Amy Schumer and Hannibal Buress nail the problem with Internet trolls

BY LAURA DONOVAN

Lovable Broad City star Hannibal Buress’s new series Why? With Hannibal Buress premiered Wednesday and highlighted many current societal issues including police brutality against the black community and Internet harassment. In Buress’s trolling segment, fellow Comedy Central host Amy Schumer portrays a vicious troll.

At the beginning of the segment, Buress tells audience members that he’s been menaced nonstop by an online user named Hannibal_Hater@NotAFannibal, who says Buress is “a less funny Tavis Smiley,” and should kill himself.

Buress mentions that he found the user’s IP address and films himself going over to the individual’s house, which has a beat-up car outside. When Buress enters the home, he is stunned to realize the troll is explosively popular Schumer.

Comedy Central

“What it sounds like [is] you’re not really angry at me, you’re mad at yourself and you have some demons,” Buress says. “Not big demons, but maybe some small demons. You just have some stuff going on inside of you that you’re dealing with, it’s not really personal [or] about me.”

Hannibal on trolls #WhyHannibal pic.twitter.com/XG2b2NaTiF

— comedycentral (@ComedyCentral) July 9, 2015

This comes a few months after Buress was heckled at one of his comedy shows, prompting him to say to the heckler, “Why can’t you hold your liquor? Actually, I want to give you an excuse to be drunk, and not just a shitty, obnoxious human being. I’ve done shit when I was drunk. Not interrupt a show that 1,100 other people are watching. When I’m drunk I like to ruin one or two people’s nights … You sir are a social terrorist.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t0szBWlVnBk

Buress pointed out that the guy clearly wanted attention, which Buress himself has earned after more than a decade of hard work.

“You have a bigger need for attention that I do,” Buress said. “At least I worked at it and got on television … If you want attention, you have to do what I did and work really hard for 13 years.”

More from attn:

• How you’re probably helping cyberbullies—and how to stop
• If you’re a young woman, here’s exactly what you’re up against
• Here’s the powerful speech that helped remove the confederate flag

Screengrab via Comedy Central