Comedians Against Cancel Culture
Comedians Against Cancel Culture
The Issue
If you want to make a difference, please sign and share this petition.
On November 24th,2021, a famous and well loved Canadian comedian by the name of Matt Billon hung himself. Despite this, very few comedians are willing to talk about the elephant in the room, that he was shunned and canceled by our own community for 3 years for something he was innocent of.
Matt was 42 years old
He had been in comedy close to 20 years.
To question this would knock over a house of cards; implicating a system of endemic corruption, fraud, pageantry and nepotism:
The things that Matt faced were frankly both unethical and immoral. I believe the focus should be directed to what happened opposed to who's responsible. If you are someone that believes in punishment then go ahead and go after those you feel deserve it, but I on the other hand would rather ensure that for the future these types of events do not happen again.
I hope that a supportive and open place for comedy exists and can be something that is protected and made so that all comedians and people in the industry can feel at home ,regardless of where they came from. That accusations require proof and due process before we take on the zeal of the mob.
I wish that we can talk to each other and discover the truth without resorting to hysteria.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
In the words of a friend of Matts.
"Matt Billon was the kindest to all new and senior comedians. He had the love and respect from all the top pros as a great worker and a genuinely great guy to be around.
Horrible loss for stand up comedy.
And for real. Fuck all the fakes that turned their backs to him or even went out of their way to ruin his career, and now giving loving eulogies like you really cared. Stand up is full of the most spineless backstabbing cowards and Matt stood out amongst all of you for having integrity and kindness and professionalism."
I too am outraged by many of these backstabbing eulogies.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Matt came runner for the Sirus XM Top Comic in 2015. This guaranteed him a prime spot for the JFL Gala. Matt was unable to attend due to health reasons but was guaranteed by Ben Miner(SIrusXMTopComic) and the [Redacted] that he could get it whenever he was ready.
He never got his Gala.
Matt also told me that the year he came runner up, he won the popular vote but was denied access to look at the judges cards. He thought it was very strange.
Chanty Marostica on the other hand won the Sirus XM Top Comic in 2018 and would also win 2 Canadian comedy awards as well as a Juno Nomination. This would in effect make Chanty one of the most decorated comedians in Canada.
In February 2019, Billon was headlining a show with Marostica at the Hubcap Comedy Festival in Moncton, New Brunswick. He ran into Marostica before taking the stage, and made a point of congratulating them on their recent SiriusXM win.
During his headliner set, Billon made a lighthearted joke about trans athletes and how their inclusion was going to make women’s sports more exciting—a joke Billon had told plenty of times before, including in front of Tommy Chong who was present at the festival and a crowd of (appreciative) queer audiences.
"I'm excited for transsexuals finally being accepted into prime time sports, it means that that the WNBA ....is finally going to be watchable"
When he returned to the comics’ table backstage, Marostica had already departed, leaving a handwritten note informing Billon that they (i.e., Marostica) were trans and was devastated by the joke.
"Matt you asshole
I'm trans
Chanty"
By the time he’d finished his second set, Billon’s Facebook page was flooded with accusations of transphobia, following on Marostica’s social-media call out of Billon as a bigot.
He repeatedly tried to reach out to Marostica, offering to have a private conversation, or even a public discussion. He also tried to apologize for hurting their feelings. But as is usually the case in such controversies, these gestures only made the public attacks worse.
Billon received private messages expressing support—including from members of the queer community in Winnipeg, Marostica’s home town—telling him that this kind of behavior was typical of Marostica, and that he had done nothing wrong. In public, however, the silence was deafening. According to Billon, none of his fellow comedians stood up to defend his character. It was the cowardice of his friends and colleagues that hurt most, he later told me.
Matt said that what was hardest was having his fellow comedians abandon him during that time.
“None of his fellow comedians stood up to defend his character. It was the cowardice of his friends and colleagues that hurt most”-life of a comedian can be hard and brutal- article.
Chanty had a history of histrionics and has cancelled several male comedians, all of whom had done little with no evidence of malice. It would include Comedians Boyd Bank and Hunter Collins also over similarly innocent incidents. All three of the people who Chanty had cancelled had similar reputations, they were secure in themselves, well liked, funny and popular in the community .
I interviewed Matt for an article in July.(Article at the Bottom) We hoped that the article would bring Matt vindication and justice. We received a lot of positive support and thanks from around the world. Despite that, we received no public acknowledgement from anyone in in the Canadian comedy industry as it seemed to close to the nose.
