People Like James Frey

As long as they laugh it's not a lie.

Comedians get up, tell jokes. They write them, people read them, hear them. They laugh. Nobody gets upset. Someone stands up, says, "This happened to me," and they make you laugh. Is it any less funny if it didn't happen to them? If it didn't happen at all? Is it cleansed of its humor.

People like James Frey, we burn them at the stake. He wrote some words and prefaced them with, "This happened to me." Some of it didn't. Some of it did but not quite. What a crime. He got people invested. He got people caring. He got them to read.

Laughter is the price a comedian pays. Comedy, a joke, being funny, is hard, excruciating work. But we laugh, so it's light, it's laughs, it's funny. We don't care if it's made up. We don't care if it happened. But if we invest in something that isn't funny, and you say it happened, then it damn well better have, word for word, just like you said. Otherwise what was the point?

Make them laugh. As long as they laugh it's not a lie. It's all a joke.