well, being quiet and not receiving noise is also great. I think Twitter is disgusting and it's a garbage pool. And I'm still sorry.

As is the thing I'm going doing, SNP on this podcast and everything that seems bad.

Jack has other problems. He's not coming after me. And Twitter India. They know.

They know.

No, I have an account, I'm on Twitter, but I don't really use it. And let me tell you, I am like 15 controversies behind and it makes zero difference to my life. It's amazing. Sometimes you'll be like, hey, did you see what that guy said?

I'm like, I have no idea.

No, it has no bearing on my life because it is mostly dumb shit.

But do you ever feel the pressure of having a say? Especially when something happens in your own industry? Like, for an example, would be like, the Will Smith slap happened, and everybody from the Hollywood industry was like, oh, I'm against this, or I support the slab. I think the slap should have been harder. Do we feel a pressure as parts of the same community to be like, no, I have to have an opinion and follow up question to you. Should we get in touch with you before tweeting anything or before slapping a comedian?

Yes, please. Comedians you want to slap. Prevention is better than cure, right? That's a piece of advice across the board that yes, please make that call before, not after. It just makes my life attacked with simpler.

All right, but what do you think?

I should put on opinions, right?

Yeah, putting on opinions.

For example, this specific case. Look, I approach social media very badly, as my managers will tell you, which is why I make no money off it. Call me. But the reason to put something out there for me is if I have something generally funny to say, if I wake up late and all the good jokes are gone, I'm going another day. Yeah, I just want to make jokes out of it. Especially for stuff like this. This is eminently joke worthy, right? My personal way of communication is I don't need to get into a whole thing piece about black men and black women in masculinity. That's not me. I have all these understandings. I don't need to put a thousand words out every time somebody does something stupid. So in that sense, I don't feel pressured. I am driven more by my need to create and if I feel I can do something funny with it, I do. I spent a lot of time, like, I was talking about I spend literally, like, I've been writing news comedy since I was, like, maybe 21, 22. I probably written, like, tons of news comedy. So reacting to the news, I have done a lot, and I can do it very easily, especially when there are deadlines and all this product involved. Right now, there isn't. I don't have a topical show going on. I don't have a column going on. I'm not doing topical stuff in the stand up. So it's a mood thing. Honestly, right now it's a mood thing because if you do it on the day, you get great likes and great shares and all that. So that's fun.

There's also, like, a race to beat the next tweet.

I was going to say, there's so much pressure that, okay, this is happening now. You need to react now, right? And even with us, like, journalists who reach out sometimes saying, oh, this new rule just came out. This new notification just came out. What do you have to say? And even before you've even had an opportunity to analyze it, to apply your mind, to interpret it in a certain way, they're expecting you to react and tell them, okay, therefore, what should I be doing? And nine out of ten times, sometimes you're like, it's just a notification. They're planning to introduce it. It is not yet the law. Hold your horses. But before you know it, it's all over the place. Like this whole TDs and influencer thing that we saw, right, some time back, and it was all over, and where they said that influencers now have to pay TDs and this sensationalism, right, in terms of the headlines that we have, or in terms of how news or bits of information are even presented. And I think on the one hand, yes, you're saying that learn how to remain silent and when to remain silent, but I think on the other hand, you're dealing with an environment where if you don't scream the loudest, you're probably not getting a message across, and that's the only thing that travels. There are so many times that you'd be talking to other groups and even my mom sometimes, and say, where did you get this information from? The no, I read it on this group. Everyone was talking about it.

That's the worst. I mean, I really empathize with people who just tweet thoughts and prayers now. Of course, everything else would be problematic, so just be like, thoughts and prayers offensive to me.

As an atheist.

As an atheist, I take events keeping it short and keeping it succinct. Is that the way to balance it, or is it to just shut up?

But you've raised a very interesting point about this need to be first and need to jump into the fray. One is people do it for career reasons. Like if your job is online and you need to be seen, then that's a good time to jump in on a hot topic. If you don't have that pressure, or if you're lucky enough to be able to not have to take on that responsibility, then you just do what feels like fun if you're an entertainer. If you're not an entertainer and you still want to speak, please read up. I don't know when and who died.

And who decided not Tinkle, guys. Read up. Tinkle.

No. Read Tinkle. It'll be happy, and you will then shut it and go on with your life as opposed to being the miserable person you are on Twitter. But just need to because I know at some point we decided that the most complex issues of our time have to be decided on Twitter by 140 and 280 characters. That is the dumbest thing I've heard. People are trying to solve Kashmir on Twitter. People are trying to solve the gender issue on Twitter. People are trying to solve Palestine on Twitter. People are trying to solve everything on Twitter. Cast on Twitter.

I'm like that. You're not going to we're trying to.

Solve Twitter on Twitter. Twitter exists not on this platform.

Exactly. There is merit to the big books that people read. There is merit to the fact that people do like, years and years of study.

Is this. There a fear of appearing like you are not smart enough? The fact that you're not tweeting about the Palestinian war that suddenly is like, maybe you don't keep up with the news.

Absolutely. But I think if you had that fear, more so to Aisha's point, I'd then read up before you talk about it. But I think we're living in this entire generation of tldr and so many times, and I'm saying this even with younger kids, that will come to us saying, oh, I read this. And did you read beyond the headline of the damn article? Right? Have you said what it says or just in terms of what is the source of information? It's a blog or it's another group or it's a discussion on Twitter. It's never an authentic source, like a book or some detailed research or some paper that you read on it. It's just about, okay, I've just picked up this bits and pieces of information, and like you said, Sir Be, this obsessive need to sound intelligent, to sound like, okay, I am keeping up with the times. I'm part of the conversation. I still want to be relevant. It's this crazy pressure that we've put on ourselves as a people that I have to have a say.

