A Timeline Of The ‘Dilbert’ Cartoonist’s Fall From Grace

Topline

Here’s a timeline of possibly career-ending backlash against cartoonist and Dilbert creator Scott Adams, who after years dabbling in controversy made racist comments in a YouTube livestream on February 22 that launched a series of grim consequences.

Timeline

February 22Adams spends several, profanity-laden minutes telling white people to “get away” from Black people after reading a Rassmussen poll that found only 53% of Black respondents agreed with the statement, “It’s okay to be white.”

February 24Some newspapers and publishing groups, including The USA TODAY Network and Advance Local Group, decide to stop publishing Dilbert, removing the cartoon from over 200 papers across the country.

February 25Adams expands on his remarks in an almost two-hour interview with online personality Hotep Jesus.

February 26Adams links to Saturday’s interview and tweets he’s only accepting criticism from people who know the full context, claiming much of the coverage against him is “fake news.”

February 26Elon Musk tweets support of Adams, claiming: “For a *very* long time, US media was racist against non-white people, now they’re racist against whites & Asians.”

February 26The National Cartoonists Society disavows “all forms of racism and discrimination” (Dilbert won the Society’s highest honor, the Reuben Award, in 1998).

February 27Adams is dropped by publishing company Andrews McMeel Universal, whose chairman and CEO tweeted the company supports free speech but not “commentary rooted in discrimination or hate.”

February 28Portfolio, an imprint of Penguin Random House, cancels the September release of Adams’ Reframe Your Brain, the Wall Street Journal reports.

Key Background

Adams is best known for creating the popular cartoon Dilbert, whose eponymous main character struggles eternally against his incompetent boss, in 1989. Dilbert was featured in 2,000 papers at its peak, according to the Washington Post, but numbers have dwindled in recent years due in part to controversial statements Adams has made. In his first live stream, Adams not only labeled Black Americans a “hate group,” but suggested white people shouldn’t help the Black community because they will be labeled racist. In subsequent videos, Adams tried to provide context, claiming people are more economically successful if they avoid groups of people that might dislike them. He also denied being racist, emphatically claiming he had spent time and money helping Black Americans improve their economic standing.

Tangent

A self-described attention lover, Adams is no stranger to controversy—he went so far as to predict his own cancellation in 2021 after suggesting in a livestream that the modern Nobel Prize is more focused on physical identifying markers than knowledge or achievement. Adams told the Washington Post his blogs during the 2016 election, some of which endorsed former-President Donald Trump, tanked his career as a motivational speaker and took a chunk of his income. In 2019, he half-apologized for using the Gilroy Garlic Festival shooting to market his news service app, and he came under fire again in late January for calling anti-vaxxers “the winners” of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Big Number

Adams’ YouTube channel, where he posts episodes of his vlog Real Coffee with Scott Adams, has over 130,000 subscribers.

Surprising Fact

Adams said Saturday he has identified as Black for many years partly because “it was an option” and partly because he wanted to reap the benefits of the time and money he claims to have poured into Black America. Dilbert’s first Black character, Dave, was introduced in 2022 and identifies as white.

Fact Check: Is the Rasmussen Poll Accurate?

It’s debatable, experts say. The poll asked respondents if they agreed with the phrase, “It’s okay to be White,” which the Post reports became popular in 2017 as a way for conservatives to provoke liberals on social media. The history of the phrase could have biased survey participants’ responses, University of Michigan political scientist Nicholas Valentino told the Post. Rassmussen skews conservative, according to multiple reports, and reportedly spread misinformation about Covid-19 vaccines and the 2020 election. Adams also incorrectly framed the survey in his livestream, saying 47% of the 117 Black survey respondents didn’t agree with the statement, “It’s okay to be white.” The data is more nuanced: 26% Black respondents disagreed with the statement, 21% were unsure and the majority—53%—agreed.

What To Watch For

Adams’ is actively responding to critics on Twitter—he’s Tweeted hundreds of times since the backlash erupted a week ago. He’s also posted six new livestreams addressing the controversy and other hot topics like the Wuhan lab leak theory.

Further Reading

‘Dilbert’ dropped by The Post, other papers, after cartoonists’ racist rant (WaPo)

Publisher Drops Plan to Release Book From ‘Dilbert’ Creator Scott Adams (WSJ)