Chris D’Elia, and Every Other Creepy Guy Ever
Last Tuesday night, just as I was about to go to sleep, I checked Twitter one last time. An otherwise-normal bedtime routine became an hours-long affair because of a tweet from Simoné Rossi (@girlpowertbh). The tweet, which is below, called out the “ironic” choice to cast comedian Chris D’Elia as a pedophile in season two of Netflix’s “You.”
Initially, I didn’t spend much time thinking about it. In fact, after I first read it, I hit like and kept scrolling, satisfied and unsurprised that someone else voiced the same feeling I always had about D’Elia — that he was super creepy. However, as he kept coming up on my timeline, I learned that “creepy” is an understatement for D’Elia.
I circled back to Simoné’s tweet, discovering that it was a thread that included screenshots of email conversations the two had when she was sixteen and he was thirty-four. The screenshots capture D’Elia asking Simoné where she lives and if they can meet up and “make out.”
Side note: ewwwww
The thread went viral and many other girls came forward to share their own receipts of uncomfortable private conversations with the comedian, finally voicing the anger that had been building up for years for plenty of them. These accounts, some anonymous, detailed the ways in which Chris D’Elia groomed, harassed and/or assaulted them. That same night, the owner of the Twitter account SheRatesDogs (@sheratesdogs) took on the daunting project of updating a thread of accusations submitted directly to her along with other tweets she found.
Her thread features countless screenshots of social media and text communication between D’Elia and girls ranging from underage to still way too young for him. According to those submissions, his actions included soliciting nude pictures, trying to get girls and young women to meet up with him, sexually assaulting them, and getting angry when they didn’t comply. SheRatesDogs sent a separate tweet on Wednesday morning, writing that at that point they had received “30 firsthand accounts, 100 other anonymous stories, video screen recordings, text/Snapchat/email/Instagram/Twitter screenshots, [and] corroboration from female comics, character witnesses from people who worked at venues,” at one point calling the submissions “endless” and apologizing to all the people she had not yet been able to get to.
Despite this overwhelming response of accusations and photo evidence against him, D’Elia denied the claims the following day, telling TMZ that he “never knowingly pursued underage women at any point.” No legal charges against him have been brought forward either.
D’Elia is the latest comedian to be accused of sexual misconduct, and while the stories are disgusting, they’re not unique. Unfortunately, way too many semi-famous mediocre men in Hollywood (and in life) feel that they are able to abuse and assault minors, with no one except their survivors themselves really attempting to stand in their way.
Despite the familiarity of this situation, it hit me differently. That night, I couldn’t put my phone down and go to sleep. I obsessively read every tweet and every story being shared. After I did get to bed, the first thing I did when I woke up Wednesday morning was open Twitter and type “Chris D’Elia” in the search bar to pick up reading where I left off.
This time was different in part because I’ve never felt closer to the girls themselves — teenagers who spend their time watching crappy stand-up comedians and tweeting about them. I can imagine the excitement I would feel if I got a response from one too. Simoné’s Twitter banner is also a Taylor Swift quote and her pinned tweet reveals that she was in a sorority and studied political science in college…so we’re basically the same person. I could easily have been friends with Simoné or even been her.
But I wasn’t. I’ve actually never even been a Chris D’Elia fan. That’s because when I was around fifteen years old and first saw some of his work, I got a bad feeling from him. Now, this wasn’t a this guy has definitely raped minors feeling, but it was a there’s something not right about him feeling.
This is a reaction I have frequently, and its something I imagine everyone feels at some point. Sometimes you meet someone or see their stand-up special and you think: I’m not quite sure why, but I get a bad vibe from them, and you let it inform further interactions with them. I experienced this when I watched Louis C.K. for the first time too, and I have it walking around my college campus.
And this is the biggest reason the Chris D’Elia accusations struck me; they were confirming something I already knew in a way, something I already felt for years — there’s something bad about this guy.
In addition to the many women coming forward sharing firsthand experiences with D’Elia, other women are coming forward saying the same thing I am: we always knew there was something wrong with that guy.
Comedian Lane Moore succinctly made the point, writing “who could’ve known Chris D’Elia was a creep other than anyone who’s ever looked at him or heard him say things” on Tuesday night. Another user @ginacperkins described an experience I’ve had with D’Elia and other artists, saying that despite giving him multiple chances, each time she watched D’Elia, she only further confirmed her initial feeling that he had “weird vibes” and wasn’t even funny enough to watch regardless.
