The reaction I've seen so far has been a mixture of praising Buress for his courage to saying that Buress is some desperate young comedian trying to make a name for himself.
To the latter - Hannibal Buress has had a really successful career for quite some time now. He's definitely "up there" in the stand-up world.
He really doesn't need to "make a name for himself".
With the former - it's a bit he's been performing for awhile now. It's less of him "making a statement", and more of him telling jokes - http://www.phillymag.com/ticket/2014/10/17/hannibal-buress-bill-cosby-rapist/#ZfGw7D5EsvUTRQ5l.01 has the full video clip of it.
It's not like this is some sudden revelation that he is shining a light into. People have known about Bill Cosby and these allegations for decades. It's not just a couple cases either, where you can say "Well, maybe his fame attracted people making all kinds of allegations against him" (which *does* happen to folks in the spotlight). There are quite a few of them, from the '70s and as recently as 2004.
I do think though that it says something interesting about how much society has changed, and the internet click-bait culture that someone can go to a show, take one thing that someone says in it, do a write up about it, and watch the story go viral. It doesn't even have to be about anything *new*... as long as it hasn't been in the headlines recently.
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In other news, I made a reference to the Keene, NH Pumpkin riots yesterday, but since no one seemed to know what I was talking about - here's a link: http://www.latimes.com/nation/nationnow/la-na-nn-new-hampshire-pumpkin-riots-20141019-story.html and http://edition.cnn.com/2014/10/21/living/keene-pumpkinfest-riot-ferguson/index.html?eref=edition talks about the differences between Kenne and Ferguson and while I think they kind of miss the point, at times, of what people are talking about, they do manage to (about halfway down) discuss how important perceptions are in "general public reaction" to these things.
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Oh yeah, there is apparently a poll out there as well: http://therealljidol.livejournal.com/795700.html
It's a little something we do.
Also - the deadline for LAST CHANCE IDOL is tonight: http://therealljidol.livejournal.com/794726.html
And yes, I know that LJ is doing some weird thing with the poll. I am looking into it. If you click on the name of the poll, you can view is as "normal". The votes are being counted, it just looks weird.