And it's max of Insecurity, and I know that and I say that as an insecure person, as a comedian, as a performer, you are that person with.

Even, like, people who are sort of advising her sort of there as part of your career. And this is across the board. I don't think it's entertainment specific, right? But even with the legal profession increasingly see so many people being active on social media and this compulsive need to an update has come out. I have to say something. I have to have an opinion. But opinions are not formed spur of the moment, right? It is take a moment, think about it.

They're all playing the game, but I feel like the game is rigged. There's an algorithm behind it. You are not you are playing a really so just a couple of things because what you said about news intake, right? Like I'm going to sound like a max uncle right now. I don't care. Spectacular uncle behavior. I stopped getting news online like I read in whatever headliner. So if there's breaking news, like attacks or floods or whatever relevant to me, I'll find out the big news. But by and large, I've realized that I can have a lot of mental peace if I just do the uncle thing and read a newspaper. I don't need to know most of the news. That's an editorial call you can take. But I found that Indian Express is working for me. I'll still like if I find something silly in it, I'll look up counter facts and all that. It's work. If you want to be smart, it's work. But I find that most news, if I don't get it on a breaking news tinting basis, I'm fine. I can read about the rate the next day.

When do we start looking at Instagram and Twitter as a new source? When did that start happening? And also it's like bite sized, like nuggets of like, oh, this guy is now in jail and have no idea. I just saw the headline.

No sense of balance, no sense of context, no death. It's interesting that he brought up Palestine, right? And the need to appear intelligent. Again, I have taken on an uncle's role in this podcast, clearly. I just need like a glass of whiskey and some peanuts. Villa PETA. Yeah, but I am very much in that zone because you mentioned Palestine, right? And and people want to sound smart and people want to sound compassionate and all of it is very good. But there's also like personally, there's a sense of jadedness. I'm 37 when I saw the last wave, not the one that's happening now. I think the one before this attacks are happening and a lot of people who are sharing and posting online and I know for a lot of creators who don't talk news in politics, there's a lot of pressure to say something smart. A, why would you zoom just because a guy is putting on a super turn doing a sketch? He's good at international politics. Don't reach out to that person. At the most, you'll say thoughts and press. It's pointless. Secondly, people should comment if they genuinely feel like it. I feel like your actions and thoughts are valid if even if you don't broadcast them online. That's how I see it. So of course I saw it, of course I felt bad and of course I have an understanding basic of the situation. But the age thing comes in when I saw one of our friends and I was like, you know what, people are getting angry. 1780 year olds are getting angry. Bolt cuny Ray and it makes sense they should get angry because they're seeing.

It for the first time.

If you've been reading the news in your life, like, I remember cycles and cycles of it is a 1213 14 year life. Newspapers and TV scenes full of, you know, rubble in the Gaza script and the Lebanon war and all of that. You've seen this over and over and over and over again. You have nothing new to say. You were angry at 15 1720 when you saw it at 37. You're still angry. But the need to go out and say it's a human thing, it's maybe gone down. It doesn't mean you're less compassionate, it just means that you are newer to the crisis. I'm not. My way of dealing with it is I'll read upon it separately.

Don't worry.

My contribution is I will not say something stupid online.

But I think actually there's also this to consider, right? And again, I experience this all the time that if you're not being seen as talking about a certain subject or having an opinion, then people also think that maybe this person doesn't and only the person who's seen talking is somehow.

Didn'T perceive to be the real expert.

For sure.

Like, look at the choices, right? Even sometimes when you're picking, when brands are deciding influencers or publications are deciding who to get an expert opinion or a quote from it's on the basis of who is posting and tweeting.

Exactly.

Nobody.

Literally nobody's. Like ashes. You live a good life to support my brand.

You seem happy working on it or it's denial, whatever it is. No, I can't play that game. I'm bad at it. And we used to like Twitter back in the day.

Yeah.

Because when you were writing news from you writing sketches, you had to constantly create from the news. So it was work and we were new. So that's how you became popular. You had to react to the news. Now I'm trying to do different things with my life that don't necessarily need me to be online topic. It's their job, it's their audition. I don't blame them. But know that if you are a young person getting a news from influencers.

You'Re really I'm very voted for you.

Yeah.

Another question that I had for you is are you just ever scrolling on your Instagram and just do you ever go like, oh, that's going to be a problem?

All the time I've been releasing photographs, I turned to a friend and I wasn't even in the country. I'm like, I'm giving this 24 hours. If there isn't an Fi or a petition, I will change my name.

Oh, my God.

I want to do drinking games with you once in a while. Let's just get on Instagram, Twitter, have.

This thing cancel, and be like, take a shot every time. Can you just, like, sit in your chair and, like, just notice it all going down? Can you actually reach out to the person and be like, hey, just a heads up.

Honestly, sometimes you're scrolling through it and I'm thinking that Bob was the need could have been avoided sometimes. Or you look at it and say, that definitely trouble. Let's give it a window. Or sometimes it's erupted and like, I hope to God you know how you're going to react to this, but I think it's always after it's always a reaction. There's very little that you can do beforehand. Right.

Also with that X layers of people went through that decision making process. It's an international magazine. There's nothing objectionable about it. Also, when you say trouble, I feel like you also just said that there's different levels of trouble for somebody who's an alister, a case filed against you for obscenity, you'll be fine. It's you know what I'm saying? You can throw lawyers at the throne.

You can throw lawyers at this.

