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RIP, Dapper Laughs
Other | Monday 10th November 2014 | lenjibong
"If she cries, she’s just playing hard to get" reads one of Dapper’s celebrated lines seen in one of his many Youtube or Vine videos. Dapper Laughs, real name Daniel O'Reilly has recently been making a name for himself for his controversial approach to the age-old act of courting to the amusement of some and the vexation of others. He plays a Jack-the-lad type who cracks wise at all things sexual, apparently appealing to the ordinary bloke who loves a good ol' chat-up line and a bit of banter down the local boozer.
His risqué humour often falls back on the cockney tinged line line: ‘proper moist’, where he summarises his recent success at seducing women on the street in a selfie-styled vid. Whilst he brushes this off as a necessary act of boundary-pushing and risk taking for comedians in a recent tweet, his unsavoury words have left a sour taste in the mouths of many.
Recent comments such as the one directed at a female audience member where she was accused of being “gagging for a rape” at a London show sparked a backlash of criticism. Following the news that ITV were going to give him his own TV show, this inevitably riled feminists and keyboard warriors alike to bite back at Dapper.
His vast presence on social media platforms that includes 2 million Facebook users and 363 thousand twitter followers at the time of writing, proved simply too tempting for ITV. The show entitled: “Dapper Laughs: On The Pull” portrays his brand of “proper laddish” behaviour whereby he aims to help insecure men to achieve happiness through learning how to pull birds.
This 'comedian' has also recently come under fire for attempting to raise money for the homeless charity, Shelter. Despite promising that a portion money from his album sales will go to helping the homeless, throughout the album O'Reilly is woefully offensive to the very people he is ostensibly trying to help. This PR stunt could not have gone any worse, with Shelter releasing a statement outlining their plans to refuse donations from Dapper Laughs. This worked in the charity's favour, with donations increasing by 100% in the 24 hours after the release of the statement.
This has all culminated in a petition through Change to cancel his show: “Dapper Laughs: On The Pull”. After receiving a whopping 68,210 signatures in a matter of days, the petition successfully pressured ITV into dropping plans for a second series.
In an unprecedented turn of events, O'Reilly speaking on BBC Newsnight, has decided that he doesn't want to carry on with Dapper Laughs, that 'Dapper Laughs is no more.' In full repenting mode, he told viewers that he hadn't realised how much offense he had caused until this week, where in the space of four days, his ITV show was pulled, his tour was cancelled and his album was taken off Spotify.
But what's next for Daniel O'Reilly? Despite it being for all the wrong reasons, the comedian formerly known as Dapper Laughs is creating a huge media buzz and it would be folly to assume that he and his PR company will not capitalize on this. Although it pains us to say it, we predict he will be coming to a crappy reality TV show near you in the not-too-distant future.
