ÌÇÐÄvlog¹Ù·½Èë¿Ú

I’m 24, a native South Carolinian, I cover politics for a living, and I love comedy.

So by all accounts, I should love watching The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. But somewhere along the way, the punchlines started to sound like sermons. And I prefer my preaching on Sunday morning — not Friday night.

Horry County has been home to my family for generations, and out here comedy is as real as the traffic on 501 — chaotic, rough and alive. My grandfather was from Conway, so naturally he had a quick wit and a slow drawl, tossing out one-liners that had me (as a young child) asking my mom what he meant long after the room had already laughed and the joke had passed. Paw Paw helped provide some of my first taste of Southern humor — the kind that creeps up quietly, lands hard, and lingers long after it's told.

I used to watch late-night comedy all the time — Jimmy Fallon, Conan O’Brien, even the occasional Kimmel monologue. But somewhere along the way, I stopped tuning in. The shows began to feel stale, the jokes more predictable, and the spark that once made them electric slowly dimmed. What used to feel like honest, back porch-style conversations turned into polished promo stops, where every guest had something to sell and nothing real to say.

Colbert, Charleston’s poster child, was our guy. He was proof you could paddle up from Shem Creek to the main stage in Midtown Manhattan and still carry the Palmetto State’s flag. But as the years went by, and as the news broke in July of The Late Show being canceled next year, I didn’t mourn. I laughed. Not because Colbert’s not one of us, but because he forgot how to laugh like us.

Scroll through YouTube and you’ll find the old Colbert — the one from The Colbert Report — alive and well in digital amber. He was awesome. He delivered satire with the precision of a Charleston aristocrat and the bluntness of a Myrtle Beach carnie. He was brilliant, biting and completely in on the joke. Back then, he didn’t just talk politics — he danced with it, poked fun at it, turned it upside down and handed it back to you with an animated wink. He carried our state’s scrappy spirit to the entire country.

But somewhere between the desk upgrade and the expectable monologues about one man, the performance became a pulpit. The laugh lines hardened into applause lines. The Late Show wasn’t a satire of power anymore — it became a mouthpiece. The show got soft. Colbert traded his edge for sanctimonious rants and dancing with COVID-19 vaccine syringes. It was like watching an old shrimp boat captain trade his boat for a yacht and forgetting how to fish.

Maybe that’s what late-night television is now. But it’s not what made it special.

CBS says canceling The Late Show was "purely a financial decision," which makes sense on the surface. Late-night TV has taken a beating over the last decade — viewership is down, ad revenue has been nearly cut in half, from $439 million in 2018 to just $220 million in 2024. Streaming, social media and podcasts are pulling eyes and ears elsewhere.

But let’s not confuse the platform with the punchline. The appetite for comedy isn’t gone — it's just waiting for someone to serve it right. The millions who tuned out of late-night comedy didn’t stop appreciating humor — they just found better outlets. It’s like saying Myrtle Beach’s tourism scene is fading just because people aren’t comfortable hanging around Ocean Boulevard any longer. The people didn’t vanish; they just discovered a better scene.

Here in South Carolina, we like our humor with a little smoke and a lot of seasoning. We don’t mind if it stings — so long as it still makes us laugh. Colbert once understood that. He once embodied that. And maybe, when the cameras go dark next year, he’ll find his way back — not just to South Carolina, but to the kind of laughter that raised him.

Because down here, we don’t need another lecture. We just want a good joke, well told.