That's what you're going to do. Right? It's paperwork.

I mean, it's our job to keep them out of trouble.

Yeah. Essentially. So they're not getting beaten up for this. They're not getting in serious, serious trouble for this.

Hopefully not getting arrested.

Yeah, they're not getting arrested. Hopefully.

And hopefully they're wearing clothes while they're being arrested.

Just back to until more because when this happens, it sounded that zodia things look very familiar to Melinda in the case. I'm like, Fuck, this is that Melind Soman thing all over again.

Made an India thing.

No, the tough show when he wore the snake.

That case, I think, got resolved a few years ago.

What is photo of a villain? Someone out there?

Yes. You do not know.

This much cooler nation.

Yeah.

Far less touchy.

The problem was about the snake being injured or, like, just being naked. Animal rights. Have no plane. No, it's okay if you have a snake on your neck, but you wear clothes.

I'm sure the snake was treated well. There was no reason to suspect that valid.

I'd be nice.

All right.

How can you be bad about, like, say anything nasty about me? Fucking great guy.

He runs barefoot.

His warm up is like, My mom is lovely.

I also wonder because sometimes people get in a debacle that's not just limited to you apologizing. It also means that you have to apologize through a video and put it out on a particular platform because you're making a statement out of it. Right. And have you ever been in a position where an apology video itself wasn't taken in the right way? Did someone ever kevin Spacey themselves, like in Christmas.

I think a lot of times, and I see this more and more recently is that everyone's out for blood. Right. Sometimes just even an apology isn't enough. It's a question of how much punishment is enough punishment. I'd say that there are times where even after someone has apologized you're right. It's just sometimes scrutinizing the apology itself. After that, let's say six months later, two years later, if the person is back in circulation or doing some work again, we're taking offense at how dare this person be given work and how dare he earn a livelihood? And you sort of step back and think that, okay, how much punishment is going to be sufficient? Right. And by no, I mean it of course depends entirely on what the person has done and what they're guilty of. So I'm not undermining or sort of belittling whatever has caused offense to a certain community of people, but I think we've sort of lost that balance in understanding how much is enough.

Yeah. Because not only like there's a lot of collateral damage that comes with it. I mean, you're not just going down. Your entire team who sort of absolutely is behind this. They're all sort of like grappling with this chunk of hate that's coming at you.

In fact, Ashish and I were talking about this, that I think sometimes we fail to recognize or acknowledge the cascading effect that it's going to have. It's not just the person that they're calling out right. As part of this whole cancel culture. There's an entire army of people, like you said, not just that there are so many other professional commitments. There are other commercial repercussions. There's sometimes so much this precious money riding on it. And forget the money. There are people who depend on their entire set or structure for a livelihood. Right. You are affecting all of that because you decided to take offense about something that is being perceived in a certain light.

You slapping a director doesn't just affect the director.

It affects which director are we talking about?

I take your picture.

Are we fighting this fight against artists who say things or like, people who say things without sort of evaluating it? Or is it against people who sort of take offense to everything? Who's the bigger culprit in this fight?

I'd say all the faceless handles on social media.

The Bots.

There is no sense of proportion. And when we say Bots, I know not just Bots, but like, facelines.

Just faceless.

And I know we sometimes like to refer to just one side of the political spectrum, and I always agree that that is the worst kind. But there's enough idiots on our side as well. I look at it on a case to case basis, like you said. I don't think there is any sense of proportion online. If there's a joke or a TV show or a scene or a song or a lyric. Even if people have a legitimate problem with it, they can go like, hey, here's why it's wrong. Here's what didn't work for me. You heard these people. Maybe you should apologize because there is no Balicious intent. Instead, they go, the blood of this community is on your hands. At which point, of course, the person is going to get defensive. It's a natural human reaction. Also, intellectually, it is stupid. You are just insulting your own intelligence when you go like, the blood of proportional response. A joke is not going to kill.

Yeah, just have some perspective.

But that's where social media, again, the nature of it comes in, right? Like you said, you have to be the loudest. So if you're not saying, the blood of this community is on your hands for this joke in capsule, then you are not noticed. Then you are not noticed. And that's where it's a dumb place to have deep conversations. It should just be photos of dogs and burgers and, like, beers.

And if you want to take offense to things, maybe take offense to, like, I don't know, Big Boss. Be like, oh, just like things that don't directly impact.

Work here.

Actually, I love Big Boss. Cancel me. Yeah, but you're right. Cancel culture is a byproduct of more mentality, right? Just just following the hood, following whatever whatever the strongest and the loudest opinion in the room is and just and.

Believing it to be true.

Yeah.

It's so easy and it's so daft. And once you take a step back because it's so much fun. Like, even if you're not part of the mob, even the mob is on your side. It's so much fun because you're part of, like, a joke could say talk jokema, and you get those artists and you're like, oh, this is great, but you want to see what you're contributing to.

But I totally get it. I've been this person also, but I had lower stakes, right? I mean, I was a person with, like, 125 followers on Twitter. Low stakes. Maybe one, like, out in the ether. But again, I had no pressure of making the right jokes. But now, as a verified person on Twitter, I'm like, they're going to get me for this tweet about.

This is.

Why I only use Twitter to complain to brands. Overall, an AC jalajville at Uber India.

You understand the payment structure by these oppressive capitalists. Sorry.

Which is why I feel like thought leaders and opinion leaders who are in the higher ups, they have either more pressure to say the right thing or just don't say anything.

I don't even know if it's always the pressure of saying the right thing. Like I said, for a lot of people, it's their addition. Real?

Yeah.

