Jonathan Pie - joke thief.

[selectivememory]

I am embarrassed that I ever thought this guy was good.

[Pink Gregory]

Few too many people willing to forgive war crimes if you ask me.

[evilcommiedictator]

He came into the spotlight with the Hillary losing video, which is funny because the conservatives think it's dunking on the left, whereas it's exactly what the left have been saying for ages, and the exact same concerns from the left are around Biden too.
But when you're got the Spiked brainworms, the Kock paycheck is too nice to say no to

[Jockice]

Didn't realise we weren't allowed to like Jonathan Pie. Why all the anger at him in this thread? Genuine question.

Yeah, I don't mind him either. Is Matt Forde the guy on Absolute Radio on Saturday afternoons? Never seen him on telly but I've seen a few of his tweets, which seem to all be about how Tony Blair is God and Jeremy Corbyn is the devil.

[Bernice]

Also you're allowed to like whoever the fuck you want, Jonathan Pie just happens to be shit

[Barry Admin]

Just tried to watch his video (WOKE utopia) about the sacking of Rebecca Long-Bailey and couldn't even make the two minute mark.

I'm sorry, but he's just a fucking trite cunt. An absolute hack. The same exact fucking anti-woke bullshit as all the other tedious shills and grifters.

'wah wah, this is what the left want: for people to get fired for posting shit on Twitter wah wah.'

He's a dumb hack with no actual point of view. He merely panders to the sort of unthinking cunts who buy into all the woke/anti-woke shit that his Koch Brother(s)-funded mates like Andrew Doyle disseminate, while at the exact same time pretending to be above the culture wars. No mate, you're up to your GoPro in it. Get an act, and expand your library beyond the  ouvres of D Murray and A Doyle.

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

Even if I was totally aligned with him politically, the act is so one dimensional. 90% of what follows the first minute of viewing feels like a moth hitting a lamp over and over and over. A sketch you have to view on a loop, for a reason that isn't really apparent. Tick off the mannerisms, clock the confected anger, breathe in the stale air, the medium in which he thrives.

You could say similar about someone like Mark Steel, I suppose whose entire act is just applying sarcasm to a topic, but it doesn't feel insincere nor does it put you in the frame of mind volunteering to watch a man trained to be angry on cue does.

[bgmnts]

I will say that insincerity is the overriding feeling I get from seeing his act. Just a man shouting a script.

[Barry Admin]

It's calculated piss for rage goblins.

[idunnosomename]

You could say similar about someone like Mark Steel, I suppose whose entire act is just applying sarcasm to a topic, but it doesn't feel insincere nor does it put you in the frame of mind volunteering to watch a man trained to be angry on cue does.

Mark Steel is also great at really elevating the absurdity of everyday things, which is why his historical stuff works so well. his columns are generally just endless sarcasm like the priest in father ted who gets locked in the washing hamper though

[Barry Admin]

"You can't say anything these days, and you know who is to blame? The woke left... Now don't get me wrong, I'm pretty left-wing myself, but... wank wank wank wank wank'

Just tired of it man. The same shit from tossers like Pie and whoever else, and everyone just gobbles it up every single time.

[Famous Mortimer]

"You can't say anything these days, and you know who is to blame? The woke left... Now don't get me wrong, I'm pretty left-wing myself, but... wank wank wank wank wank'

Just tired of it man. The same shit from tossers like Pie and whoever else, and everyone just gobbles it up every single time.

He's not posted on Facebook (at least among my friends) anything like as much as he used to be; I think the reason he's promoted is because his "message" is what the paymasters want to hear. Is he all that popular any more? (genuine question, I thought his first ever video was shite and have never looked at him since).

[j_u_d_a_s]

His moment in the sun seems to have passed. The reviews for American Pie were pretty scathing with both the Guardian and Telegraph saying that it lacked any real coherent point. Especially after the then recent decent results for the Democrats in the midterm elections.

This quote from the Guardian review sums up Pie's emptiness really welll:

Disingenuously, Pie includes himself in the category of lefty-liberal morons who think everyone in a Maga hat is one step away from fascism, and rallies against them, which manoeuvres him into a position of cynical immunity. Towards the end, there is a long, sweeping and patronising explanation of why "refusing robust debate" is leading to the rise of populism. I kept waiting for the punchline, the satire, the insight, but none arrived. More depressingly, this came after an interview with a white supremacist who advocates "a white ethno-state", justified because, as Pie insisted, his views need to be aired in order to be challenged. The arrogance of Pie assuming that he is the person to dismantle this terrible person's horrible views would be fair if he challenged them properly. But it is a desperately weak segment in which Pie simply declares those views – in favour of ethnic cleansing – to be "pretty abhorrent".

[Barry Admin]

Wow, thanks for that. I thought I'd gone a bit over the top, but that's astonishing.

