The picture says it all, really. Holla.

To be honest, I don’t really give a shit about Dane Cook. Whenever I came across one of his performances on Comedy Central or HBO (which happened often, because his taped gigs and his on tour reality show Tourgasm continue to get heavy rotation on cable television), I’d watch for a few minutes, develop a mild irritation / low-grade loathing, then simply change the channel. My feelings about him, though vaguely negative, were alway imprecise, unformed. I never bothered to ask why, but then Heather Havrilesky, my favorite columnist from the halcyon Suck days (nom de plume Polly Esther), crystallized it for me when she wrote:

From his sloppy college kid look to his avoidance of anything political, cultural or remotely critical, Cook aims at appealing to those vast numbers of kids who haven’t really developed any interests yet, and are most of all focused on having fun with a big group of people. While Seinfeld or Rock or Carlin or Miller react against the world, working themselves into a lather over just how idiotic and bizarre other people’s behavior is, Cook’s stories all boil down to the most familiar, relatable experiences he’s had. His humor doesn’t require even a glance at the wider world; it strengthens the bonds within a homogenous group. “Isn’t it crazy when you…” or “How weird is it when…” By celebrating the myopia of the young, Cook has become the hottest comedian around.

Not only is his comedy opaque and totally uninteresting, but he’s an embodiment (or worse, a stereotype that turns out to be real) of common denominator imbecility masquerading as embracing accessibility. He’s the dumb kid in class who’s acts a clown and sticks pins on the teacher’s seat and ‘kick me’ stickers on people’s backs and adores the adoration he receives from his snickering comrades but is still in the end too dumb to know he’s dumb. The dumb kid who thinks he’s a riot whose antics are now amplified by television and loved afar by a country of feeble-minded fans who feel they are all in on the same big, dumb, unfunny joke.

Polly — err, I mean Heather Havrilesky – slams the overhyped and overrated pseudo-comedic buffoon in Salon here.