Do you ever tell someone that, hey, maybe this is a good opportunity for you to latch on to?

I don't I don't know if their agents or managers are saying. It.

Oh, I'm sure they yeah.

If the agent and manager are saying it the star or the celebrity or the influencer is sometimes dumb enough to be like, hey.

Yeah.

Unfortunately, that sort of advice is not.

Being sought from the aftermath.

No. Because this recently happened that somebody went on the Instagram and said that I could heal people, and I'm going to charge you this much money for, like, an hour of my time, and I just have the chakras. I will align everything. So just like, random words thrown out. And it was being promoted as a thing that almost next to therapy. She was being like, oh, I can.

She's not qualified.

No, she's not. And the problem with this whole tobacco was that people came at her and how and it was worse to see that. It was like, oh, no.

This was basically, she needs therapy.

No, thank you, guys. We fucked up.

But she said, I'll give you therapy. I'll be nice to you. Basically, like a free hug sign is what she is. Positive money for my unqualified therapist. I can get that from my mom, too. So what happened to her?

What was interesting to see was that people were going at her and they were like, oh, we want to cancel you. And how dare you, like, compare yourself to a therapist. You're not legally or you're not professional enough to charge people. Just do it for free. If you have good vibes, just sell it for free. Who says good vibes? Sort of 1500 only. That's weird.

I think the money was also the problem. The problem was pretending to be qualified. But after the first 1015 response, I think she gets it.

And then the 14th response was like, I'm going to come to your house, and I'm going to nine out of.

Ten people who went after her probably didn't know what was the qualification required to be a therapist in the first place.

So maybe people are just waiting to.

Pounce on and I get pouncing there's pouncing that you see where you're like, okay, hey, this is wrong. You're not clearly not in the thing. Sarcasm, fine will kill you. It's fine. And then there is a Hollywood, I will come to your house even if it's not that. If you start going, you should die, bitch.

Yeah, maybe a little. To tone it down to a lot of people.

Maybe not.

No. I feel like that's the problem at hand, where cancel culture just becomes so prevalent. You feel like a part of something even though you don't realize that you're directly, mentally affecting someone else.

So everyone's done some version of this back in the day. Maybe it was harmless, maybe it was not. But the way we did was at least with jokes, we weren't like, outraging. It was more like jokes. Something as simple as a blooper on a talk show or a bad film. There are good people going he's the worst actor, and then it gets worse, and you all make jokes. So this actor sucks. This actor sucks. Doja joke malia. That is different from, like, it was fun. Like I said, it feels fun to be part of that, but it's the same mentality then that leads you to do stupid things later. This guy should never work again. No. Like, what? No, it's a joke.

He made a joke.

Don't like it? Move on. You don't like this director song? Move on. Whatever.

I wonder what kind of like because I mean, all kinds of people get canceled. People who are male, female, and gender fluid. Who has the worst when it comes to being canceled? Because as a woman, I'm not just being threatened of like, oh, get this opinion down. I'm also being threatened to be like, I'll come to you and I'll kill you. So do you think we as women should just, like, shut up, which is actually a role. We should just be in the kitchen?

Not at all. You're certainly asking the question of the wrong woman.

No. Make sure the kitchen is good.

WiFi. No, not at all. Do you and your client see, like, a sight to like, oh, this is a male client who was canceled for his opinions, and this is a female client, and my female client has had to deal with a lot more.

I think at this point, both sort of genders have faced their own issues right. With cancer culture, with male clients. Like I said, sometimes it's going the other extreme. You're not satisfied just with an apology. He has to be completely written off, made to sort of just benched for the rest of his life. With women, I think, yes, there are certain topics and certain issues where we've noticed that they're specifically a target. I just make an example out of to sort of attach stereotypes, too. I'm not saying that doesn't happen. So I think there's different types of cancer culture consequences with both genders, but I don't think it's more or less, at least in my experience either. It's just different. Yeah.

And I feel like I think the ambit of the discussion we've had when we talk cancel culture, we're clearly talking, like, not crimes. We're talking, like, creative, what do you call mistakes and mistakes and back and forth and all that, right. A joke here, a scene there and all that, right? Yeah. The response there is spectacularly disproportionate. And I realized one thing. I don't know if you've seen this. You may have seen this with your clients, but again, this brought me a sense of calm when I realized it is that there is one side of the spectrum that hates you for the values and for the stuff you've done. They just hate you regardless. There is no point getting upset at that. There is no point engaging with them. There's no point trying to change their mind. One of those people telling me I suck. I don't give a shit, okay? And on our side of the debate, socially, liberal, whatever, our people if I have to talk about Twitter, to be specific, I have realized that there are maybe in the circuit we have about 40 to 50 people max. Okay? 40 to 50 people max who, no matter what you do, they will find a fault in it. You will never be good enough, and it doesn't matter. You could win the Nobel Peace Prize. You could solve the cashier crisis tomorrow, whatever. You will not be enough for these people because their job is to complain, and their job is to get that attention, whether they realize it or not. They subconsciously but they're chasing that, and they will always hate you. And once you realize that, at least.

The hate is constant. I'm like, thanks for believing in me.

Yeah.

What do you have to say about people who just sort of are out to get you personally and whatever your opinion would be, there out to get you?

I think you've just got to learn to weed out the noise.

How many people have need to be offended for me to write an apology tweet?

I have an opinion on this.

So say my parents are offended. Do I need to tweet at them? Sorry for offending you?

No, I don't think so.

You should.

50 people offended dead annual coverage.

Don't get offended at this.

It depends on how many engagements are getting canceled, right?

Oh, my God. Okay.

