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I don't know how many people here realize Irish Joe doesn't even watch the program; he just posts here.
Echo Chamber fucked around with this message at 21:43 on May 11, 2015 |
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May 11, 2015 21:37
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Bob Balaban posted:Thanks #JohnOliver for including me. I'm not exactly sure what happened. Or what it means. But it was fun. I think.
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May 12, 2015 05:57
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Viginti posted:I really hope that was peak mascot and the show steps down from Fallon territory going forward. A second of novelty to leaven the heavy material has now slipped into equal time for the monologue and the mascots. At this rate season three will just be Web Soup with a bit of political commentary going on behind the credits. Jesus Christ just watch Frontline if you want to feel misery.
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May 12, 2015 11:50
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I think a lot of Oliver's bits lately are missing the "mic drop moment" that justify the preachy tone. We get anger, sympathetic figures, and jokes but we don't get a strong release of emotions by the end of a lot of the bits. I kind of need a bit of a stronger home run moment at the end of the extended bits if I want to share the story on Facebook or have water cooler talk about it at work. The show obviously doesn't want to retread The Daily Show, but it's a bit more obvious now where the advantages are in Stewart's format. Having correspondents and field pieces still grounds the comedy as "fake news". A weekly format that's less bound to the news cycle will obviously want to be less like that, but it's missing a lot of the meta-narrative stuff that helps keep it engaging. I don't want to overstate the issues with the show, because it still makes me laugh. But the show could use some very slight retooling because the issues covered will usually be important but the emotional impact, comedic or serious, has reached a ceiling.
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May 18, 2015 20:02
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It was either Oliver or Stewart who talked about how the IOC made applicant cities bidding for the games bend over backwards and treat the members like kings with insane hotel accommodations and stuff. And a few cities withdrew their bids precisely because it was loving ridiculous.
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May 27, 2015 18:23
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In the Daily Show podcast, Trevor Noah talked about how one of his South African childhood friends was named Hitler. It was still apartheid when he got the name and the legacy of British colonialism was still strong; some people were willing to severely whitewash Adolf because he "stood up" to the Brits.
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Jun 2, 2015 16:56
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I hated Bill Maher before it was cool.  His anti-vax tendencies and islam-hating reddit atheism are just scratching the surface. His anti-science extends with his embrace of all things organic and his anti-GMO posturing. His strange defense of SOPA. His weird contempt with women and young people. How the basis of his career is almost literally "political correctness has gone too far". His HBO show functions as a program intended entirely for inside-the-beltway types where the political establishment can circlejerk. It's like the White House Correspondents Dinner every week. LWT is now the flagship political and current events comedy program on HBO. So making Maher less relevant is another thing we can thank Oliver for. Heck, even The Nightly Show, with all its problems, is a way more watchable panel show than Maher. Anyways, John Oliver managed to make your office's cat lady lovable. 
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Jun 8, 2015 18:55
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I'm still surprised how many "liberal" blogs tried to spin John Oliver's interview with Edward Snowden to people who who haven't seen it, trying to make it seem like it made Snowden look bad or something. Actually I'm not that surprised.
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Jun 9, 2015 01:58
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etalian posted:I guess they miss how he's a good interviewer since he doesn't throw softballs the whole time. I think I'm not putting too many words in Oliver's mouth by saying he ***might*** have disapproved of Snowden deferring blame to journalists for disclosing some very specific stuff that ***might*** have been better off remaining undisclosed to the public. But that disapproval (if it existed) was nothing compared to the government grabbing power outside the bounds of the law to snoop on people. But guessing that this nuanced position was Oliver's is still speculating too much. Oliver wasn't there to be Snowden's publicist, so he should have held his feet to the fire before pointing out the bigger picture. But those bloggers were hoping people wouldn't watch the interview for themselves and take at face value the description of the interview as Snowden making a fool of himself. Echo Chamber fucked around with this message at 03:13 on Jun 9, 2015 |
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Jun 9, 2015 03:09
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direct YouTube link. still crappy quality Melissa McCarthy can't get out of her contract. 