[j_u_d_a_s]

Doyle did once attempt the case that him and Walker are attempting to change the minds of the far right. A claim that holds fuck all water when he's being welcomed by UKIP types and shared with enthusiasm by Tommy Robinson

https://twitter.com/Influxpress/status/1071768928496599040



Carl of Benjamin fell down this trap of thinking he could simply debate away racism, then he had his arse handed to him by Richard Spencer. At the end of the day, Doyle, Walker and Benjamin are extremely mediocre minded men who are out of their depth and just empower the far right.

[BritishHobo]

Really is breathtaking arrogance, these posh white blokes thinking they're the first ones to truly know how to get racists to stop being racist. As if minorities haven't spent their whole lives being forced to battle with and relentlessly debate their own existences with racists. Along come these cunts, swaggering, ready to solve racism because nobody else has bothered to try yet.

I really love that Guardian review, because it sums up how pisspoor it all is. Spend 95% of your time arguing that we ought to debate racists, then 5% weakly failing to actually get anywhere substantial by doing that.

[j_u_d_a_s]

For all their talk of free speech, robust debate wank wank wank wank etc. These white men of logic and rationality never once ever interview any prominent anti-racist campaigners. The arrogance of thinking you're immune to racist propaganda when you never question the systematic racism of the status quo, that your supremely rational mind can make the far right look stupid and logic them out of existence. Debate is pure intellectual wanking and once you've decided that other people's humanity is up for debate then you've already lost.

[Sebastian Cobb]

I thought the first Pie video was decent. It was done convincingly enough that it could trick people into thinking it was a real news reporter losing his shit. I don't know why he keeps up with the pretence of being a news reporter when this gimmick only really works once.

The strength of his comedy on it's own isn't good enough for people to remember who he is so he needs a hing.

[pcsjwgm]

Mind you Alastair Campbell Campbell seems to have rehabilitated his image by saying "right-on" things on twitter. Centrists/Liberals seem to be very willing to forgive (I say forgive, they largely just don't care) the war-crimes if you just have a pithy line about the tories, so I suppose it fits that they would see Malcolm Tucker this way.

Campbell is despicable, and his rehabilitation is shameful (a similar thing is going on with George W. Bush and John Bolton in the US), but unfortunately very few people challenge him publicly. The only recent examples I can think of are John McDonnell:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6nmBYtjt6WA
And this excellent question that was asked of Campbell when he was refashioning himself as a mental health advocate on Australian TV:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KlrYbImt_G8

[phantom_power]

Robust debate is only viable if both sides argue in good faith. We know the right do not and everything is a weapon and every tactic allowable so that is never going to work, Trying robust debate against a disingenuous twat just ties you up in knots

[Fried Egg Sandwich]

I can't find the tweet but Rab Florence posted a picture someone had snapped of Pie recording one of his videos, raging into his camera on a tripod obviously by himself with - "nae pals, colour me shocked".

Why would anyone be surprised at this? From the very first video this was blatantly obviously the setup. Did people believe there was someone on the other side of the camera? That is more shocking to me.

I like Pie, he's made me think a few times and I don't agree with whoever said he's pandering to the far right - that is completely overthinking. Do you really believe that that is his agenda?

[jobotic]

He was a creation of the far-right, so yes.

[Jumblegraws]

Pay them no mind, Fried Egg Sandwich, they just want to murder your opinion.

[Barry Admin]

I like Pie, he's made me think a few times and I don't agree with whoever said he's pandering to the far right - that is completely overthinking. Do you really believe that that is his agenda?

Yes. What is it he's made you think? Can you give some examples please?

[evilcommiedictator]

Jesus Christ Barry, you did well almost hitting two minutes, 58 seconds was all it took me flying into rage and typing abuse at the person who sent it to me.

[Barry Admin]

Bad right? I had another go later and got further, but can't remember much. Mocked people who pulled down statues, and supported transphobia by telling the old "you're not even allowed to suggest that biological sex exists anymore" lie.

He's an insidious piece of shit, he really is.

[Barry Admin]

Oh right, he's also decided to advance Douglas Murray's theory that the stabbings in Reading were homophobic and that noone is saying anything because they're afraid of being labelled islamophobic.

Rather than because there's currently no proof of that, and eye witness reports indicate that the guy just headed for the nearest group and started stabbing.

[Bernice]

Are we sure he couldn't tell they were gay from their lisps?

[keir]

Are we sure he couldn't tell they were gay from their lisps?

I heard that they were doing "chase me" but he actually thought that they were all Duncan Norvelle.

[Wacky Homemade Badges]

Doyle himself is kind of interesting in a rubbernecky sort of way. You go from being a totally unsuccessful conventional stand up through a sort of endless doubling down of crypto alt rightiness (because every time you do it, it gets you the attention you've never got before) until you become some sort of joke free pseudo-"truth teller" preaching to a tiny but devoted choir of people like Toby Young. I mean, Doyle used to babysit Stewart Lee's kids. He's gone on quite a journey.