She also shouts out an unproblematic fav, John Mulaney, whose comedy shows that you can be funny without being creepy, misogynistic, racist, etc.
If all of these people felt this way, how did D’Elia’s career last as long as it did? Some didn’t feel like they could speak up, while others were flat out ignored or, worse, attacked if they did voice this opinion. But, if my fifteen-year-old self had the instinct to not give this guy a platform, why didn’t the adults around him? It can’t be up to the young people of Twitter to protect against predatory old men.
Of course, some D’Elia fans are still coming to his defense, mostly by attacking the validity of the statements that have surfaced. I have a tendency to believe survivors of sexual violence (and also insane amounts of screenshot evidence), but regardless, I’m not exactly concerned with the legal implications of these accusations (not like his friend Neal Brennan is, anyway). I’m more concerned with how and why our culture gave someone like D’Elia a platform and career for so long.
I don’t think that my gut feeling should serve as any sort of evidence in D’Elia’s criminal conviction or even his public cancellation, because I’m no lawyer and cancellation comes down to a personal choice. I am saying that my feeling wasn’t (and usually isn’t) baseless and that we shouldn’t ignore our instincts.
Even at fifteen, I could tell that something was off. From then on, I didn’t support his work because I didn’t enjoy it, and when he popped up on my screen again in season two of Netflix’s “You,” my now 19-year-old-self saw that another person got the same feeling I did, casting him as the creep he is.
My point here is that we shouldn't have to wait for large numbers of young women and girls to tweet about their trauma in order to think critically about who we’re watching and trust our own instincts about the kind of people they are.
It should never have gotten to the point where D’Elia had years to take advantage of the young people who used to be his fans. If casual onlookers like myself are saying that we aren’t surprised and got bad impressions of him, chances are his behaviors weren’t so hidden, and that those around him really have no excuse to have not seen or stopped him.
When a comedian, a musician, an actor, or even a peer, gives you a bad feeling, explore it. It doesn’t mean always mean that the person will commit a crime, but it might signal that something is off. Even before being an officially-accused-bad-guy, D’Elia was always a creep, and plenty of people felt that way. Unfortunately, those impressions are silenced if shared or stubbornly ignored, and men like D’Elia’s crappy careers are defended more fiercely than they deserve to be.
But, what would have happened if in 2015, after I watched Louis C.K.’s Saturday Night Live monologue and voiced the red flags that he set off in my head, the boys in my class listened to me and reflected on my take? What would have happened if people who thought D’Elia was creepy felt like they should voice that opinion before these accusations came to light?
Potentially, these men would not have been so emboldened, but at a minimum, there would have been an existing discussion about them. Survivors wouldn’t have felt so isolated, so unable to share what happened. Plus, their creepiness translates to pretty bad comedy. As comedian Amy Miller pointed out, D’Elia was bad at his job, and this is partly because his off vibes made him unwatchable.
Of course, seeming creepy and actually assaulting girls and women (or anyone else) are different things, but being creepy still might not be something we want to promote or reward, and unfortunately, sometimes the two go hand in hand. I’m tired of raising criticism about a comic, or telling my friends that this guy in my Econ lecture gives me bad vibes and feeling crazy for making the statement or receiving vehement disagreement and dismissal just to see screenshots of inappropriate and manipulative text messages between the comic and a teenage girl or seeing the frat bro with his hands down some uncomfortable girl’s pants at a party.
Right now the pressure is on girls like Simoné to come forward, though they face threats and people who refuse to believe them, and the countless other women who see what’s going on but won’t be taken seriously until it’s too late. As writer Dana Schwartz pointed out in her tweet on the left, women and girls end up taking on so much responsibility in this situation. We’re forced to speak take on Twitter trolls and would genuinely benefit from the “union” Schwartz jokes about when unfunny and creepy men should never reach the status they do in the first place.
Since the D’Elia revelations, a new wave of men have been accused of sexual misconduct on Twitter (including Ansel Elgort, Justin Bieber, and Cole Sprouse — all of whom have denied the allegations against them), signaling that this union is materializing in some way.
We don’t need to defend and protect untalented and creepy men as some are defending D’Elia. I promise you comedy will be fine without him, and the world better and safer too. The young women and girls around you already know what’s going on, and they’re fighting for their own safety and future. All you have to do is listen.