He told me that Ben Miner and the JFL booker were polite but illusive as to when he would get his JFL gala spot; he asked if was about the Chanty incident , they casually dismissed that notion. It was only later that he heard that the JFL booker was in full support of Chanties attacks on social media.
But in October 2019, it was revealed that Chanty Marositca was involved in multiple sexual misconduct allegations with several female comedians.
Not everyone agreed to keep Marostica’s downfall out of public view, however. One video about the claims against the comedian has been viewed almost 800,000 times (making it several orders of decimal magnitude
more popular than Marostica’s actual comedy).
This was the work of the taboo-busting Montreal duo known as Aba & Preach—aka comedian Aba Atlas and Erich “Preach” Étienne who revealed the story to the world. Atlas also criticizes the growth of so-called “safe space” comedy rooms, which promise comedians an environment free of sexist jokes and other forms of retrograde humor. Atlas noted that these venues, paradoxically, can become breeding grounds for predation by engendering a false sense of security; and by allowing abusers to virtue signal as a means to address the cognitive dissonance created by their own wrongdoing (a phenomenon known in psychology, more broadly, as “self-licensing”). The video ends with a call to action directed at the media organizations that had been giving Marostica so much positive attention:
"I want all the big media outlets … CBC Radio, CTV—all the ones who’ve been putting Chanty up, all the time, as some kind of icon and role model for us to follow—I want you guys to come out and say something about this too, right? You guys want to take the time to bash Louis C.K. because he’s on a big platform, but what happens when one of your own is engaged in far more egregious forms of abuse? Everybody wants to be self-righteous, but nobody wants to look at themselves and their own behaviour.”
Despite their video reaching over 800 thousand view, this scandal was not reported by any mainstream Canadian or comedic journalistic body, of course until my article in the Quillete last August.
Well why you may ask? Because any investigation would render Chanty's comedic and moral authority moot as well as to those who granted them their powers. When we examine Chanty's comedy, it's mediocre at best and is undeserving of the top awards. At lease Louie C.K was funny and still he didn't sexually assault anyone.
Chanty's meteoric rise was in large part due to diversity, inclusion and equity policies that fraudulently license them to the status of "made man", making chanty untouchable. That was up until their own allegations came to light.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OiClXLot3BA&t=1s
I invite you to look at Chanties Comedy Video's and the comments in the comment section.
I am a fan of all comedic arts, Chanties work is at at best, cringe worthy.
Why was it never acknowledged by Sirius XM, Ben Miner, JFL , the CBC, CTV or the Junos. Well I can tell you what It probably would make the establishment look like . It was conveniently ignored and swept under the rug. Chanty was the poster child of diversity, inclusion and equity in Canadian Comedy. An investigation would bring out more skeletons.
Matt was never issued an apology, Sirius XM never was investigated, the Juno's have never been audited as It should have done 2 years ago. Chanty Marostica quickly disappeared from social media, avoiding any social accountability and all discourse involving Chanty was erased; business continued as usual.
A business that supports pageantry over merit, identity politics over what is funny or truth.
At the end of 2019, Matt never got his vindication or acknowledgement for his pain from any of his peers or from the comedy institutions. Matt Billion had friends who worked in the Comedy industry who could have broken the silence, but non of them choose to do so..
last August I help write an article for the Quilette to help clear Matt's name and to systematically describe the structures of corruption in Canadian Comedy (Article on the Bottom). It was the first major publication of its kind detailing how and why behavior like this is prominent. We sent it to every newspaper and outlet. We sent it to the CBC, Ctv, the Junos, Sirus XM ect.... all fell on deaf ears as they've all have written glowing reviews and pieces of Marostica, most of which are still up and available online and on Youtube. By ignoring the elephant in the room, they can pretend it never happened at all. Business as usual.
In my research, I've interviewed dozens of comedians who've been ostracized and silenced by their community, often disproportionately or for no cause at all. They speak with a raw pain in their voices. Many of them have symptoms of post traumatic stress and relive their wounds again and again. These conversations are usually furtive, because public acknowledgement of the bullying will only earn more abuse. There is no justice, no accountability, not even a basic recognition that harm has been done.
Matt was different. He generally loved everyone and didn't speak much ill, not even of Chanty. But when I interviewed him he was honest regarding what happened and spoke very coolly, which is atypical for a canceled comedian.
But when we talked about his friends in comedy not defending his character, he voice betrayed him. For a small moment, you could hear a muffled scream suppressed in the back of his voice.
"My collogues, my fellow comedians,
they abandoned me.
