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In This Issue

• loving miss maple
• iTouch [Myself]
• Babies Compete for Brangelina's Affection
• Toshing It Around with Daniel Tosh
• CCSC Proposes Species-Neutral Housing
• "Frozen" Director Warms Up to The Fed
• The Belgian Corner
• Extension Emails: What I Wrote vs. What It Meant
• Ergonomic Sex Tips for the Female Engineer
• the morning after
• hipster in cc
• They Watch
• Letter From the Feditors
• The Staff of the Federalist

My interview with Daniel Tosh began like most things in my life: an epic failure. After having several issues with my phone and almost missing the interview entirely, I finally got on the line to announce "Jesus Christ! I had a problem with my mute button." Tosh replied, "yes, phones can be very complicated." I indicted my femininity for my technological ineptness, but Tosh confessed that he only pretended to be a misogynist on air, while in reality, women run his career. I guess that explains his success.

Daniel Tosh, a 34-year-old comedian, is the host of Tosh.0, a television series on Comedy Central that showcases Internet video clips. Basically, Tosh stands in front of a green screen and presents viral videos... so, "Web Soup." But Tosh-as compared to Chris Hardwick-has a biting sense of humor that leaves no one safe. The basis of Tosh's humor is that he doesn't take stand-up seriously-comedy is comedy, and good jokes are almost always offensive. According to Tosh, "People only get offended by jokes that impact them." Black people can tell black jokes, but if a white person tells a black joke, he's automatically a racist. However, Daniel Tosh is an equal opportunity comedian. Within one episode of Tosh.0, Tosh can hit all the bases: white jokes, black jokes, women jokes, Asian jokes, hick jokes, and so on. However, like his admission about his misogyny, Tosh says that "racial comedy is some of the funniest stuff, as long as it's not actually told by a racist. As long as you do it in an original way and it's funny, I think people are open to it."

Tosh.0 is composed of various segments, such as "Web Redemptions," "Video Breakdown," and "Viewer Clip of the Week," amongst random mash-ups like "Asians Doing Christopher Walken Impressions," and "Above Average Girls Making Animal Noises." While the latter two are self-explanatory, the main segment of the show, the weekly "Web Redemption," is a clip where Tosh gives people who majorly fucked up on the Internet a chance to redeem themselves. Amongst his most famous redemptions are the Nintendo-64 kid, Miss South Carolina, the crying Giants fan, and the Risky Business Girls. Tosh admits that his favorite Redemption was the one he gave the Afro Ninja, mainly because he filmed the segment prior to landing a contract with Comedy Central. "It was heartfelt. We took a guy from the Internet and gave him a chance to redeem himself. I cared more about him and wanted to know this guy's back- story. It also led to me getting a TV show."

With a TV show, however, comes heavy censorship. And though censors keep Tosh from doing exactly what he wants to, he knows it's just "everybody covering their asses from getting sued." He even jokes about the censorship, acknowledging the drinking games that have inevitably arisen from the amount of times he gets beeped per episode. Sometimes he even helps out by going on thirty-second swearword rants. Despite this censorship (they beeped out "smear-the-queer," which absolutely baffled Tosh), Tosh still manages to keep it real on air. In "Pic of the Week," Tosh chooses a photo to "post" comments about, where he has twenty seconds to be as scathing as he possibly can. His comments on a clip of numerous Asians being packed onto a train car by station conductors: "Hey! At least they're not driving. Excuse me, sir, would you mind pulling out? This is my stop. I can't get over how calm everybody is with being pushed. I pushed my niece once on a subway platform and everyone freaked out."

Tosh's comedy is divorced from politics. As he focuses mostly on unknown people, he is cornering an area of the market that is completely untouched by television. However, he also rags on celebrities (Heidi and Spencer, Demi Moore's massive bush, Dane Cook, etc.), because honestly, who can resist? When Tosh was asked which viral video star he would pick to be his roommate, he replied, "I'd have to say Christian Bale because I like my apartment dark and he seems to get upset whenever the lights are turned on. And because if I ever get kidnapped, who better than Batman to find me?"

Tosh never imagined his show would be so successful, but the first season averaged over a million viewers per episode. When asked what he wanted the viewers to take away from the show, Tosh replied, "nothing...I just want people to laugh."

Tosh.0 is currently in its second season. You can catch new episodes Wednesday nights at 10:30 PM on Comedy Central.