People are influenced by media and culture. It’s normal to have others with a similar sense of humor to you. It's natural to have the same ideas. To that, we should not call out joke theft so quickly.

I watched Chris Rock's newest special [spoilers throughout paragraph]: He has a routine about abortion. He mentions using a punch card, which is a joke I associate with Sarah Silverman. He speaks about the "right to kill a baby." I'm immediately reminded of Louis CK. He says he supports the procedure not til the first or second trimester, but rather til the age of four. I think, "Wow! I used to joke, ‘until age three.’ Four is funnier. Good bit, Chris."

While some comedians are cancelled for “stealing” and retelling jokes without permissions, others get credit for brilliance thanks to minor tweaks. All the while, only the hack knows whether they maliciously stole or not.

Chris Rock might call this selective outrage. We were fed that “hacky” comedians are the epitome of evil. We forgot that all art is recycled. Jokes are like NFTs, that can’t get stolen by someone phishing your password. A copy of the joke doesn’t affect the original.

When you see a Van Gough work that copies other artists, we don’t conclude that he is a hack. [I have no idea if he creditted the originals, so maybe there is a better exampe.] We just appreciate his take on another work. We might complain that iPhones copied Android, but don’t factor plagiarism into our purchases.

Comedy is delicate. So we ignore that everyone has retold someone else’s joke. Even you.

One joke I’ve heard more than one person tell goes: A new inmate learns the prison has only one book. It’s a joke book that all the inmates have memorized. At lights out, one inmate screams, “THIRTY-FIVE” and everyone dies laughing. Another shouts, “SEVENTEEN.” People cackle. Someone falls out their bunk they’re laughing so hard. The new inmate decides to give it a go. He yells, “Twenty-six!” Dead silence. He asks his cell-mate, “What happened? Was that a bad one?” The cell-mate responds, “No, no, no. It’s how you told it.”

Some points from that example: 1. Nobody is criticized for stealing from a joke book. Joke Theft is more about internet clout, sketch writing and standup. 2. Variations exist of that same joke. I linked to variations of this joke with the opposite ending. Ever heard of The Aristocrats? 3. It’s not the joke alone, but how it’s told and the relationship to audience. The same joke about whiny Jews or race-related feels very different depending on who’s telling it.

I'm not a fan of most comedians called out for joke theft. Tim Heideker called out gross comedian Rosanne Barr for stealing from a real clown--one of our politicians in congress--the Zodiac Killer himself, Ted Cruz. The people called out for “stealing” a joke tend to be sleazy. Hacks don’t just imitate. They’re parrots who hurt the comedy world. There is a clear reason nobody called out Chris Rock for making a similar joke about pronouns in his recent special to Barr and The Zodiac Killer.

Alls I’m sayin is we should look into accusations of joke theft with the ‘innocent until proven guilty’ mindset. Whenever I write, I think, “Did I come up with this or hear it on a podcast?” Since I do not have a photographic memory, I’m sure I’ve mistaken the two. There’s a fine line between an original thought and forgetting you previously heard something.

To really drive this home, I'm not even the first to defend joke theft. Hopefully it is new to you, dear reader, but Moshe Kasher has mentioned it here and there since 2015. He spoke about it more recently on Take Your Shoes Off, Rick Glassman's fantastic podcast. I used to say "Please take your shoes off" to all my guests too, we just were less talented, and not recording our chats.

You get the point. Everything has been done. Simpsons did it.

So steal jokes. Just cite the sources when you can.