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Comedian Ronny Chieng Warns Of Coronavirus Bullying
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Just as the coronavirus was spreading worldwide, comedian and The Daily Show correspondent Ronny Chieng was landing in Australia for a visit. He had a cough and was coming from another country, so he was considered “high risk” and immediately got tested. Don’t worry, he’s negative, but he's still locked down under (watch his bit with The Daily Show host Trevor Noah above).
That’s where Chieng was when Take Two host A Martinez called him up to discuss his Netflix special Asian Comedian Destroys America, which was taped at the Alex Theater in Glendale in September 2019. That may feel like a different era, but Chieng’s jokes have new resonance today with riffs on Asian stereotypes and how the internet makes people stupid.
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Take, for example, all the misinformation on the web about COVID-19 and retweets of President Trump calling it the "Chinese virus":
"Look, there’s adults here, but there’s also a lot of kids in this country — a lot of Asian kids in this country — who, they don’t know what’s going on. They literally woke up one morning and suddenly there’s a new thing that they’re being teased about. And I’m not talking about light-hearted teasing, whatever that means. I’m talking about this thing is something that can affect them growing up. We should think about those people. If we don’t care about the adults anymore, at least think about the kids, right?"
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