‘Don’t they realise they’re next?’
Ricky Gervais has said that he wants to still be around for when the next generation is cancelled, stating that it’s pretty much inevitable.
The outspoken comedian has been in the headline recently thanks to the release of his latest Netflix special Armageddon, which was released on Christmas Day.
The standup special is full of everything you’d expect from a Gervais stand up special, and features some controversial jokes that have divided opinion, with one joke even prompting a petition for Netflix to remove it from the show.
This has led to the usual debates about cancel culture and what is and isn’t okay to joke about.
Gervais is usually one to boast about saying the supposedly unsayable and getting ‘cancelled’, and he’s previously revealed his wish is to see the current ‘woke’ generation be cancelled by their children.
The 60-year-old comedian was speaking on an episode of his Absolutely Mental podcast back in 2021 with American philosopher, neuroscientists and author Sam Harris when he suggested that the current generation won’t be woke enough for the next.
“I wanna live long enough to see the younger generation not be woke enough for the next generation. It’s going to happen. Don’t they realise that they’re next? That’s what’s funny.
“‘We kicked out the old guard. We did it.’ There’s only so woke and liberal you can get and then you start going the other way. But it’s inevitable.”
In response, Harris went on to say that progressive thinking isn’t necessarily generational and added that “no matter how left you [think] are”, there is always someone who appears further left-wing than you and who will subsequently treat you “like a Nazi.”
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