How many grand are pulling back? How many things are you being made to sit out of? Actually depends on how many other things in your life are getting canceled. Okay, so I think the necessity to tweet an apology is directly proportional to how many things have been canceled.

How about what's that thing called when you take down your Instagram and Twitter and you just go off the face of the internet? Can I do that instead of apologizing?

If you think that's the response needed. She said that the scale is that high.

Yeah, but I'm curious to know Ashisha's opinion.

It's the same as yours. Word is slightly different. It's the same as yours. A few things you need to consider mar Pandevalier immediate. Are you in physical danger? Second, are you going to lose money? Thirdly, is there going to be a legal case? Now, if these three things are not happening and people are offended, then you.

Can sit the bug down.

5 hours later. One day later.

Fun. Have you ever been approached by someone who seemed like they're really panicking about a certain tweet they did it, but.

You will, like, relax all the time. All the time. And more often than not. I think the ones who come out of any of these controversies successfully are the ones who've learned to maintain complete silence. Just don't react. It's a media cycle. It's a storm. Let it pass. The minute you engage with a faceless mob, that's it, right? Then there's no coming out of it. Then you got to go through the whole hob. There's no sitting it out midway. But I think most of the times when something erupts and digs out and of course the client is freaking out and I get it right, because you're a public figure, you have other consequences, and you feel the need to I have to say something. Oh, my followers and all my fans and someone's expecting a reaction out of me. I can't not see anything like that reaction. So now you don't need to justify it or react or defend. Just let this pass. And I think it's very difficult, but the ones who've taken that piece of advice have come out of it unscathed.

So I think Ranbir Kapoor is the smartest person. He's not he's on social media. He probably has a private account, and he doesn't need to tweet for brands and shit. He's Ranbir Kapoor, so he doesn't need to get into the focus. It's great. I fully respect that. That's privileged, but I respect that.

Have you ever had to take someone's phone away, be like, now this is enough? I feel like now you're stretching it too.

Yeah.

There was a time where I just told my client, this Twitter account has to be shut down for a while. Like, nothing doing nothing.

Nothing can save you from this land.

You just have to completely stay off of if you don't want to go to jail, like, just completely stay off of what?

I want to save a month's rent.

Sorry, what?

If I want to save a month's rent, can I go to jail?

How much rent are you paying? How bad is your apartment? Also, the sense of my followers need to hear from.

Honestly, I feel like my relax. I have such a forgetful face. I'm like, okay, I guess I am. They really don't care about, like, micro influencers. Have it good, because people are like, you just tell us what to buy. We are not interested in your opinions. And I'm like, sure, that's a fair trade.

That's how it should work. If you are selling products, you sell a product.

I am a sellout.

So we've spoken a little bit about.

Cancel culture and how it creatively, sort of stifles people and especially artists. Everything that you do can be taken in a wrong way. So creatively, you're treading very lightly. You don't know what you can land up. But it also has an impact on artists financial stability, as you highlighted earlier. How do we deal with that other part of just the fact that your career can be taken away from you overnight?

So I think we should have a clarification here. I don't personally think that cancel culture has led to stifling of art. I feel like there are bigger forces at play in the world. Very obviously, that lead to way more stifling of art and have always been I don't think cancel culture leads to stifling of art. I think it's just people sometimes see things for bigger than they are that causes an issue. For example, very like a lose example. But if you were only writing jokes online, and if you're fully immersed on Twitter, and if you're fully getting all your feedback from Twitter, you would think that writing a joke is a mining field and performing it is a mine. It's not, please go to a comedy club, do your jokes there. You are not getting cancel there. Your audiences are smart, they're forgiving. They understand the difference between a new joke at an open mic versus a cemented opinion. Most comics, and most all comics, nobody's going there saying, I want to make this person, this community, feel bad. We're just putting together words in a particular order so that you laugh and I get self esteem and we all go home happy. That's it, right? So when people say, Cancer justifling her, I don't think it is. It's only if you get too caught up in that cessful. And I think some of us, if you face a lot of backlash, we can sort of feel that the entire world is like that. But get out and start doing your art in the real world, nobody cares. Make your edgy joke. Nobody cares. They'll laugh at it. If it's terrible, you'll get immediate feedback. But nobody will come for a career like in a comedy club, in a good comedy club. And the same with other art forms. If you want to just shoot a script that satire, shoot it and then see do your scene to the best of your ability.

Get a check by an entertainment lawyer.

Get a check by entertainment lawyers who are our favorite people. I don't think when you talk about stifling art, there are forces far bigger and far more insidious that are doing this. And I don't think most comics I know most comics you would speak to, you are afraid of a bad reaction online a little bit, but you're also mostly smart enough to write a joke in a way that doesn't but isn't.

The problem here that what you think is fine, could be problematic to you?

Ashish puts it really well. I think that the question to ask yourself is that who is my audience? Who am I pandering to? If all your content that you're creating is intended to pander to your social media followers, of course you're constantly going to be worried about cancer culture, right, and how it's going to be taken apart and or should I say this or should I say that? But like Ashi said, if your true audience is the real audience, right? So put your work out there, get real feedback. Or when it's a steady, more sort of form of art or expression that's developed over a period of time in the form of their shows or movies. There are so many layers of checks and filters that you have where you have enough of sounding boards to sort of tell you, hey, this works, this doesn't work. Lawyers, like, people will come in and say that, okay, this might not fly well, and you have enough in the process to add layers of protection before you throw your work out there into the world for it to be received. But if you're only creating works for your followers on social media, then you've signed up for it. Then you've got to deal with the.