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Jun 10, 2015 22:41
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If you watched 24 for the torture porn, you're doing it wrong. You're supposed to watch the show for the preposterous constant invocation of the 25th Amendment, failed perimeters, inventive Jack kills (like with ax), convoluted conspiracy plots, the cougar, incompetent bureaucrats, goons arguing over silent clocks, and arbitrary plot twists (when it was still a novelty rather than the rule of TV drama). Season 5 ruled. It deserved its Emmy. But seriously, is there really a full recording of Mirren's reading of the torture report? Echo Chamber fucked around with this message at 00:33 on Jun 16, 2015 |
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Jun 16, 2015 00:05
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lol at /r/KotakuInAction for calling John Oliver, a man who makes as many dick jokes as possible for a living, "too PC"
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Jun 22, 2015 20:59
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Brogressive (I reluctantly but seriously use that word now sadly) and libertarian types on Reddit and elsewhere have a pathology in believing that "People agree with me; they just don't know it yet", unaware how irregular their priorities are. Screaming "ethics" and their fixation on discrediting Anita specifically. Oliver has won brogressive goodwill for his support for net neutrality and giving Snowden a platform. And he gloriously spent that capital by pointing out the simple fact that it sucks to be a woman on the internet, not once ever uttering the phrase "ethics in video game journalism". That's why it's so satisfying. For quintessential Reddit-types, Oliver was "one of us". But then he really wasn't. Some will try to rationalize it by thinking Oliver didn't look into "the real issue" hard enough. But hopefully for most shitlords it's a reminder that normal people know their narrow "but video games and nerd culture!!!!" worldview is horseshit.
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Jun 23, 2015 00:03
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If only John Oliver has seen all the horrible things she said about gamers! He would understand!  
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Jun 23, 2015 04:16
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Oliver is certainly aware of the effect his stuff has on Reddit and Twitter; and the inclusion of the brief soundbites by Anita and Briana was deliberate. Most people might not care for GG drama, but Oliver's aware of the fraction of his fans who are brogressive anti-"SJW" types. You can argue that Wu is slightly more polarizing than Sarkeesian by pointing to the  legitimate controversial actions by Wu; but anyone put off Wu probably hates Sarkeesian too. They're not being honest when they say their issue with Wu is [specific action being the arbitrary red flag] rather than their opposition to feminism as an ideology or a tribal label.
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Jun 23, 2015 05:26
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People are passively aggressively playing the "Anita is no saint" card. We get it. You're so nuanced. Go pat yourself on the back.
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Jun 24, 2015 21:02
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It's infuriating because it's neo-Confederates falsely characterizing John Brown as an anti-black racist.
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Jun 25, 2015 05:45
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Dreylad posted:John Green is a writer of those scholcky teen movies (Fault In Our Stars), I'm pretty sure he's working with his old high school history teacher and probably a few more consultants now if it's on PBS.
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Jun 25, 2015 23:35
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In case you guys need the gifs again: 
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Jun 26, 2015 15:32
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At first I wished Oliver used his show to explain the origins of the Greek financial crisis, but Oliver sold me on making sports stadiums the main story. I'm personally not invested in sports all too much, so maybe you might want to ask someone else, but when the Nets left New Jersey, people here eventually didn't care and moved on with their lives. I have a feeling that the Whoopi Goldberg montage was just the tip of the iceberg. Whoopi had that one great story about the first time she saw Uhura on Star Trek; and never said anything agreeable since.
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Jul 13, 2015 20:26
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Looks like Whoopi is backpedaling on her Cosby defense.
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Jul 15, 2015 00:05
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Gaz-L posted:Kinda hard to maintain it after that deposition came out.
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Jul 15, 2015 01:13
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Whenever I see someone try to raise the "John Oliver (or Colbert or Stewart) is making the 'it's comedy not news' copout" argument, I often have a hard time precisely figuring out what blame of material harm the comedian is supposedly trying to dodge. I feel that they always give that disclaimer in part because the real news has become a joke, and they don't want to exacerbate that problem. That and the fact they see their comedy as an artform and are still trying to have some kind of ownership of it even though it'll always get spun one way or another. I always felt like when bloggers try to write some thinkpiece like "John Oliver is a journalist no matter how many times he denies it" it's in part because of cultural/political posturing on part of the blogger and audience. They want their entertainment to be "something more" by pointing at it and saying to everyone it's something more.
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Jul 20, 2015 21:17
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And what's really weird is people taking Tucker Carlson's "side".
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Jul 20, 2015 22:39
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Freaquency posted:There's a weird class of free speech advocate that believes that the government shouldn't block any speech because the ~*~Free Market~*~ will self-censor or whatever, but then throw a fit when the free market starts in on something that they like. I'll never get it.
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Aug 1, 2015 20:30
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I noticed it was 51 stars...