They're cowards!"
I often hear those words when I'm alone, writing.
I'm not angry at Chanty Marostica but I'm outraged by the flagrant behavior of people like Chanty. I'm outraged with the institutions and people to enable behavior like this and it tortures me.
To speak out is to be made a target.
We have a duty to truth.
“Silence in the face of evil is itself evil: God will not hold us guiltless. Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act.”
― Dietrich Bonhoeffer
I'm furious. I am mad. I am tortured. I'm often in pain because of how hopeless it seems at times trying to express temperance to this insanity. .
My heart is with Matt, his friends and his family but it does not salve my outrage regarding this flagrant corruption and nepotism and fraud. I’m scared that if we’re unable to bring light to these matters, that the world may spiral into greater darkness ? I'm scared of being pushed into that dark.
I have good evidence suggesting that the Juno's and Sirius XM comedy awards are divorced from merit, choosing diversity, inclusion and equity as one of their main criterion for artistic success; not merit. This leads to creating an environment that is homogeneous, intolerant individualism and unfair. Like Chanty Marostica, Comedians and artists who follow in chanties footsteps are rewarded.
I invite you to look up Chanty Marostica's album and that of all recent Juno and Sirius Xm nominees and winners. Most of them are unequivocally banal, unfunny, unprovocative, unprofane and unprofound; resembling the out of the mill blasé CBC comedy junk lack any commercial viability or audience.
I often get rebutted with, isn’t comedy subjective? No it's not, not entirely. Funny is when there's a violation in ones expectations, it's when we make the absurd mundane and the mundane absurd. Comedy always lives within the realm of truth and if we're not able to speak it, then we've failed at our vocation.
That's my opinion.
Why don’t you look at Chantys work and come up with your own ?
I would like Matt Billon to get his vindication
I want justice.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cfFZaVJ-XsU
This is a video interview of Matt Billon from last year, describing what had happened to him. This video was originally shelved to prevent additional ire from the scene. This is the article I helped write, featuring Matt Billon. It's about the prevalent nepotism and bullying in the Canadian Comedy Industry.
If this matters to you, please read our full article
This is our article about Matt and cancel culture realesed August 2021. Everything in it is peer review and fact checked.
This is a little video I made in the memory of Matt
Corruption abhors a light.
100
The Issue
If you want to make a difference, please sign and share this petition.
On November 24th,2021, a famous and well loved Canadian comedian by the name of Matt Billon hung himself. Despite this, very few comedians are willing to talk about the elephant in the room, that he was shunned and canceled by our own community for 3 years for something he was innocent of.
Matt was 42 years old
He had been in comedy close to 20 years.
To question this would knock over a house of cards; implicating a system of endemic corruption, fraud, pageantry and nepotism:
The things that Matt faced were frankly both unethical and immoral. I believe the focus should be directed to what happened opposed to who's responsible. If you are someone that believes in punishment then go ahead and go after those you feel deserve it, but I on the other hand would rather ensure that for the future these types of events do not happen again.
I hope that a supportive and open place for comedy exists and can be something that is protected and made so that all comedians and people in the industry can feel at home ,regardless of where they came from. That accusations require proof and due process before we take on the zeal of the mob.
I wish that we can talk to each other and discover the truth without resorting to hysteria.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
In the words of a friend of Matts.
"Matt Billon was the kindest to all new and senior comedians. He had the love and respect from all the top pros as a great worker and a genuinely great guy to be around.
Horrible loss for stand up comedy.
And for real. Fuck all the fakes that turned their backs to him or even went out of their way to ruin his career, and now giving loving eulogies like you really cared. Stand up is full of the most spineless backstabbing cowards and Matt stood out amongst all of you for having integrity and kindness and professionalism."
I too am outraged by many of these backstabbing eulogies.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Matt came runner for the Sirus XM Top Comic in 2015. This guaranteed him a prime spot for the JFL Gala. Matt was unable to attend due to health reasons but was guaranteed by Ben Miner(SIrusXMTopComic) and the [Redacted] that he could get it whenever he was ready.
He never got his Gala.
Matt also told me that the year he came runner up, he won the popular vote but was denied access to look at the judges cards. He thought it was very strange.
Chanty Marostica on the other hand won the Sirus XM Top Comic in 2018 and would also win 2 Canadian comedy awards as well as a Juno Nomination. This would in effect make Chanty one of the most decorated comedians in Canada.