Consequences of morally speaking. I know. I'm personally okay all the comic singers, whatever, morally speaking, you are okay. If you are punching up, morally speaking, right? So then I could be worried that people will not get satire in the way that's intended because they're too stupid for you. But morally speaking, I know I'm in the right, I can sleep with a clear conscience, and I know my joke is solid. I can defend it anywhere. So that's punching up, and most comics know how to do that, punching down. People say you shouldn't do it. I don't tell anybody what lines to close or not. That's for them to figure out. And if you're going to go down the route of punching down, sometimes it's very funny. Punch down jokes sometimes are very funny, but if that's the route you've chosen to take, then you deal with the consequences. Then you're going to get an inordinate amount of hate.

If you're an edgy comedian, then you'll have yeah.

And also there's a balance that's somewhere to be found between, okay, edgy and shock. Humor has its audience. If you're not that, maybe don't go into that room like Jimmy Carr. There is a lot of stuff out there, for example, that runs entirely on shock value. It is just wordplay shock value. Wordplay shock value. The grossest themes, right? There is no punching UPKa concept in those jokes. And they still have auditorium full of people laughing out. And these people who are laughing are not horrible people for laughing at their joke. It's that Jimmy car has surprised them. If that's not your jam, go for it. If Jimmy Carr now gets complaints on Twitter, then he signed up for it. You know what I'm saying? Like, it's very obviously then he can't be like, how can you talk about this? I think you're making a joke about pedophilia that's punching down. So you're not going to get the best response.

Pedophilia is punching now because kids are smaller in height.

Okay, that's a good job. That's very easy to hit.

Very easy to hit. Punching down the but I have a question because you just said that sometimes there's an entire team of people who are doing their checks before your work is out in the market. Has there ever been a case where you found nothing problematic with this piece of content and you were like, this is good to go. A green signal, send it out. And then suddenly, out of nowhere, people found, like, a weird scene or a weird dialogue, which was problematic.

There was a time a few years ago where our role as what they call Production Council or Production Clearance Council would be to only look for infringement. Is there copyright infringement? Is there trademark infringement design? Like simple things, relatively simple things. Today, you're sort of reading a script or even vetting jokes, actually, and you'll be surprised how many comedians we end up doing that for where you're sort of scrutinizing it. Of course, one for infringement, but then for defamation, for disparagement hurting religious sentiments offending a community, inciting religious discord. And I can go on and on and on, right? And the thing, even after you do all of that, you can just assess degrees of risk. And it's so subjective, right? When you start reviewing material in that light, what is offensive to me may not be offensive to you. Sometimes you do your best and you assess level of risk and you put it out there. And we ourselves have been surprised in a few instances where something completely out of the blue has been picked up by someone and it's snowballed into a thing.

And we were talking about earlier, again, the artist side of things, the way we get this response from them. SNP standards and practices, right? Any big company will have them. So when you write the script with an OTT or whatever, they're the team of lawyers. You have to send them their script. They send script feedback back. And I love it. It's the most beautiful thing because to me, I'm some half educated idiot writing.

He does another drinking game, right?

Yeah. We've done this, by the way, this sort of drinking game. It just amazes me that I have sat there and written these dick jokes and a team of lawyers, very highly educated people like you said, GLC, somebody's gone and studied abroad, and you have these fancy initials and you've studied law and you want to be a lawyer. And at midnight you are sitting there sending me an email saying lines are minute 24, remove gund. 25, Ashi is taking out tongue remove gesture. Minute 26, no one says foodie. It's just a list wearing T shirt with its slogan, oh, my God, I loved.

So nothing is fun for you guys to watch, is it? Do you ever go, like, not only.

Just watching content for the what can.

You watch now without, like, with your damage is done?

They see it more clinically. I sometimes watch it with a sense of alarm. Like I was rewatching Weep, which I think is one of the best comedies ever made. And I'm watching it, and immediately I'm like, oh, Jay. Joke jail. And now we know certain sections. Like, I know what the religious one is called. I know what the Community one is called. I know what the Obscenity one is called.

You know the sections. Yeah, class section. Class section.

And it ruins your experience because you're watching JLT and the cast do amazing thing and I'm like, oh, 295. Okay, nice. Cool, sad. But that's the reality. So you find the comedy wherever it is. And in our case, we found a lot of in SNP documents. It was lovely.

SNP documents. I mean, again, a question for both of you living because we live in a time where you're asked for your opinion every second, and the world is also changing every second, but how do you sort of live in an economy that's driven by opinions and stay silent on something? How do you go, like, I'm going to pass on this self preservation.

Self preservation. They go, abi, nayaka, satire, because I've done it for a long time and it's wonderful, but my house is also very nice. It's much nicer than it is, so I'm not going to it's self preservation. It's that. And my thing is I want to be funny. I want to write great stories, I want to create shows and movies and do comedy and entertain people. And I'm losing a huge chunk of myself, don't get me wrong. It really feels oppressive. It feels debilitating to not be able to talk about the stuff that's in your head and talk about it honestly without constantly having a mental gun to your head and in some cases, little gun to your head. But you kind of decide because you have to move forward, I can't stop doing jokes. So the trade off is that then you stop doing jokes about X kind of things. And this I'm talking like, straight up stuff that would take political satires and all of that kind of stuff. Other than that, there aren't any subjects I avoid.

I do feel like a part of you has to think more than once before putting out anything.

From politically, it's been years. Who's doing political comment in India?

But I think to add to what Ashish is saying, right, self preservation is one. The other is pick your battles. You can't have an opinion about everything all the time. It's not important. So you decide what really matters. What has a certain impact, again, based on various parameters, right? Do you need to be seen talking about a certain subject? Is it important to you? Does it directly relate to what you're doing? And pick your battles on what to say and when to react?

