Are Words Violence? You Can’t Joke About That, by Kat Timpf

I was not familiar with Kat Timpf before listening to her audiobook, You Can’t Joke About That. This isn’t really significant or surprising, as she’s best known as a Fox commentator and I haven’t watched any cable news programs in over a decade. She’s also a comic but unless someone’s had a Netflix special, I’m not exactly up to date on that world either. Nonetheless, I’d rank this as one of the most interesting and important books I’ve read in the last few years.

You Can’t Joke About That addresses the increasingly humorless and intolerant nature of modern society, whether on social media, the entertainment industry, or politics. It’s disconcerting having lived through so many decades (the 70s, 80s, and 90s in my case) where so much humor that was everywhere years ago would not even be tolerated today. Even a show like Saturday Night Live, which has existed through all those decades, has devolved into a sad caricature of itself, only making the safest and most politically correct jokes. Same with other late night comedy, if it can even be called that anymore.

I’ll summarize a few important chapters/points Kat Timpf makes in You Can’t Joke About That.

It’s Especially Important to Joke About Difficult Topics