So this is one of those moments where irony meets tragedy, takes a selfie, and posts it with the hashtag #TooReal.
Scott Adams, the man who brought us Dilbert, the once universally loved comic strip skewering the absurdities of cubicle life, has just announced he’s battling the same aggressive prostate cancer as former President Joe Biden.
Except, unlike Biden, Adams says he might not make it past the summer.
The news came from his own podcast, Real Coffee with Scott Adams, where he didn’t sugarcoat a thing. “I’m just the dying cancer guy now,” he said, describing his condition as “intolerable.”
He’s using a walker, is constantly in pain, and spends most of his time sleeping. It’s a brutally honest update, not the sanitized, public relations-approved version of terminal illness we’re used to hearing.
What’s particularly striking is that despite years of slinging harsh words, Adams managed a surprising moment of empathy.
“I’d like to extend my respect and compassion and sympathy for the ex-president and his family,” he said.
“It’s a terrible disease — it’s going to get very painful for the president.”
This came despite Adams being a Trump supporter and a long-time critic of Biden. Somewhere between the morphine and reality setting in, humanity peeked through.
But of course, this is Scott Adams. And nothing comes without some baggage.
Two years ago, Adams torched his own legacy with a series of deeply racist remarks on his podcast. He called Black people a “hate group,” suggested white people should avoid them entirely, and defended being “strategically racist.”
Newspapers quickly dropped Dilbert like it was radioactive. The man who once poked fun at passive-aggressive bosses had now become the villain of his own strip.
Now, facing his mortality, Adams appears both raw and resigned. He confessed that going public with his diagnosis stripped away whatever normalcy he had left. “Once you go public, you’re just the dying cancer guy,” he said.
He wasn’t wrong. The internet’s reaction to both his and Biden’s diagnoses has been a harsh reminder that compassion is in short supply on the timeline.
It’s hard to ignore how the same disease has become a strange, unintended equalizer between two men who’ve stood on wildly opposite sides of the cultural and political fence.
Biden, a sitting president with a carefully managed public image, announced his diagnosis through official channels. Adams, now a pariah in the comic world, did it over coffee on YouTube.
Online, reactions have been split. Some express genuine sympathy for Adams, separating the man from his past remarks. Others, less forgiving, view this as poetic justice. A few even noted the odd coincidence of both Adams and Biden — two vastly different figures sharing the same grim fate. “The universe has a strange sense of humor,” one commenter wrote. Indeed, it does.
Now, stepping back for a second, this is weird, right?
Here’s a guy who was once a mainstream media darling, canceled hard for making dehumanizing statements, now humanizing a political figure he disagrees with, all while facing the same terminal illness. It feels like a plot twist no screenwriter would dare pitch because it’s just too on the nose.
From Adams’ perspective, he’s likely trying to go out on his own terms, maybe reclaim some dignity, maybe soften the final chapters of a legacy that many believe he sabotaged.
Biden’s situation, meanwhile, is being handled with calculated optics. A presidential health crisis was framed for public reassurance.
To the average person, this just feels like another surreal moment in an already strange decade. Two controversial men, both holding onto life by threads of medical technology and personal will, are now unexpectedly connected by cancer.
We start by remembering that death is the great equalizer. Whether you’re loved or loathed, left or right, canceled or celebrated, the pain of dying and the fear of it are universal.
Maybe, just maybe, we can find it within ourselves to allow some grace in people’s final moments, even if we didn’t agree with how they lived most of their lives.
Well, I write daily (mostly the weird stuff I find interesting). If you like this whole no-nonsense approach, feel free to bookmark and come back tomorrow, or continue reading other stories to make up your mind.
See ya, internet friend.
