One of the surprises over the past weekend for me was the firing of Anthony Cumia from Opie and Anthony by Sirius/XM radio. I got satellite radio for two reasons – I spend a lot of time on the road and I love the O&A show. What happened (allegedly, no one was there recording) is that Anthony was snapping pics on his phone, a woman took offense and punched him four times. Whether he was provoking her or not, no one knows but him and her. After this, he tweeted several derogatory tweets calling her a savage and an animal. Not a big deal, until you realize he’s white and she’s black. Boom goes the internet.
The mania that followed was intense and common. In the past month, we’ve seen apologies from Jonah Hill over gay slurs, Adam Richman for using a word used by anorexics, Facebook for messing with the news feeds, a soccer player for biting another player, a Japanese politician crying over something, etc. You get the point. I tuned in Monday and apparently Sirius was so offended by Cumia’s rants…they played old clips with him the entire day. And Tuesday. “You’re fired! Sort of. We’re going to use your show clips, though. We need listeners. But we’re really pissed! You bigot!” The same station that hired him for pushing controversy just said that was a little too much controversy, even outside of work.
Social media got all wacky also. Some swore Anthony was in the Ku Klux Klan, others attacked the lady for assaulting him with little or no provocation, then the lines separated between liberals, conservatives and libertarians (as does everything on the internet, look up a story about cats and it breaks into a political melee, before veering into religion, then race and sexism mop up the rest).
I didn’t see all the tweets (he took them offline), plus I love the show, so it’s not my place to jump in like everyone else in the country and tell people what they have to do or not do. That said, I noticed that hypocrisy is strong. Republicans and Democrats act pissed about scandals, then downplay the same crap when their douchebag team screws up. Cavs fans now want LeBron back. Our Congress has a 9% approval rating, but we’ll probably re-elect most of them. We bitch about drivers getting worse, then text each other on the highway. I’ve seen people praise the Supreme Court for upholding Obamacare, then tear them apart for the Hobby Lobby decision.
The takeaway is that the market will decide. He’ll probably jump to podcasting and be successful. Sirius will act righteous, then play his old stuff all the time. People that hated the show before still won’t listen and those that did will seek him out. Then someone else will say something about a political issue or single out a race or fill in the blank and we dance this dance all over again next week. Welcome to modern outrage – hold your breath and by the time you exhale, we’ll be on another hot button issue.