Joseph Glenn Herbert, who goes by the stage name “Jo Koy,” is a Filipino-American stand-up comedic/actor who started his career at a comedy club in Las Vegas way back in 1994. While people find him hilarious, he usually gives credit to his mother, whom he says is where he got his comedic and acting talents from. Frequently, in his shows, he tells stories about her mom about how she encouraged him, supported him, and motivated him to join and perform at different occasions for their family and friends, as well as school events. She instantly became his number one fan, which inspired him to move to Los Angeles to take bigger steps for his career.

Before he stands where he is today, he was a regular guest at Chelsea Handler’s “E!’s Chelsea Lately.” He also performed at “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno,” “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon,” and released a Netflix original comedy special titled “Jo Koy: Live from Seattle” on March 2017, “Jo Koy: Comin’ in Hot” on June 2019, and “Jo Koy: In His Elements” on July 2022, featuring some Filipino-American comedians such as DJs and B-boys.

The most memorable milestone for him was when he announced that he would be hosting the 81st Golden Globe Awards in 2024. On January 7, 2024, via live broadcast, Jo Koy made a controversial joke in front of a very large actual audience and a whopping 9.4 million viewers in a television broadcast in which he stated, “The big difference between the Golden Globes and the NFL (National Football League); On the Golden Globes, we have fewer camera shots of Taylor Swift, I swear.” While this joke is meant to make fun of the NFL, it seems that more people took it as an insensitive joke on behalf of Taylor Swift, who is seen sipping her drink while giving a death stare at the camera after Jo Koy mentioned her in his stunt.

According to the social intelligence report of Capstone Intel, Jo Koy garnered a 106,409.4 engagement score for its 571 total post count, which yielded over 596,750 total reaction count. When broken down, ‘likes’ account for 47.2 percent of the total reactions, with 281,485. Followed by 210,258 ‘love’ reactions, which account for 35.2 percent; ‘haha’ reactions with 90,978, which account for 15.2 percent; “sad” reactions with 6,364, which account for 1.1 percent; ‘angry’ reactions with 5,286 which account for 0.9 percent; and ‘wow’ reactions with 2,381, which finally account for 0.4 percent. Jo Koy earned 55.8% of unfavorable mentions, while the remaining 44.2% were also bad. This indicates that the majority of the article’s mentions of Taylor Swift were negative, but the positive mentions are also important to understand because the numbers almost equaled the negative ones. Capstone Intel’s data also indicates that the stories mentioning Jo Koy’s controversial joke about Taylor Swift are responsible for the majority of the negative mentions.

Being a true Filipino, we are a natural comedic; the majority of us usually have a good sense of humor, which is why we have multiple comedians on television and even in vlogs making their way to the top. There is no denying that Jo Koy made us proud by being selected as the 81st Golden Globe Awards host. It really is a big thing after all; he is the first Filipino-American comedian to host such a grand event. However, we should also instill in our minds that we have different takes on every joke. It may be better not to incorporate someone for the intent of ‘fun’ and ‘entertainment’ to avoid disappointment, hatred, and making other people feel hurt. May this be a lesson to always think before you speak because you will never know what goes on in the minds of others. Let us always choose to be kind to everyone.