In February 2019, Billon was headlining a show with Marostica at the Hubcap Comedy Festival in Moncton, New Brunswick. He ran into Marostica before taking the stage, and made a point of congratulating them on their recent SiriusXM win.
During his headliner set, Billon made a lighthearted joke about trans athletes and how their inclusion was going to make women’s sports more exciting—a joke Billon had told plenty of times before, including in front of Tommy Chong who was present at the festival and a crowd of (appreciative) queer audiences.
"I'm excited for transsexuals finally being accepted into prime time sports, it means that that the WNBA ....is finally going to be watchable"
When he returned to the comics’ table backstage, Marostica had already departed, leaving a handwritten note informing Billon that they (i.e., Marostica) were trans and was devastated by the joke.
"Matt you asshole
I'm trans
Chanty"
By the time he’d finished his second set, Billon’s Facebook page was flooded with accusations of transphobia, following on Marostica’s social-media call out of Billon as a bigot.
He repeatedly tried to reach out to Marostica, offering to have a private conversation, or even a public discussion. He also tried to apologize for hurting their feelings. But as is usually the case in such controversies, these gestures only made the public attacks worse.
Billon received private messages expressing support—including from members of the queer community in Winnipeg, Marostica’s home town—telling him that this kind of behavior was typical of Marostica, and that he had done nothing wrong. In public, however, the silence was deafening. According to Billon, none of his fellow comedians stood up to defend his character. It was the cowardice of his friends and colleagues that hurt most, he later told me.
Matt said that what was hardest was having his fellow comedians abandon him during that time.
“None of his fellow comedians stood up to defend his character. It was the cowardice of his friends and colleagues that hurt most”-life of a comedian can be hard and brutal- article.
Chanty had a history of histrionics and has cancelled several male comedians, all of whom had done little with no evidence of malice. It would include Comedians Boyd Bank and Hunter Collins also over similarly innocent incidents. All three of the people who Chanty had cancelled had similar reputations, they were secure in themselves, well liked, funny and popular in the community .
I interviewed Matt for an article in July.(Article at the Bottom) We hoped that the article would bring Matt vindication and justice. We received a lot of positive support and thanks from around the world. Despite that, we received no public acknowledgement from anyone in in the Canadian comedy industry as it seemed to close to the nose.
He told me that Ben Miner and the JFL booker were polite but illusive as to when he would get his JFL gala spot; he asked if was about the Chanty incident , they casually dismissed that notion. It was only later that he heard that the JFL booker was in full support of Chanties attacks on social media.
But in October 2019, it was revealed that Chanty Marositca was involved in multiple sexual misconduct allegations with several female comedians.
Not everyone agreed to keep Marostica’s downfall out of public view, however. One video about the claims against the comedian has been viewed almost 800,000 times (making it several orders of decimal magnitude
more popular than Marostica’s actual comedy).
This was the work of the taboo-busting Montreal duo known as Aba & Preach—aka comedian Aba Atlas and Erich “Preach” Étienne who revealed the story to the world. Atlas also criticizes the growth of so-called “safe space” comedy rooms, which promise comedians an environment free of sexist jokes and other forms of retrograde humor. Atlas noted that these venues, paradoxically, can become breeding grounds for predation by engendering a false sense of security; and by allowing abusers to virtue signal as a means to address the cognitive dissonance created by their own wrongdoing (a phenomenon known in psychology, more broadly, as “self-licensing”). The video ends with a call to action directed at the media organizations that had been giving Marostica so much positive attention:
"I want all the big media outlets … CBC Radio, CTV—all the ones who’ve been putting Chanty up, all the time, as some kind of icon and role model for us to follow—I want you guys to come out and say something about this too, right? You guys want to take the time to bash Louis C.K. because he’s on a big platform, but what happens when one of your own is engaged in far more egregious forms of abuse? Everybody wants to be self-righteous, but nobody wants to look at themselves and their own behaviour.”
Despite their video reaching over 800 thousand view, this scandal was not reported by any mainstream Canadian or comedic journalistic body, of course until my article in the Quillete last August.
Well why you may ask? Because any investigation would render Chanty's comedic and moral authority moot as well as to those who granted them their powers. When we examine Chanty's comedy, it's mediocre at best and is undeserving of the top awards. At lease Louie C.K was funny and still he didn't sexually assault anyone.
Chanty's meteoric rise was in large part due to diversity, inclusion and equity policies that fraudulently license them to the status of "made man", making chanty untouchable. That was up until their own allegations came to light.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OiClXLot3BA&t=1s
I invite you to look at Chanties Comedy Video's and the comments in the comment section.
