system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
ELI5: Why did Andy Kaufman get so much negative feedback?

My friend recently introduced me to this performance artist and I found him really quite entertaining. He was unorthodox and eccentric but I thought his sort of comedy was a very unique type of art form.

I investigated him a bit more and learned about a lot of people writing articles demanding he be banned from television. SNL banned him for life after taking a vote from their viewers.

Why did his odd style of comedy make people so upset?
gpt
1. Audiences never knew what they would get from a Kaufman performance. While sometimes that meant a comedian would go onstage, be funny, and take you out for milk and cookies, other times it meant he would read the Great Gatsby from cover to cover, all night long. Or maybe he would show up, start a fight with a heckler (his pal, Bob Zmuda), and end the show after stalking off in a huff. Or Tony Clifton would show up, Andy's alter ego, tell some out-of-touch slightly offensive jokes, and leave (and sometimes Clifton was played by Bob Zmuda). Imagine trying to buy tickets for that.

2. Promoters and event bookers never knew what they were going to get out of a Kauffman performance. See all of the above, and then try to figure out a. how to schedule around that, and b. how to easily monetize that. This was pre-internet, mind you, and even with national exposure on Saturday Night Live and Taxi, very few people in the US were hip to the gag, especially considering how out-there and esoteric his exposure was. And given that the producers of Taxi a. were required to hire and feature Tony Clifton in order to secure Andy, and b. weren't allowed to tell anyone Andy was Tony, no one even knew they were watching him half the time (and sometimes, again, it was Bob Zmuda as Clifton). 

3. His friends never knew what they were going to get from Andy himself. It's unclear exactly how many people knew Kaufman was Tony Clifton, but it wasn't many, and even fewer knew Zmuda would take on the costume and perform as Kaufman, as Clifton. 

4. He was often genuinely offensive, and never said, "Hey, it's just a joke!" Before his dedicated friends came out and explained what was up after he died, the public just thought he was offensive, rude to women, unpredictable, and basically an internet troll pre-internet.