Dapper Laughs is the ‘star’ of a new ITV2 show, based on a Vine channel containing 6 second long clips of him approaching women and making ‘hilarious’ sexual comments that border on harassment.
His Twitter account provides further evidence of his particular brand of misogynistic humour.
He’s currently got an album out, called ‘Proper Naughty Christmas’, apparently raising money for a homelessness charity.
But strangely, the album
(which we reviewed here) includes a ‘hilarious skit’ where Mr Laughs shouts at a homeless person that they “stink of ****”.
I felt this rather undermined the supposed charitable purpose of the song, and decided to express this opinion on Twitter.
A quick search through his tweets gave me further reason to doubt his genuine commitment to improving the lives of homeless people.
Dapper Laughs wasn’t impressed, and decided to publicly call me out for my Scrooge-like attempt to sabotage his good deeds.
(@Natt wrote our review, which Dapper
had earlier suggested was unfair given the album was a charity effort.)
Unsurprisingly, many of his followers responded with the same kind of predictable misogyny Dapper Laughs has made his trademark.
I’d argue that this was exactly the performer’s intention when he wrote the tweet.
Perhaps most upsetting though, is this, from a female fan:
A single tweet, perfectly summing up the problem with Dapper Laughs’ ITV show.
By putting him on air the channel has effectively endorsed his harassment of women. It lends him an air of legitimacy, and will undoubtably encourage young men to emulate his behaviour.
It also teaches girls and young women that this kind of everyday sexism is something they have to just put up with. If they object, they’re just ‘uptight’ and don’t know how to have a laugh.
But sexual harassment is not a joke.
Because there’s no doubt that Dapper’s ‘comedy’ is directly influencing the behaviour of men:
http://usvsth3m.com/post/this-is-wha...ghs-on-twitter