It always annoyed me that someone as good at playing cunning and/or haughty is best known as playing a slapstick clown.

He’s absolutely right, and I don’t see why he should shut up, even if he was wrong.

This has been a trend in “press articles” now, especially here, when journalists tell other people to shut up. Don’t do that, telling other people to shut up is not journalism.

“I’ve come to think that social media is no better or wise than any past form of media”

Either you are with us, or you are with the sexist, heteronormative white supremacists.

Atkinson, to his credit, doesn’t cite any specific examples of this recent “mob-ish” behavior.

It takes a bit of gymnastics to tie him to J. K. Rowling’s TERF war all to make his comments seem far more incendiary than they were, but it effectively proves his point. I’m wondering if this article isn’t dripping with sarcasm I’m not hearing, or was just an effort to make a bean joke that didn’t quite land.

Is Atkinson specifically talking about himself? No, he’s making a broad point about the dangers of the amplifying nature of social media and the ugly attempts to silence dissent. I admire the fact he is willing to accept the logical flack that his comments will elicit.

Aww, I thought it’d be fun...but, ok:

I still think of him as Blackadder, which was a decidedly different role, one that relied much more on verbal sparring with the likes of Hugh Laurie and Stephen Fry.  I never could stand Mr Bean and it bothers me that most people know Atkinson solely based on that character.

In a vain attempt at the correct take, it’s not a huge leap to infer some of the stuff in this article but it’s also not really the worst thing any middle aged white man has said on the subject.

Cancel culture complaints can be two things:

Or just tell us rather than setting up some Willy Wonka quest for a song lyric.

“Cancel culture” seems to consist of two things: 1) people legitimately pointing out messed up behaviour that’s been going on for years and 2) people gleefully piling onto people for small slights, often without considering the possibility of change and redemption.

Bryan Cranston, also gave his thoughts on Cancel Culture™ recently, and said things along the same lines. I might be out of line here, but to simply note that sometimes it can get out of hand seems reasonable enough to say, right?

That is a fun way to criticize people without them being allowed to defend themselves.

It’s also in an interview so someone was actually asking him a question, it’s not John Cleese offering a bad take no one asked for on Twitter.

“That guy called us a mob, let's get him!!"

And here comes the pitchforks and torches!

Don’t forget the ones who neither know or care what is going on as long as they get that sweet outrage hit.  Getting those people to mindlessly scream into the void is the Twitter and Facebook business model.

Ten years ago, Indigenous Australian activist Larissa Behrendt made a joke about Aboriginal elder Bess Price’s approval about the Northern Territory National Emergency Response.