Sure, Newspaper Chain Is Laying Off Hundreds Of People, But *What About The Dilbert Guy*?

Isn't he who really matters here?

Lee Enterprises — a media company based in Davenport, Iowa, that owns newspapers and other publications in 77 small markets across the country, largely in the South, Midwest, and mountain West — is on track to lay off about 400 people this year as part of a plan to make $45 million in cuts to their operating costs.

Also as part of their operating costs, they decided this week to make significant cuts to the funny pages, including making several of the comics they were previously carrying available only in their online editions and not in print. These comics included " Brewster Rocket: Space Guy!, Sally Forth, Blondie, Wumo, Shoe, Beetle Bailey, Jump Start, Dilbert, Wallace the Brave, Zits, Breaking Cat News, Judge Parker, Curtis, Dennis the Menace, The Family Circus, Mr. Boffo and Ziggy ."

Unsurprisingly, Dilbert Guy Scott Adams has gone and made this all about him and how the real reason Lee decided to get rid of "Dilbert" is because it is not "woke" enough and because it has criticized ESG (environmental, social, and corporate governance), a framework that is pretty much just intended to encourage corporations to become relatively less terrible about everything and to help potential investors figure out if a company is going to get sued into oblivion for at some point in the near future for discrimination or trying to murder the environment and what have you.

“The timing of Dilbert getting cancelled by 77 newspapers (one large chain) is probably a coincidence.”

— Scott Adams (@Scott Adams) 1663765656 

When many people pointed out that his was not the only comic to be moved online, Adams said that someone had to make the choices and they chose to get rid of Dilbert , so therefore it was probably for this reason.

The Daily Mail also reported that Dilbert was being "canceled" for "incorporating anti-woke politics, including a black character who identifies as white" who was asked if he could also identify as "gay" in order to up their ESG rating. They also included a description of one of Adams's recent "anti-woke" strips.

In another of his anti-woke comics, one boss told workers: 'We are replacing traditional performance reviews with a wokeness score assigned by human resources.'

They explain the idea that 'the more woke you are, the more you will get paid.'

But one confused worker buts in, saying: 'That feels too subjective.'

And the boss bites back: 'That'll cost you two points off your wokeness score, bigot.'

While this might go over really well as a 4chan edgelord greentext story , it might not resonate with people who are not extremely online, regardless of their political affiliation. The same could be said for much of Adams's recent work, which has been primarily focused on the many ways in which the political Left is evil, as opposed to Garfield, which appears to still be about a cat who is lazy and very much enjoys lasagna.

This is not the first time this has "happened" to Scott Adams, tragically enough. In 2020 he announced on Twitterthat despite having previously said that his "Dilbert" television show got canceled for low ratings, it was actually canceled because UPN decided they wanted to "focus on an African-American audience." 

“@ahmedbest I lost my TV show for being white when UPN decided it would focus on an African-American audience. That was the third job I lost for being white. The other two in corporate America. (They told me directly.)”

— Ahmed BEst (@Ahmed BEst) 1593381801 

This is of course why, the very next season, they picked up Buffy The Vampire Slayer and Roswell .

Adams claimed then that he was also fired from two whole jobs in corporate America just for being white, and was in fact told this at the time. They said, "Sorry Scott Adams, but we are going to have to fire you for being white, no white people are allowed to work here anymore, at this large corporation in the United States of America at some point before the year 1995 " directly to his face and it was a real thing that happened in real life.

He then asked white men to share their own stories of being fired just for being white men.

“This gentleman believes white males have not been directly discriminated against in employment by large corporations. He believes my accounts of it happening to me are lies or exaggerations. White males, tell your stories in the comments if you dare.”

— Scott Adams (@Scott Adams) 1663767424 

Perhaps he should use his magical powers as a "persuasion" expert to start "persuading" people to end at-will employment so that employers would be required to only fire people for "just cause." That way, they'd never be able to fire another white man just for being a white man again. Boy, would that show us!

Hell, if he really wanted to take on "ESG" he would start pushing the government to implement actual regulations on corporations instead of just letting them do whatever they want until someone sues them over it.

In an interview with Fox News on the subject, Adams (who is reportedly worth approximately $75 million ) said that the cancellation has dealt him a "significant" financial blow. Pretty rude of Lee not to fire just a few more staffers (as long as they are not white men) so that they could keep ol' Dilbert around.

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