I think political comedy has a much deeper cultural penetration than Maddow. Just as a for instance, the average Maddow show brings in 1-1.5 million viewers. John Oliver's show is in the 4-5 million viewer range (admittedly one is nightly, the other weekly). And the average John Oliver show gets another 5-10 million views on YT and however many more on HBO's app which I don't think are tracked by traditional means.

But sure, it should provoke the same lecture.

sigh

The audience is mostly to blame, sometimes the comedians and production outfits are to blame or share in the blame. Distributed guilt is a thing. More than one person can be guilty of a bad thing.

I can't help you if you choose not to read. Key points:

- political comedy can be entertaining and useful as an entry point but is not a replacement for genuine political organization and activism
- some in the audience use political comedy to self-congratulate and flatter their own sense of wokeness and cleverness instead of taking meaningful action
- political comedians are primarily showmen and should not be trusted to consistently pursue ideological goals and may subvert them. Spicer at the Emmys is demonstrative of that
- related, political comedians and comedy shows that trade in politics can ploy their audience's emotions into confusing show for substance (which isn't to say art can't have substance; context matters)
- related, political comedians and comedy shows and other entertainment command large audiences and make celebrities of the stars and come with a veneer of elite approval, and so making Trump (Fallon, SNL) and Spicer (Kimmel, the Emmys) part of the art normalizes trangressive political behavior for a passive audience, and that's bad
- the right wing in America has largely abandoned traditional political and ideological movement leadership and replaced them with infotainers, and I think their results are disastrous for the ideological causes they used to champion (even if Trump wields political power)
- people on the left should be wary of the phenomenon described in the 6 bullet points above this one

If you can't read a simple list of bullet points, I think that's on you at this point.

OK but just to clarify you're not actually SEEING any symptoms of this imagined problem yet?

In any case there's a pretty huge gap between olds leaving fundamentally dishonest right wing propaganda on 10 hours a day and some guy occasionally sharing a funny and fundamentally honest politics video on facebook.

Your argument has been all over the place.


no one says it is and there isn't any evidence political comedy is replacing organization or activism

you base this on nothing. Your "instead" implies that if they didn't have the outlet of political comedy they would have taken meaningful action. Highly questionable to say the least

of course comedians should not be trusted to consistently pursue ideological goals? You know people who put this sort of faith in comedians? You think this is a significant phenomenon?

What do you mean? Did that cake video do this? How?

No one thinks of Jimmies Kimmel or Fallon as political comedians. They don't frame themselves that way, they aren't shared on social media that way. But sure, Spicer and Trump should be treated as pariahs by political comedians. I don't blame Kimmel or Fallon for being soft on Trump or Spicer because they aren't particularly political.

It was infotainment propaganda masquerading as news. TDS, Meyers, Oliver aren't masquerading as news.

hahahaha right, because your argument to this point has been clear, consistent and concise.

OK, but if Dvault is worried about political comedy somehow weirdly morphing into Fox News (by a mechanism obscure and not specified, but Things Are Happening, Many People Are Saying) then why in the world isn't he worried about the liberal Fox News (MSNBC) morphing into Fox News? I mean it's because it no one watches it, but why does no one watch it? Maybe because there isn't that deep desire by liberals to be fed reassuring worldview-reinforcing horse**** 24/7? And if that's true then why would fundamentally honest political comedy occasionally being shared on facebook be insidious?

Maybe he's concerned about that, but posting about this because it's in the news? Or maybe he thinks that political comedy is a closer lefty cognate of the right-wing infotainment complex? After all, the reason no one watches MSNBC is that it's boring af not because liberals don't want reinforcement.

Right but it's boring af because they don't wildly make **** up. But do they not make **** up because of JOURNALISTIC INTEGRITY or because it wouldn't be well received by their audience? It is some of the former but mostly the latter.

I don't recall seeing Rachel Maddow or that guy with the hipster glasses yukking it up with former Trump associates?

I know when the WH Press Correspondents dinner was going down, people here were worried about the optics of media guys chumming around with the administration.

Right, everyone agrees that Colbert cavorting with Spicer Is Bad. I'm taking issue with this notion of sharing left leaning political comedy on Facebook as some sort of looming threat to American politics

Maybe you guys could knit more pussy hats while watching the Emmys.

Also, thread could use some Mooch related content.

i agree wholeheartedly.

I agree with this. However, I would be careful to avoid criticizing the act of creating comedy itself. Yes, comedians should be aware of their influence and use it wisely. However, I do not see anything bad about political comedy in and of itself.

The problem is that more people are beginning to rely on political comedy shows for news. John Oliver is being perceived as a political analyst or journalist when he's nothing more than a comedian. Same with people like Colbert and Stewart. These people only take material and mock it. They make jokes so they can entertain people. At no point has either of them professed to have journalistic integrity. It's that people are treating them as legitimate news sources when they aren't.

