Scott Douglas Jacobsen: Did we discuss enough about how parenting has changed and will continue to change as our culture shifts dramatically? That’s a significant issue. 

Rick Rosner: Throughout history, someone has always had to explain to a child who has reached sexual maturity how sex works, whether it’s their first experience or not. But now, there’s a debate about how much sexual information to provide and at what age—do you tell kids about sex early or wait for them to encounter the often horrible depictions of it on the Internet?

Or should we wait until they hear a blowjob reference on a sitcom and then ask you about it? I have no idea. My kid was born in 1995, and I probably don’t remember explaining the basics of sex to her. I let her watch Two and a Half Men, which didn’t discuss sex explicitly but showed that the guys are often scumbags. She was watching that at, what, around age 10? We also went to see Sandler movies like The Waterboy. She mentioned that some things in them traumatized her, even though there weren’t many sexual references.

Later, when she was a teenager, we’d watch movies sent as screeners—if you’re in the Writers Guild or one of the Entertainment Guilds, you get screeners to vote on them. We’d watch these films regardless of their ratings. We didn’t necessarily discuss every awkward moment when a sexual reference popped up on the DVR. Still, there’s so much more sexual information—and misinformation—out there now. It was even worse in 2010 when my kid was 15, and we watched a PG or R-rated movie nominated for a Writers Guild award. I’m unsure what the standard discourse was; there wasn’t one clear narrative. Frankly, I don’t have a definitive answer—I don’t know. Comments?

Do you think being a single guy and being a dad changes your sense of humour? For instance, consider how pornography is like Tetris: if you play Tetris for an hour, you still see the falling blocks when you walk away; your brain has been temporarily reprogrammed to see the world as blocky. It’s similar to porn. If you spend an hour watching porn, when you go back into the world, you might have difficulty not perceiving people as objects of sexual gratification or judgment. 

As a single guy, you’re bombarded with more sexual signals than family signals. Whether you’re desperate to get a girlfriend, gaming, or watching porn, you receive a lot more sexual messaging than you would if you were part of a family. In a traditional family setting, you work—zero hours a week—and then spend your remaining time with your family: eating meals together, attending church, and tending to your kids’ sporting events. There’s a lot of interaction and messaging from your family and society, although even that is now eroding; we’ve all seen entire families—parents, two or three kids, maybe a grandmother or an aunt—sitting together at a restaurant with everyone on their devices.

The signals you receive from your environment shape how you think about everything, including humour. When I was on Kimmel, I spent 60 hours a week brainstorming topical subjects to turn into jokes and bits. Some of that time was spent in a room with others tossing around ideas, and other times I was online. That was around 2002—barely past the Friendster era and perhaps even at the end of the Myspace era. The Internet wasn’t nearly as overwhelming as it is today. According to one study I looked up, the average social media user absorbs between 4,000 and 10,000 messages daily. 

That figure might be high—perhaps it’s more like 2,000—but it’s still far more than what my stepdad, who owned a small business in downtown Boulder, would receive from customers, friends, TV, and newspapers all day. Moreover, a family member gets more family interaction than a single guy. However, since my dad’s generation, everyone has experienced a relative erosion of family messaging in favour of social media.

Jacobsen: Do you think this has changed how messaging is targeted to men, women, straight couples, or gay couples? 

Rosner: There is a lot of targeted messaging, but it’s overwhelmed by the sheer volume of content on social media. It’s like with dogs—I’ve had several dogs in my life—and I’ve never known a dog whose behaviour was more determined by its sex than simply by being a dog. Social media junk is junk, regardless of how the algorithms target it. It’s the bombardment that matters more than the specifics of the algorithm.

Photo by Volodymyr Hryshchenko on Unsplash

Rick Rosner is an accomplished television writer with credits on shows like Jimmy Kimmel Live!, Crank Yankers, and The Man Show. Over his career, he has earned multiple Writers Guild Award nominations—winning one—and an Emmy nomination. Rosner holds a broad academic background, graduating with the equivalent of eight majors. Based in Los Angeles, he continues to write and develop ideas while spending time with his wife, daughter, and two dogs.

Scott Douglas Jacobsen is the publisher of In-Sight Publishing (ISBN: 978-1-0692343) and Editor-in-Chief of In-Sight: Interviews (ISSN: 2369-6885). He writes for The Good Men Project, The Humanist, International Policy Digest (ISSN: 2332-9416), Basic Income Earth Network (UK Registered Charity 1177066), A Free Inquiry, and other media. He is a member in good standing of numerous media organizations.

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