Dapper Laughs, 'Lad comedian' and purveyor of sexually aggressive 'humour', recently appeared on Newsnight in a sombre Spandau Ballet black polo-neck repenting for his sins. To much support he lauded over misodgenistic 'humour' and habitually spouted hateful, 'jokes' belittling sexual violence. But this Vine/Twitter famous character wasn't acting alone. Buffered by a sense of acceptance, Dapper Laughs made it offline and onto our TV screens.
For a young comedian the road to success is pretty tough. There's stand up shows and tours, financial struggles, bad hecklers and for any comedian the holy grail is their very own TV show. Nabbing a TV spot is no easy feat, with comissioning editors dedicating time, money and their reputations to finding and bankrolling the next big thing.
Then there's the meetings, the countless tweeking, the script edits, the production costs and every other stumbling block on the road to success to tackle. So the point remains, how on earth did no one stop this from within until an entire series had been created, edited and shown on national television? It seems ludacris that a vile-tounged character like Dapper Laughs would even make it past a pilot without a peep out of anyone.
But it happened, he made it to the big time, as less and less young comedian's do with many being resigned to the dusty pages of BBC website due to BBC3's funding cuts. There was belief in Dapper Laughs, belief in his brand, so much so that an entire department used their limited funding to support him, and why? Because he was accepted.
Dapper Laughs shoud have never been filmed, never made the funding table, never been seen by the commissioning editor and yet the incidious 'humour' was allowed to be broadcast buffeted by men and women in the industry.
During his recent Newsnight appearances Daniel O'Reilly killed off Dapper Laughs, but it wasn't this sacrifice that should have made the headlines, he had recieved acceptance to the Nth degree by an industry notriously hard to crack and with a second series on the horizon he was within touching distance of the top of the comedic career path.
During the now infamous Newsnight interview O'Reilly addressed this head on, "It became very popular and I got very carried away with it... at the time when we were doing it it was getting so much praise from the audience it was being percieved by... it took hold of me", and that's just it. Dapper Laughs is a symptom, he's the boy kicking the kid in the playground to get a laugh.
This 'character' won't end with the cancellation of the series, it's symptomatic of a society that belittles sexual violence and relishes 'banter' bullying lifted straight from the playground.