Trevor Noah Pushes Back Against The Twitter Outrage--"Haven't I Changed?"

Less than two weeks ahead of his big Daily Show debut, Trevor Noah hopes to put any lingering doubts about his comedic conscience to rest. Noah was needled with criticism earlier this summer when a series of old tweets containing questionable jokes were brought back into the spotlight, causing some to wonder whether or not he was the right man for the Comedy Central job. Now, in a new interview with Entertainment Weekly, Noah has rebuffed those charges; in his own words, the South African comedian is simply just another citizen in a "world of faux outrage."

When asked about his 2012 tweets, their questionable use of racist and sexist punch lines and the harsh criticisms that they engendered, Noah opened up and spoke his piece:

I understand where it comes from. But people would say, “Are you going to change?” And I’d say, “You went back three years to find the tweets! If I haven’t repeated those things, haven’t I changed?” If you look back three years and youre not disappointed in who you were then, you’re not progressing.

But we live in a world of faux outrage. It’s hashtag this, hashtag that. There are people who jump onto trends before they even know what the trend is about. People want to be part of the good, but they don’t want to put the work in, so they think, “Can’t I just say that I agree?” Then you have an artificial inflation of what the problem is. All of the sudden you get all of these big scandals, but they’re not big, because everyone is on the periphery of the argument.

Noah's case, it seems, to be one of personal growth and change. Should he be given the benefit of the doubt, or will the faux-outragers call for an even more sincere, on-air apology? We're willing to give it a shot, and can't wait to see what happens with the Daily Show comes back around later this month. Talk amongst yourselves.