Yeah.

And again, picking your battles. You really need to, like you said earlier, recognize your audience. I'll come at the same point. If you live in that world and you can't get your head out of that world, you will constantly think that you are supposed to opine on everything, and you will constantly think that anything you say will be met with disproportionate criticism, which is not the case. But that's why the media cycle also comes in, because you'll never get a headline saying that show goes off. Well, people enjoy it.

Like, no, everybody went back home happy.

Twitter artifurious. And you go and see that it's four guys with 20 followers each. So that's how the media and people.

Only see the headline and then think.

Okay, this is way bigger deal. So then they'll RT it, and then they'll get rid and so on and so forth. But at the end, it's ten people. If I give you a personal example, the roast, okay? If you saw the headlines at that time, you would think, we have murdered an old lady in full public.

These are, like, the worst ever.

We have flown a plane into a building. It just felt like if you read the headlines then, because it just sounded like, everyone in the world hates us. All the country hates us. Everyone who saw the show hated it, which is not true. People who saw the live show loved it. Loved it online. Like, 99.5% of the people loved it. Very small percentage did not like the jokes, fine. Even smaller percentage wanted to wish harm or something. Like, nobody is that offending. Right? But if you felt if you read it, it felt like the worst thing. So and that comes to you later. We realize that most of your audience is on your side. If they don't like it, at worst, they're indifferent. They may dislike you, but nobody is out to get you. Broadly speaking, in the real world, in the online space.

Yes.

If you were unfamiliar with us and you Googled us, it would feel like a huge deal. So that's what you need to understand. Like, if you put out if you're afraid as a comedian to put out a certain kind of joke or write a joke on a certain kind of topic if you feel like, oh, the Twitter mob will get me, like us, that there will be 2030 40 people on your site who will always hate you. The liberals couldn't go. And the other side, you don't care about them because they're always going to hate you. 20, 30, 40 people.

How much does that matter exactly?

They barely fit into this room. It's nothing. That is true, right? Yeah. You don't get carried up with a media cycle. That's why, again, understanding of the users are important, because the Internet has changed. It it's just dumb. Everything is dumb. Oh, my God, I could write over.

In conclusion, everything is dumb, and Twitter is shit. As a consumer of content, say I enjoy something a lot, and I see it for the art and the number of people who've put effort into this this, oh, grand cinema cinematic piece, but somebody out there finds it problematic. How am I as a fan or just like a watcher? How am I supposed to react? Am I supposed to go at the person who hates my artist? Like, cancel the canceller what is my duty here as a consumer of content?

What should I depend on? How much time you have on your hands?

Lots of time.

It's silly, right? I think it just brings us back to the same point that how much do we want to participate? How much do you want to react? I think everyone's feeling this compulsive need that I have to have a reaction as opposed to, I think someone like me. If I don't care about what your point of view is this is my point of view. I don't feel the need to say it out loud to everybody. I want to watch it because I like this person's art. I'm going to watch it. Whether I enjoyed it, didn't enjoy it, I'll discuss with a few things, and that's that. Or maybe not even that.

It's a personal decision. Who the fuck are you following number 5033 to be telling me I don't care? For example, okay? It depends on the crime, right? Like, what is it? Like ansari referenced the R. Kelly thing in one of his special, Dang. He used to listen to the music. R. Kelly is a popular one. Horrible, but he did it really well. Like The Paradox of Dave Chappelle had a really, really great take on Bill Cosby worst of the crimes. But his point also was he's obviously not condoning what he did, but his point was, I was a young black kid in America, and I saw this as a black figure. So for me, it took me a while to process it. That was the gist of his stand up. Of course he can't say it like that. He's saying a joke. So that's what he did. So there's degrees, right? Like, you could hate Michael Jackson, but I promise you, if his music started.

Playing music, you would start doing a.

Little bit of so does that mean you support the Allen? You don't. So it's a personal line. Like, not everyone will disown Woody Allen immediately. Some people might not either way.

Which brings us to the debate of the art versus the artist. Can I really enjoy Bill Woody Allen movies without thinking about the accusations he has? And if I do enjoy, then am I wrong?

I don't know.

Am I less voke than my friends? Because I should be like, by now, she'd be like, come on. Should be catch up. We canceled him last Tuesday. Udiyali is canceled now. So stop.

So you will always be less woke than the people are, because this is.

Like old days woke.

This is changing every day. That is not a title anyone should aspire to. And worst case, I feel like it's a title that people should put on you if they have to. You can't be like, hey, I'm very vogue. Then you're an idiot. Because people should say that to you. Yeah, it's like saying somebody is talented like other people should. Yeah.

I mean, I don't want to be vocal, but I definitely want to be, like, right about things. Which is why I think you're not.

Going to be right about your definition of right or wrong. Maybe you give control or power to others. You lost that battle.

Also, things change so quickly, like, by the standards of somebody. And where do we start defining our vocals? I think we still get caught up in those Twitter people who define it every day because I don't know if they seem to have the time, but and you could be a perfectly nice, normal person and a vocny, I would say kind and respectful. I feel like that's the better term. You could be all of that while being clueless of the latest gender struggle, feminist struggle, cast struggle.

You could just be fine in a whole different way. This is another version. It's a modern day Gen Z version of Lokiyakahinge. They said, Do I react? Do I not react? Is this the right thing to do? Because the question is that, oh, what are the others going to say? So I think we're still living our lives by that thing.

