By Whitney Cummings @ NYMag.com, Jan. 16 (edited version printed in Jan. 22-Feb.5 issue)

[....] It hit me. The exact people I was hoping to reach don’t follow me on social media. Worse, they may not even follow anyone I follow. In fact — gasp — they may not even have social media. I was essentially in an echo chamber, patting myself on the back every time someone who agreed with me, well, agreed with me again. Our country has become so bifurcated, we’re not even exposed to the lives of “the other side” anymore. Like people who exclusively consume Fox News, some of us don’t even know what we don’t know [.....]

When weighing my decision, I remembered a call Michelle Obama had initiated with TV showrunners. I have no idea who was on this call, and I don’t even think I qualify as a showrunner, but she filled us in on some metrics indicating that iconic gay characters on TV shows had a big impact on how people across the country thought about gay marriage. Turns out, many Americans never get to know or even meet people who aren’t like them, so putting them on a flickering box in their living room — full of vulnerabilities, problems, jokes, and dreams — is a great way to develop empathy toward a type of person they may normally not cross paths with. Turns out, fictional characters saying pre-written lines in bespoke costumes on a soundstage can actually make a dent in social change. There are times in comedy when I feel like a self-indulgent child avoiding the real world, but hearing that information made me think that maybe what’s on TV in the next year could influence how this national healing process goes [....]