- Anthony Jeselnik says this in a podcast episode with Theo Vonn. He says it’s a quote attributed to Andy Warhol, but I think he’s misremembering a quote from [Marshall McLuhan](https://quoteinvestigator.com/2022/08/10/art-anything/), “Art is anything you can get away with,“ which is also the title to [[Padenom, Ardell - 2011 - Art is Anything You Can Get Away With|a blog post]] that explores that particular version of the quote. I mention that because I think Jeselnik is saying something slightly different here. - Anyway, his point was that art is supposed to *do a thing* — even if the ‘thing’ is specifically to do nothing (see that blog post again). If it doesn’t, you aren’t making art; you’re basically a hack. - Talking specifically about comedy, the goal and purpose is to make people laugh. If you tell a joke, regardless of the subject matter, and people aren’t laughing, you haven’t created art because you haven’t gotten away with it. Comedians who intentionally try to make people angry aren’t creating comedic art — they’re just trolling. - See also [[{2.6} poe’s law]] - archived [[2025-01-31]]