Hilarious. Who sounds like Gen z palace. But real life, they are aunties. Real life, they're aunties. And it's so, like, I get it. You're supposed to be angry. If you are a teenager who's not angry, then something's wrong. You're not reading enough. You have to be angry.

I mean, be angry about, like, I don't know, not having enough black nail paint in the store.

Right. Yesterday I was with a dermatologist friend of mine, and she's like we were talking about, oddly enough, of coincidentary about being woke, and she had this young kid come to me to help me so that I could help her with her skin. And of all the other recommendations, she also said, but you should also lose you also need to lose weight. And this kid apparently got angry saying that, oh, you're body shaming me. But I was like, how hypocritical is it that you want to have good skin but you don't lose weight, which is required to help you improve your skin, and you're calling your doctor out on it.

I have the most unofficial opinions when it comes to this. It's true because I put on a bunch of weight in the pandemic, and I'm doing jokes about it online. And as somebody who's lived on the Internet, like, there's always a sense of, like, should I talk about this? But like, I'm telling you, the comedy club does not care if you're in the right and funny life. A doctor told me the same thing, and I'm a bright joke, so I think it's hilarious because I want to put up an order. You okay? Your crest was very high. I was like, So is the follow count. I was cancelling is what I want to tell you. Yeah, exactly. But it's true. So you're supposed to be angry, you're supposed to be sensitive and you're supposed to be blah, blah, blah. All of these are good things. Just find them.

I think the only reason for anybody to be offended is when somebody calls their dog fat because that's when I take offense. I'm like, how dare you call my dog fat? He's healthy. Don't look at my house fat. My dog is healthy.

Is it of that?

No, he's a pretty good looking I.

Have a friend, he had a bulldog. The dog's name was fat. Like literally that's th no, not that dog was not PH. 80 is not pretty or attempting he was just he was a fat chubby little bulldog who when he breathed it sounded like that lovely dog sadly died. But fat and fat too is what.

Is lovely called sweet dog.

We should talk to a dog therapist. Which is the thing I realized.

Think about my dog. What will he sleep? My dog needs to sleep. Well, you can't call him fat and just go on with your life.

Maybe he'll start an account and become an influencer. I was body shamed by survivor's brand. Like? Yes. I love you. Please take money and try.

You still know a human is typing all of this?

Yeah, I love it.

I love this economy.

And dare you take agency away from the door.

But I think we've come to we've had some solid points pointers for the listeners and I think in conclusion, maybe we could talk about how as an audience and the content that I'm consuming, it's going to have a very range of reactions from people. It's on me and my personal judgment to sort of decide if I like this particular person and have they murdered anyone recently? If not, then please go ahead and watch that movie. What do you have to say about like what are your conclusive thoughts on cancel culture?

I would say, again, going back to being old school, but you remember the time when you were in college and you decided to date a person you ultimately dated. Either you could date a person because of this whole social what my social status in college is going to be. Am I with the coolest kid, coolest guy or girl? Or you would decide to date someone because you really don't give a fuck and you're like, this is the person I like. I want to give this a shot. I think it's just a version of that. We need to go back and remind ourselves that you've got to make authentic choices and be true to your choice and stand by it without truly giving a fuck. Right?

Yeah.

And just like Ashish said, self preservation. Not everything needs an opinion and not everything needs an opinion that needs to be shared with the whole world.

What about you, Ashish?

So I would say that this pursuit of vocals is a problem. It's flawed. You're never going to be the vocus person. So if you're worried about that, don't be, because the things keep changing. Like I said, kind and respectful and open to learning is the best you can do. And I feel that as an older person, because I've reached that age where I can ossify, I can turn into anger, like in Koni Pataguch. I'm trying to actively not do that with certain issues. So you got to keep learning and you got to keep being that person. And outside of that, you're good. As long as there's no malice and you're kind of learning outside of that, it's fine. You don't need to be worried about the audience beyond a point. Get your head out of the internet, please. Get your news from different sources. Do not look up to celebrities outside of the remediate domain. Then akshakumar doesn't know politics. Relax. Read it. He'll tell you.

I also wonder what's it like to cancel a person who has absolutely no following. Say I read a book, I found a book on the streets and I'm like, bad writing. Pathetic writer. I want to cancel this person, but.

That'S the people that get affected the most, I would be on their side.

I'm just like, is this because then it comes to the fact of how do I, as the counselor, get the attention from canceling someone who's non relevant to our times?

You play up the issue, play up your offense. You can take spectacular offense, as you see. You can see his bum. You can play up the issue. No matter how you can play up the issue, that's how you get your attention. If the cause mafia is on your side, it'll work. It works because when people say cancel culture isn't real, this look at his community as a multimillion tour. Are you surprised that rich and powerful people are getting away with shit? Wow. Welcome to the world. But it affects the smaller people that you don't know about the names, you don't know about so many people. Egg joke. Cup a job because it's a bit much. So it is real. It happens. It just doesn't happen to the big people. Yes, sorry. That's how it is.

Truly.

Very well said. So I guess leave your phones and go out and sniff some grass. Just maybe that's the solution. We have arrived at cancel culture in itself.

Really?

We don't eat culture.

Cancel it at the rate which you're going, we won't have any left.

We have nothing left. We just eat grass. Now we're back to like we're just making trying to make fire again.

Yeah, we're just trying to make fire.

Yes. From fire emoji to fire back.

That's where we're going.

Thank you so much, Shaishan. Thank you so much, Priyanka, for being on this podcast. I had a lovely discussion and I feel like my listeners would be really? Yes, I think we didn't say anything too problematic so they would enjoy this episode.

You are entering the overthink tank.