If you’re anything like me, you had one thing on your agenda last night to celebrate surviving the seventh predicted Rapture of our lifetimes: watching Jimmy Kimmel. I’ve done stand-up for years, and late-night comedy has been the balm on my soul through two Trump presidencies and three election seasons.
Comedians help us connect, see nuance and call a spade a spade. Studies show people are more likely to remember information when it’s delivered with humour, and shared laughter builds empathy across groups who don’t always see eye to eye. Humour rewires how we connect, and if there’s one thing this country could use right now, it’s a better way of connecting. Authoritarians go after jokes because they work, and they go after comedians because they’re afraid of the truth.
Authoritarianism comes in heartbreaking raids, horrible legislation and unconstitutional actions from complicit parties. But sometimes, it comes because well-intentioned people are afraid to say no. Disney could have, and should have, fought the calls to censor Kimmel immediately but they put their fear over their integrity, and consequentially, the First Amendment.
Late-night comedy only takes up a sliver of the media landscape. Advertising is what makes it possible: Every joke, monologue and interview on screen is subsidised by the commercials that run in between. Americans spend around 10.5 hours a day consuming media, and half of that time is with ad-supported platforms. Ads are the scaffolding holding the entire system up, and our fingerprints are all over how people see the world.
We need every faction of the media ecosystem—entertainment, news and advertising—to lock arms. Our company motto is “Those who create content, create culture. If that weren’t true, none of us would have jobs.” This is a pep talk for the creatives who want to use the ways that they create culture to fight back.
When authoritarian voices get louder, our work cannot get smaller. The only thing authoritarianism needs to keep growing is for people like us to shrink back the way Disney just did. They don’t need us to join them—they just need us to stay quiet.
After the Sydney Sweeney ad for American Eagle, Ash from Stuff About Advertising reminded us just how many opportunities there are for us to interrupt creative that could be problematic to turn it into something positive. We have a framework that talks about the small decisions every single one of us makes every day, and how that contributes to collective change that we call micro-inclusions. Just like microaggressions stitch the fabric of systemic oppression when unchecked, micro-inclusions do the opposite. Every intentional campaign, storyboard, casting choice and media buy contributes to the version of reality people carry in their heads.
I’m not an expert in fighting fascism, but I am an expert in fighting shareholders who’d rather look the other way when their 'creativity' harms marginalised communities, specifically people with disabilities. The only thing that works is the persistence of speaking truth to power, over and over again, even when your voice shakes.
It’s natural to feel afraid of making suggestions that may ruffle some feathers. Whether that’s with your internal teams, client pitches or publicly standing your ground when you’re being pressured against speaking the truth, it would be weird to not be afraid. I’m scared of writing this article right now. My hand and a half are shaking.
Purple Hearts are given to the veterans who risked their personal safety for the greater good, not people who stayed quiet and never made waves. Real bravery doesn’t feel like what it looks like in movies. It feels like your palms are sweating in a client meeting, or your stomach flips right before you raise your hand to push back on something that feels off. It doesn’t feel heroic when you’re doing it, it feels terrifying.
So how do you practice that kind of bravery inside creative work?
1. Get in community. Fear shrinks when you’re not standing alone. We’ve been conditioned to believe politics don’t belong in polite conversation, but what we’re talking about isn’t politics—it’s civil and human rights. Find the colleague with a Black Lives Matter sticker on their laptop, or someone who has spoken up for their trans coworkers, or someone who’s asked the right questions about disability access in a campaign. Those are your people. Grab lunch together, and ask them to hold you accountable to speak up. Support them as they need to debrief after saying the hard thing in a meeting.
2. Listen to real people’s stories. We are storytellers at our core, but in order to tell stories well, we have to listen to them first. About a month ago I was standing with my husband at a local brewery for Peggy Flanagan’s Senate race, sobbing, while listening to neighbour after neighbour tell their stories. Good policy, local organising and community support had transformed their lives and hearing them reminded me that people are still fighting back, even when it feels impossible. They want us to feel defeated, but we are not.
3. Use humour. We don’t see eye to eye on everything, and this is the understatement of the decade. But humour has a way of lowering defences that facts alone can’t. When we can punch up at systems that harm us all instead of sideways at each other, we start to hear one another again. We start to recognise the absurdity of what divides us, and we find the common ground that oppression tries so hard to erase.
4. Celebrate the fear. That tightness in your throat is proof you’re pointing your influence in the right direction. Bravery feels like you’re going to puke if you’re doing it right. If it feels scary, that means it matters. Start with one small brave step, and then celebrate it! Reward yourself for small acts of bravery, and the big acts will seem a lot less scary.
Don’t let your influence shrink because you’re scared. Use it.
One of the most telling parts of Kimmel's return to me last night wasn’t the ways in which he called out the alarming amount of censorship, but how emotional he got when he spoke about his friends, allies and people who supported him over the past six days. He’s one of the most famous comedians in the world, and even he still needed support to do this.
So lock arms with the people in your office, your teams, your clients, your communities. If you’ve ever doubted your influence, remember that if our work wasn’t powerful, nobody would be trying so hard to censor it. When we work together, we are still one of the strongest forces left for nonviolent resistance. Our ads, our shows, our stories and our choices shape culture.
If culture is the fight, then creativity is one of the most powerful weapons.
Kelsey Lindell is the founder and CEO of Misfit Media.
