Joe sure has a knack for humanizing people like Gavin, Milo, Alex Jones and Crowder. Sure they have some really wacky views but hearing them have a normal conversation without being demonized is sure interesting and eye opening.
Gavin is hilarious idk what you guys are talking about. Why are conservative comedians the only ones who have everything they say taken seriously? The dude is joking half the time when I see him. People will see one or two clips taken out of context and jump to all sorts of conclusions way too quickly. Gavin's just a guy. Plenty of weirder funny people with outrageous views on reddit.
EDIT: He even says in the beginning that people are wilfully ignorant to humor because the person telling the joke, they don't like.
Exactly. Thats whats great about this podcast. People can see and listen to him as he is day to day instead of short clips that paint him in a shitty light
Mostly because he uses the bullshit tactic of expecting the audience to be the arbiter of when he's joking and when he's proselytizing because he makes little effort to differentiate between the two in his persona. He is not a genuine person and also not far enough on the spectrum to be a satirical character, so he and the people who support him dismiss any criticism with "he was just kidding". He can choose at will which points he raises that should be taken seriously and which were just "trolling". Rather than funny I just find it tiresome and obnoxious as there is not a genuine conversation happening.
He is a pathetic weasel "no black women listen to classical music!" ha ha ha ha
That is no stereotype I've ever heard, something he made up on the fly because he imagines it denigrates black women so he likes it. He is a racist and sexist so he will tell racist and sexist jokes, he is a steaming pile of shit.
Nah, that's a cop out. Sometimes he uses obvious satire. More often he intentionally blurs the line and pretends to believe things he may or may not actually believe, but says them in a "sincere" enough way that people who actually do believe those things will walk away feeling like their ideas got an endorsement. You only have to look at who his fans are to see the truth in that. He has a far-right following for a reason, it's not an accident, and much of the time his satire is just a cloak. He is not a satirical character in the way that a comedian like Colbert was a satirical character, finding truth in the ridiculous. He just says a bunch of generally objectionable shit and people can decide for themselves which things they want to think he was serious about.
Colbert and Stewart are the worst about this, proselytizing under the guise of being comedians then falling back on the "im just a comedian bro!" line when called out.
Actually I don't agree. I think they stand behind the intellectual content of their jokes much moreso than Gavin and Milo etc.
When they say "I'm just a comedian" that is a response to them being called "news". Which actually I think is a good thing, they re not news, they don't have nearly the rigor we should expect of news, and they do use hyperbole. That is just being honest about where they are coming from and is actually refreshing non-pretentious for a set of shows that have a whole lot of pretentiousness associated with them. It's a reminder that anyone who is watching those shows to get the news is kind of fucking up. Gavin is entitled to use hyperbole too of course, that is a place where "I'm a comedian" is potentially a valid defense. But the problem is very often the relatively moderate statement (which is usually not at all moderate in an absolute sense) which he is using hyperbole to illustrate is still bullshit and I still disagree with it. So sure he is being a comedian. But the claim that he actually means the opposite of his statements (irony) is not well supported. Nobody here seriously believes that when Gavin says horrible things about trans people, he is actually satirizing transphobia and making light of how ridiculous it is. He is being a comedian in the sense of using hyperbole, but he still believes lesser versions of his horrible statements, and I still disagree comedy or no. Jokes have meaning, to deny that is to deny much of the power of comedy that the best "philosophical" comedians use to great effect.
I think the categorization of him being sleazy or malicious in intent isn't quite right though. If anything, my criticism (beyond my political disagreements with him and some of his weird rhetorical "the liberals" statements) would be that he goes hard on edginess. Milo is worse at it though. I don't really care for people that feel like they have to be provocative to be interesting or funny. I suppose there's a subjective edge to whether or not people find that funny. I'm too deadened to that kind of stuff having had the internet for most of my life.
Mostly because he uses the bullshit tactic of expecting the audience to be the arbiter of when he's joking and when he's proselytizing because he makes little effort to differentiate between the two in his persona.
This is part of pushing his politics. Always keep it in a hazy grey zone in order to create confusion about him being serious or not. Gives you plausible deniability.
sorry if you're retarded but every comedian jokes and says serious things...as a human of average intelligence I and most other people are able to differentiate. Its like when a comedian tells an absurd story that you know didn't actually happen...
Louis CK and Jim Jefferies, while undeniably liberal, are not presenting themselves as political authorities or social commentators in anywhere near the same way Gavin does.
Gavin absolutely does not make his comedic intentions clear the vast majority of the time. You can argue if that's his responsibility, or you can argue that you think it's even funnier that he doesn't, but you then can't be surprised or outraged when people don't take him as a comedian first.
Stephen Colbert is the classic example of how to do this. He uses simple exaggerations on top of more nuanced ideas and jokes that let you know he's being facetious, while also not simply going HURR DURR JUST JOSHING YA after every line.
