Dick and I, doing our best Trump impressions at 1am last night.

Hey — to everyone who’s worried: don’t. It’s all gonna be OK. There’s a remarkably good chance that this will all shake out with you guys getting two hilarious podcasts run by two people you love.

I know everyone wants the dirt/sauce/scoops/whatever the fuck, but honestly, these are two real people who are entitled to keep what they want private. If they wanted you to know what happened, they would tell you. All the internet detective work in the world isn’t going to bring the show back. If anything, it could end up seriously hurting the comedians you profess to care about. You’d be hard pressed to argue that this hasn’t already happened once.

Please, for the love of god, knock this internet detective stuff off.

Revealing some of your life on a podcast doesn’t entitle folks to all of it. I can’t be specific, but I’ve seen comments that ask questions & theorize about my romantic relationships and personal life on the biggest problem subreddit…and it’s fucking horrible. People send me private messages, emails, tweets asking me what’s going on with my personal life, and it’s like…Jesus, what difference could this possibly make as to how you enjoy or hate my comedy? And why do you feel like you’re entitled to know everything about my life?

And now I’m seeing this same shit play out with two friends of mine, and it’s really fucking painful to watch.

Look: I get it, it’s fun to be on a team. It’s fun to be on #TeamDick or #TeamMaddox, because when you’re on a team, you get an enemy. And when you have an enemy, you can plan and scheme, make attacks and counterattacks…and it feels great. It feels great to smash evil. When you can define your opponent as morally invalid, whatever you do to them is justified and right.

But that’s a really dumb and easy way to live your life. You wanna be a fan? Support the comedians you profess love. Buy their books. Buy their merch. Buy the fucking bonus episodes. Follow them on Twitter, and help them get more followers by retweeting their best jokes. If you know someone who knows an agent or manager, send along a clip of their funniest stuff. If you know someone who’s hiring writers, recommend them — they’re both amazing comedy writers.

By the way, speaking of the bonus episodes: I honestly can’t believe people are torrenting the bonus episodes. It’s like they’re trying to punish Maddox by depriving Dick of revenue. This is the kind of tactic that emerges when you define an enemy as evil — “well, they’re the bad guy, so whatever I do to them is cool!” And you end up hurting the guy you’re professing to defend by literally stealing money from them.

But tl;dr — help the comedians you love live the lives they want. Help them succeed, or simply pay their fucking rent. All the internet lynch mobs in the world aren’t going to give them health insurance, or fix their cars, or do any of the things that any other person needs to survive.

Comedians don’t need keyboard warriors. They need fans. Go buy Dick’s book. If you do that, he’ll get to write another one. Go buy one of Maddox’s t-shirts. The more money he’s got in the bank, the faster he can turn around more comedy. And for fuck’s sake, buy the bonus episodes, because that puts money directly in the pockets of the people you love.

Good night. Or, as it’s 3am, I guess good morning.