Fallon is the court jester of the Anthropocene, a figure who invites us to watch celebrities play parlor games on stage while the air outside the studio begins to smell of tear gas and smoke. In Fallon’s sterile loop of viral repetition comes the final victory of the commodity over human beings—a world where even our laughter is outsourced to the demands of the algorithm. You don’t even need jokes anymore. All you need is to say something that sounds like it could be a joke, and the hollow laughter will come.
The true loss with Colbert being forced off the air after this week is the sincerity that comes with his show and can’t really be found anywhere else. Colbert has the ability to ask the question and know when to let his guests speak, last night he asked Steven Spielberg about how he’s changed as a director and the answer was something you really won’t find on the other shows. As for the rest, Kimmel is fine, Seth always seems kind of uncertain, and Fallon, well, he’s just deeply unfunny to the point it makes me uncomfortable.