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Aug 3, 2015 04:33
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To be fair, this program was made for an American audience; and it's hard to have a "so what?" on a foreign story when the first answer Americans usually think of is "maybe we should bomb/invade them". The Indian election was pretty much a "THE MORE YOU KNOW" kind of thing. FIFA was an international story where the American justice system did end up intervening. The tobacco bit and the Uganda gay laws were international stories where American actors played a crucial role in screwing it up. That said, I would have liked Oliver to give a comedic primer on the Greek crisis a few weeks back. I think it might have been helpful to understand where the American economy and policies are in relation to the rest of the world. And to encourage people to look at American policy in terms of austerity and anti-austerity politics. I think a new criticism on the show could be that Oliver seems too determined to not be bound by the news cycle. That he wants his bits to "start" a conversation, rather than weigh in on an existing controversy. (And the one time he didn't, which was the police militarization bit, fell short of emphasizing the racial angle of the story.) In the abstract sense, he wants to be a voice of reason outside of the culture wars, etc. It might be understandable since the day-to-day news cycle stuff is kind of Jon Stewart's (and soon Trevor Noah) territory.
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Aug 3, 2015 20:26
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American education is also weird because we have 50 different states all with their own laws and such and most of them defer to lower municipalities for a lot of decisions and policies. So you'll hear a variety of stories even from the same generation of public school students. John Oliver avoided the obvious joke about teaching history falsely considering headlines even this week about how some schools want to downplay slavery and racism in American history. He went for the Prince joke; but tackling American history education can easily get its own episode or multiple episodes.
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Aug 10, 2015 21:01
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And Whole Foods is run by some libertarian shitlord who's more than happy to make money off of crunchy moms and hipsters by conning them into thinking organic's somehow better when it's only more expensive. But in WF's limited defense, their customers kind of want to be in on the scam; because there's a "culture war posturing" element to buying organic.
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Aug 10, 2015 22:14
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I guess I didn't notice that anything was off. Most of my attention was processing the cynicism of a company making a "good sex ed video" and a "judgmental sex ed video" for different markets.
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Aug 11, 2015 19:39
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Larry Wilmore did do a few bits a few weeks back mocking the Dollar guy. I'm also getting a Colbert SuperPAC vibe from this. Nonetheless, this was in a few months making and Oliver is the best guy to pull off a "let's start a mock church" without coming off as a punchable  atheist.
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Aug 17, 2015 21:02
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M_Gargantua posted:I really wish it could have been John's real wife. She seems cool. Fake wife didn't really feel right. As for Oliver's real wife, I assume most of you are familiar with the story with how they met up so I'm not not even going to bother digging up a link. I remember it being a sweet story. The Daily Show not only gave John his current and last job, but his marriage too.
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Aug 18, 2015 03:44
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IRQ posted:I am not, so I have to assume it's the accent. Because an Irish chick could do that to me, if I were in any way remotely attractive, funny, or successful like Oliver for that to be a thing. quote:Among the highlights of his ensuing career at "The Daily Show", probably the most memorable for him was covering the 2008 Republican Convention in St. Paul. As his usual obnoxious correspondent, he was at risk because he could not afford to get arrested for anything — deportation loomed. So when he wandered into a restricted area and was pursued by security, he sought refuge among some veterans invited by pro-military politicians. The one who helped Mr. Oliver hide out was a female vet, Kate Norley. He was grateful, took down her email and married her three years later.
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Aug 18, 2015 04:22
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Rand Paul: still full of poo poo.
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Aug 24, 2015 13:39
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It sounds like one of those things that would happen when Saddam was still "a dictator, but one of our dictators" years.
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Aug 31, 2015 11:57
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He needs to commit the full 30 minutes to David Cameron.
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Sep 26, 2015 02:42
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I wasn't expecting his bit about refugees to be the show's most disliked video on YouTube since the one about internet harassment.
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Sep 29, 2015 01:15
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Oct 5, 2015 16:56
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John Oliver hasn't made "ironic" Asian racist jokes or railed against the scary PC police so it's not Family Guy.
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Oct 7, 2015 13:45
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I thought it was a strong presentation. It shows how a specific industry has thrived at the cost of the environment and people's livelihoods. The problem has been exacerbated because responsibility has been deferred away to someone else by anyone who could have been responsible. He points to specific loopholes while keeping a foot in the big picture. Why is it when I see a story about employees getting hosed over, it always involved contract companies? (Don't answer; I already know.)
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Oct 12, 2015 15:36
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