You're listening to Comedy Central. Can we talk about this, uh, this Lizzo thing for a second. Did you did you see what happened with Lizzo? So for those of you who don't know, Lizzo has a new song out girls. Um, it's really fun song. It's really populates on all the charts and everything. And in in the song, Lizzo has one of her lyrics where she says spas like we're gonna spas out, you know, which Americans commonly know as means like go crazy, have fun, throw party or whatever
you can use in like multiple different ways fun ways. Um. What was interesting was that that somebody tweeted to Lizzo and they said to her, Hey, just so you know, um, spas is a word that is used specifically, you know, it's a derogatory term used to describe people who have disabilities, and they use their comedy in like the UK and Australia, you know. And they were like, oh, yeah, this is this is you know how I how I feel about this. And and then Lizzo, which is really gracious, Lizzo has
has changed the lyric of the song. So she went back changed the lyric and she was like, Hey, that didn't mean to do that, so I'll change the lyric. Very gracious of her, you know. Yeah, But what was weird is that the story didn't end there. That's the weird thing. What happened since then is people have been piling on Lizzo, shifting on her from the highest heights, like people being like, I'm still disappointed in you, Lizzo.
This was disgusting from you, and I'm You've lost a fan and I don't care that you have changed it. What matters is you said it in the first place, and you know, for you to use a blest language to offend somebody, you hurt people's feeling. And I was like, okay, Like, look, can we just can we just pause for a second. I know people on the internet like to engage in conversations that aren't discussions but really are just like mobs that pile on somebody for not knowing everything about everywhere
all at once. But can we can we acknowledge that Lizzo basically exactly what society has been asking people to do? All right? She stepped in, she said, oh, this is not what I intended, and so I'm going to change this for you, which is extremely gracious. I will change it for you, not for me, but for you, because black people in America have been using spars completely innocuously as a different word. And then I understand that in another country they use another word and it means something else.
Someone finds it defensive. But that happens all the time. You know, in the UK they use fag for cigarettes. Good luck getting used to that. When you're there, he's walk around people like, oh, can I bum the fag? And you're like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa? What's happening here? What's happening here? All right? But that's they're like, no, that's that's not what we mean. And you understand that.
I feel like we're living in a world where people have gotten so used to to, you know, parading as the most virtuous or as as the as the you know, just like the most righteous person, that they've gone to a point where they make it seem like language has no nuance, language has no context, which is even more important. And then they want to imply that there is some
sort of intention on people, even when there isn't. Right of all the people, you can come for all the people Lizzo is one of the most inclusive, just like a like aware, just like loving. She's always trying to bring people into the conversation in her music videos, in her music, in her life. You're gonna ship on her for making not even a mistake. By the way, I don't even call that a mistake. It's just not knowing how everyone uses every word in every country all the time.
I don't call that a mistake. You know, in South Africa, we have we have a word that we say for those kinds of things. It's really simple. We say asan and it's just basically means like it's like, yeah, the thing you weren't wrong, I wasn't wrong. It's not like it's like something happened that wasn't great, but nobody's almost like to blame for the thing, and so you can have a conversation about it. I don't know what happened do. We no longer live in the world where someone can say, hey,
actually you know where I'm from. This means that, oh, I didn't know that. Now that I do, I'm not gonna say it because I'm not trying to do that. Lizzo can't get in a time machine you know people act shouldn't have said it in the first place. Yeah, she said it and she changed it. Now you what do you wanted to do? Was I wanted what to go back in time and then change her knowledge of what do you want her to do? Why are you
still piling in? And what was interesting is I find I find it so interesting how you have these circles of people who claimed to be woke or claimed to be whatever, but then they used this as an opportunity to pile on Lizzo. Now you know. Now they come in there and then they're just like, oh yeah as a fat woman, Oh yeah, how would you like it if I said you're a fat n word? Work? Then
I'm like, whe where's this coming from? So you're using that as an opportunity to just let your massogeurn noir out. That's what you're doing. You've seen an opportunity for you to be shitty to this this black woman, and now you're like, yeah, I can get her and be like, no, I'm doing that to defend the disabled community. No you're not. You know you know what I mean. Don't don't bring
it up. You can just say to Lizzo, hey, this was this, and you should be careful and that's it, but don't use it as an opportunity for your shiftiness and to try and cloud it in something else. You know. It's like this weird pylon pylon, pylon pylon thing that happens.
Words and the context matter. I really don't think it's healthy for us to be living in a world where people can say or do a thing that they don't know is a bad thing, and then we treat them as if they didn't know that it is a bad thing. You know, the words the change all over the world, and I'm not getting blankets. I know something someone's gonna be like, whoa you? So what are you saying, Trevor, I can shay the N word, and and because I didn't know, they would never meant anything else, no one
to be used it another way. You know. It's like back in the day, there was like some country where they're like, nigger is a warm fire that you can say by night to warm your hands, Come and join me by the nigger family. That's not a thing. So I'm not saying that the context of words matters. The nuance matters. If you're gonna live in a world where people chew you up for trying and chew you up for apologizing and being accountable, even when, in my opinion,
Lizzle might be like I made a mistake. I don't think she did. But I think what she did on top of that was really gracious. She said, you know what I you know, she came out and said, I wasn't trying to do this, but I'm going to try and make your life a little better. I'm gonna try and and you know, put a bit of bomb on this, on this hurt that you have. You know, I think that's amazing. Now the people are still go on a pilot.
Herd got to hear Man. No, absolutely love Watch The Daily Show weeknights and eleven ten Central on Comedy Central in stream full episodes anytime I'm on Paramount Plus. This has been a Comedy Central podcast. W