I am a fan of all comedic arts, Chanties work is at at best, cringe worthy.
Why was it never acknowledged by Sirius XM, Ben Miner, JFL , the CBC, CTV or the Junos. Well I can tell you what It probably would make the establishment look like . It was conveniently ignored and swept under the rug. Chanty was the poster child of diversity, inclusion and equity in Canadian Comedy. An investigation would bring out more skeletons.
Matt was never issued an apology, Sirius XM never was investigated, the Juno's have never been audited as It should have done 2 years ago. Chanty Marostica quickly disappeared from social media, avoiding any social accountability and all discourse involving Chanty was erased; business continued as usual.
A business that supports pageantry over merit, identity politics over what is funny or truth.
At the end of 2019, Matt never got his vindication or acknowledgement for his pain from any of his peers or from the comedy institutions. Matt Billion had friends who worked in the Comedy industry who could have broken the silence, but non of them choose to do so..
last August I help write an article for the Quilette to help clear Matt's name and to systematically describe the structures of corruption in Canadian Comedy (Article on the Bottom). It was the first major publication of its kind detailing how and why behavior like this is prominent. We sent it to every newspaper and outlet. We sent it to the CBC, Ctv, the Junos, Sirus XM ect.... all fell on deaf ears as they've all have written glowing reviews and pieces of Marostica, most of which are still up and available online and on Youtube. By ignoring the elephant in the room, they can pretend it never happened at all. Business as usual.
In my research, I've interviewed dozens of comedians who've been ostracized and silenced by their community, often disproportionately or for no cause at all. They speak with a raw pain in their voices. Many of them have symptoms of post traumatic stress and relive their wounds again and again. These conversations are usually furtive, because public acknowledgement of the bullying will only earn more abuse. There is no justice, no accountability, not even a basic recognition that harm has been done.
Matt was different. He generally loved everyone and didn't speak much ill, not even of Chanty. But when I interviewed him he was honest regarding what happened and spoke very coolly, which is atypical for a canceled comedian.
But when we talked about his friends in comedy not defending his character, he voice betrayed him. For a small moment, you could hear a muffled scream suppressed in the back of his voice.
"My collogues, my fellow comedians,
they abandoned me.
They're cowards!"
I often hear those words when I'm alone, writing.
I'm not angry at Chanty Marostica but I'm outraged by the flagrant behavior of people like Chanty. I'm outraged with the institutions and people to enable behavior like this and it tortures me.
To speak out is to be made a target.
We have a duty to truth.
“Silence in the face of evil is itself evil: God will not hold us guiltless. Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act.”
― Dietrich Bonhoeffer
I'm furious. I am mad. I am tortured. I'm often in pain because of how hopeless it seems at times trying to express temperance to this insanity. .
My heart is with Matt, his friends and his family but it does not salve my outrage regarding this flagrant corruption and nepotism and fraud. I’m scared that if we’re unable to bring light to these matters, that the world may spiral into greater darkness ? I'm scared of being pushed into that dark.
I have good evidence suggesting that the Juno's and Sirius XM comedy awards are divorced from merit, choosing diversity, inclusion and equity as one of their main criterion for artistic success; not merit. This leads to creating an environment that is homogeneous, intolerant individualism and unfair. Like Chanty Marostica, Comedians and artists who follow in chanties footsteps are rewarded.
I invite you to look up Chanty Marostica's album and that of all recent Juno and Sirius Xm nominees and winners. Most of them are unequivocally banal, unfunny, unprovocative, unprofane and unprofound; resembling the out of the mill blasé CBC comedy junk lack any commercial viability or audience.
I often get rebutted with, isn’t comedy subjective? No it's not, not entirely. Funny is when there's a violation in ones expectations, it's when we make the absurd mundane and the mundane absurd. Comedy always lives within the realm of truth and if we're not able to speak it, then we've failed at our vocation.
That's my opinion.
Why don’t you look at Chantys work and come up with your own ?
I would like Matt Billon to get his vindication
I want justice.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cfFZaVJ-XsU
This is a video interview of Matt Billon from last year, describing what had happened to him. This video was originally shelved to prevent additional ire from the scene. This is the article I helped write, featuring Matt Billon. It's about the prevalent nepotism and bullying in the Canadian Comedy Industry.
If this matters to you, please read our full article
This is our article about Matt and cancel culture realesed August 2021. Everything in it is peer review and fact checked.
This is a little video I made in the memory of Matt
Corruption abhors a light.
100
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Petition created on January 21, 2022