I’ve been wondering whether I’m a hypocrite this week.

Dapper Laughs, aka Daniel O’Reilly, has decided to make a comeback on the back of a BBC interview on Radio 1’s Newsbeat.
Last year, you may remember, there was a huge furore over his particular brand of sexist humour that provoked such animosity on social media, that he was forced to kill off the Dapper Laughs character.

Popular on Vine, the video streaming site that restricts video to a duration of 6 seconds, Dapper Laughs could often be seen walking along the street, directing shockingly vulgar comments at unsuspecting women in what he would describe as ‘banter’. It was this brand of misogynistic humour that was judged to be inexcusable by a large number of very vocal protestors, and so Dapper Laughs was no more.

But now he’s back.

Despite having apologised at the time for the nature of the humour, Daniel O’Reilly now says that he was bullied by the media mob into giving up his comedy against his wishes, and wants to continue in the same vein as before. He cites the press support for free speech that came out of the Charlie Hebdo attacks as being hypocritical, since his right to free speech was curtailed. Does he have a point?

I attended the wake in Birmingham for the victims of Charlie Hebdo. I was also fairly scathing about Dapper Laughs when it all kicked off about him last year, and was pleased he’d stopped. So can those two actions sit comfortably side-by-side?

I would say yes – but it’s not an argument about humour. It’s more about consent.

Where Dapper Laughs crosses the line for me, is when he videos himself targeting women in the street with misogynistic lines in an effort to capture their reactions.

This way of delivering humour has become more frequent on TV over the past 10 years. It all started out in the 50s and 60s with Candid Camera, of course, and continued up to the 90s in the UK with Jeremy Beadle and Noel Edmonds honing their versions to the delight of millions of Saturday night TV viewers.

But even then, there was something a bit too easy, and a bit too ‘cheap’ about humour that relies on engaging an unsuspecting ‘victim’ for laughs. The examples from the 80s and 90s were quite puerile and didn’t have any particular theme, apart from perhaps the use of slapstick and the ‘practical joke’ element. They didn’t just make women look stupid – they made everyone look stupid – and so the only charges you could level at them was that they were cheap, unfunny and occasionally a bit cruel.

Recent examples have become more targeted, and have become part of a character’s specific repertoire rather than just generic ‘stunts’. Jocelyn Jee Esien was using hidden camera stunts while in character in her BBC3 show ‘Little Miss Jocelyn’ back in 2006. Dapper Laughs is the latest incarnation of this, albeit in the 6-second format required for Vine. Because the character is extreme, the interactions are often toe-curling; funny to some, no doubt, but probably crossing the line for many who don’t readily relate to that kind of ‘banterised’ humour.

My problem with it is that there’s no consent from the victim of the humour. If you go to a Frankie Boyle concert, you are actively choosing to be in his audience. There’s a chance you may get picked on, and there’s a chance that a lot of the humour will be near-the-knuckle. But you can have no complaint when you’ve chosen to be there. If, for some bizarre reason, you didn’t have a clue what you were getting yourself into, you could still leave and not have your embarrassment witnessed by millions of viewers on social media.

Maybe that’s why it’s been so easy for many to accuse Dapper Laughs of supporting rape – because millions of viewers see him repeatedly humiliating women on his Vine feed without their consent. I’m not saying that in a hysterical way – I’m just stating fact. The humiliation there is real – they’re not actors. If he claims to be in it ‘for the laughs’, why humiliate women for real? Surely it’s easier for knuckle-headed misogynistic men to ape what they see him doing because it does target women for real. If it was staged as sketch comedy, we might be able to see some irony there, and he could turn the ‘humour’ back on himself.

Free speech doesn’t come without boundaries and responsibilities. And no popular comedian should underestimate the potential for humour to find its way into the national psyche, and for people to use it as a green-light for inappropriate behaviour.

But people are also ultimately responsible for their own actions. Comedy should occasionally challenge and offend – it’s what makes it so rich and interesting. If there are idiots out there that think making women feel uncomfortable in the street is funny, then they shouldn’t be surprised if they get a slap on the face or a knee in the groin. A comedian is not responsible for the actions of an imbecile.

But the comedian should also realise that reinforcing stereotypes can affect behaviour in society in a bad way. That’s why we don’t see sitcoms such as ‘Mind Your Language’ any more. The public has rejected them – but that has happened organically over the years, as people have slowly rejected intolerance and prejudice.

The world works much quicker these days. Reaction can be swift and painful. Mr O’Reilly had to put up with more than a few irate letters to the Radio Times – his family was subject to inexcusable hate mail. Times have changed.

Daniel O’Reilly can and does write some funny stuff. His persona is cheeky and could be a lovable rogue with a wider appeal if handled more skilfully. I hope his comeback allows him to make his audience laugh in the spirit of free speech that we can all embrace. There’s just one question to answer: how should he go about doing it?

He knows.