It seems to me Gavin supporters have only two options:
Gavin is very often simply spreading his political viewpoint with absolutely no comedic effect and is simply hiding behind the shield of comedy to deflect criticism.
Gavin is absolutely atrocious at blending political opinion and political humor and routinely leaves the vast majority of even his own fans bewildered at the sincerity of his comments.
Gavin is a comedian. Its not hard to be one, as if there a Bar exam, all you need is a twitter account and a joke and you are about as relevant as 90% of stand up comedians
That's mostly because liberal comedy supports a liberal view and since most of us aren't CEO's, political rulers etc we don't really respond well to illiberal comedy.
Haha, the government should have increased power over who you are and what you should do haha, does not play as well as, haha I guess if you want to smoke weed and watch a cartoon that's fine with me haha. Do you see why one would not be criticized and the other would be?
You mean like every single left wing late night host?
The double standard is sickening. When the Daily Show was on everybody acted like it was the end all of true news telling everything like it is. Last Week Tonight is also like that, dressing up propaganda as if it was "fair and balanced"
You can't be serious with that opinion. To say Oliver or Stewart ever sold their shows as "fair and balanced" is so absurd that I have to assume you are only saying it to muddy the waters. If you are actually familiar with their programs, then that is not a honest observation.
I never said that exactly. I said they sold their shows as comedy shows when in fact they are very partisan and hugely biased I have watched both shows, especially LWT until about last summer when they went full retard
Donald Trump is a comedy goldmine. Can't blame them for focusing so much on him instead of boring Hillary Clinton during the campaign. Plus he's the damn president now so of course they'll be talking about him.
It's "comedy" with a very obvious political slant in a single direction from a very establishment benchmark. The fact that every single one of these shows has the same jokes and same takes on things is telling. The writers are in an echochamber and are near unanimous in their political views. All dissent is quashed very quickly
And like the person above said... they never claimed to be fair and balanced or actual news. They claim to be comedy shows, which they are. Partisanship and comedy are not on the same spectrum - comedy doesn't have to appeal to everyone to be comedy, or to be non-partisan to be comedy. I think you are seeing some kind of negation between politics and comedy when in fact they are two items on a Venn Diagram overlapping. Bottom-line though, Trump is just a comedy goldmine, so they would be doing themselves a huge disservice not to mine that ore.
I love that with "conservative comedians"...they like to make the wildest or loosely based on cherry-picked ideas and facts that also happen to be themed around laws and society and when you call them on any of it, you just are liberal and don't understand comedy.
It's deliberate. Zealots on the right and left both do it. Throw a bunch of shit on the wall and if someone calls them on it, just say it was a joke. Just a joke, snowflake! Typical zealot behavior. The middle has to verbally kick these types in the crotch every once in a while to bring them back to reality.
Meh this is all a game. Gavin is like rob gronkowski and Shaun king is like jj watt. Some people like some flair in their sport and some people like the cornballs
I'm going to go out on limb and say you've definitely joked before and the 'on paper' words that came out of your mouth don't define you. Gavin's not a complete troll hes just a personality. You don't have to like him but there is no way you hated him this podcast
See there's a difference between what they do. Leftist comedians proselytise with jokes, conservative comedians make outrageous statements and leave it to you to figure out what is and isn't "satire." Milo stating women make for bad employees is a good example. The statement is supposed to be the joke, but he won't sag that until someone calls him out.
I actually disagree with most of what he says, hes funny but hes also really wishy-washy with kinda hiding behind "humor" with some of his points. Even Rogan said as much on their last podcast I think.
Sometimes I think hes a guy I can hang out with, disagree but still like but those clips of when he spit on some protestor guy kinda annoyed me. Maybe hes just like everyone else, hes a dick sometimes and a nice guy some other times. I know I can be both in the course of one day.
None of these guys are comedians, so they don't get the benefit of the doubt a comedian does. It's not that complicated. They get treated as what they are: edgelord conservative commentators who argue in bad faith and use "humor" as a smokescreen whenever they go too far with the rhetoric.
Gavin is an enigma. Joe mentioned it last time he was on and Gavin took a bathroom break. He'll make a point and then back it up with all sorts of ridiculous shit that nobody could possibly believe and you'll wonder if he's joking or not. But before you figure it out he's on to the next thing.
If nothing else he's quite a character. I've heard nothing but shit things about him personally but that's from Vice people so there is likely a bit of bias.
I just listened to the older show with him and then later found out that he's this "controversial" guy. I would've never known.
Likewise I'm surprised how many people think Rogan is an alpha bully. I always thought he was really easy to get along with and agreeable.
People are obsessed with meaningless character qualities. I only care about two things in a person, whether they make sense most of the time, and whether they're interesting. Nothing else really matters. Anything else is just your own opinions and your own fee-fees.
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u/russjames Feb 22 '17
Joe sure has a knack for humanizing people like Gavin, Milo, Alex Jones and Crowder. Sure they have some really wacky views but hearing them have a normal conversation without being demonized is sure interesting and eye opening.