It's a sad state of affairs when the accuracy and quality of research on cable news is so poor that people feel more inclined to watch comedy to become politically informed. Joke writing involves the creation of one or more exaggerations in order to make something funny. So jokes themselves are not factually accurate. Yet, people are beginning to feel more comfortable using jokes as factual information because of how absurd cable news can be.

I don't share the dystopian view that political comedy is going to morph into some alt-left fake news mumbo jumbo. Political comedy has been mainstream for decades and has always been left-leaning and anti-authoritarian. Alt-right news outlets were designed with the intent to spread misinformation and propaganda and have been around for what, a decade (if you want to consider Drudge Report and Newsmax fake news)?

Oliver's constant use of simile punchlines make it hard for me to find his show funny.

"Giving ________ companies the ability to _________ is just like giving *insert wild animal* a *insert potentially dangerous tool or weapon*.

To be fair, John Oliver just wants to be fair.

I do see symptoms. You're obviously not asking about what I see because you'll just say WELL THATS LIKE YOUR OPINION MAN HERP DERP PROVE IT.

So what you actually want is evidence. Fine.

Left think-pieces or prominent left wing people on integrating celebrities and comedians into politics:

Jon Stewart Should Run for President

Tom Hanks for president! Michael Moore says the Democrats should run a popular celebrity against Donald Trump in 2020

Empirical evidence that liberals, the left and younger people are getting political information from comedy shows:

http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank...olitical-news/


The Fey Effect: Young Adults, Political Humor and the Perceptions of Sarah Palin in the 2008 Presidential Election Campaign

Or John Oliver, recognizing the problem of John Oliver:

https://www.theatlantic.com/entertai...median/507599/

-------------------------------

Sure, I guess. But that's your contrived comparison. That's not quite what I mean. See above if you have questions about what I mean.

...

re: iron. That I think is a backhanded criticism of Senate Democrats as opposed to a genuine, stirring defense of comedian/political fusion. I'll let Fly speak for himself.

Obviously if we go deeper down this rabbit hole, the principle problem of the young and the left finding so much wisdom and virtue in celebrities and comedians IS a political failure of the more traditional left. Infotainment is both a cultural tic but is filling a void left by left wing ideologues and politicians to inspire or motivate anyone. I think there is a valid Amusing Ourselves to Death style criticism here. I am clearly making it. But just like I mentioned to senorkeed, more than one thing can be responsible for a phenomenon and the left and the youth giving so much authority to comedians and entertainers is partly the audience's fault but also certainly the failure of Democrats and left wing activists to provide compelling and coherent ideological information to the masses.

Of course people form some of their opinions of political figures based on political comedy. This is not even remotely a new phenomenon. Dana Carvey's Bush impression was yugely mainstream and influential. As was what's his name's Clinton impression. As was Chevy Chase's Ford impression. This is not new, its been happening for like 40 years. And that's just in its modern guise, political humor has been widely consumed for centuries. So yes, political comedy can and does shape popular opinion. Of course, no one said otherwise.

And of course people sometimes get news from political comedy shows. That seems fine? The people whose only news source is TDS isn't exactly going to have been reading the Economist and the Washington Post if TDS wasn't on.

And ok, yeah, some guy (literally some guy: Guy T Saperstien) whose most notable achievement appears to be "Board Member, Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance" thinks Steward should run for president. ALARMING!

I don't think political comedy morphs into Fox News by People Are Saying. The analogy is that Fox News (or AM radio hosts) are not necessarily a coherent ideological vessels but instead trying to make products of their audience, and so the number of right-wingers who are giving them so much agency and credibility do so to their own detriment. So it goes with political comedians; not necessarily that in 5 years, Jimmy Fallon is going to be riling up angry leftists with fake news but that Jimmy Fallon and SNL and John Oliver don't claim to be coherent partisan ideologues and have a different agenda than partisan ideologues.

I don't think cable news is very good, and yes punditainment (e.g., Maddow, Scarborough, Hayes, etc.) is not a great phenomenon even if, as a for instance, I think Chris Hayes is a coherent and articulate communicator of leftist principles or Maddow has some interesting things to say or whatever. I actually don't think liberals and the left are super immune to be fed self-reassuring worldview horse**** 24/7 but that's sort of besides the point. So I don't think MSNBC is like a tremendous asset to the left and some of the criticisms I'm making about political comedy would apply to MSNBC.

In the end: A criticism of one thing is not a tactic endorsement of a bunch of stuff I'm not talking about; wtf are you really blabbering about here. The Spicer/comedian angle was relevant to recent news events.

This seems not fine to me, esp in light of Spencergate. Even at there most sincere, comedians like Colbert or Fey are still folks with dubious principles. Seeing politics as a genre of comedy instead of a serious business thing that affects lives is how you get Spicer at the Emmys hamming it up (such a good sport!) or guys like awval who mostly voted Trump because it was a funny way to troll liberals.

It also seems like a circular argument. SK seems to want to argue well, sure, OK, obviously sometimes people are relying on comedy shows to tell them about stuff, but they're kinda dummies and they wouldn't give a **** about it if it wasn't on television.

That's a pretty intriguing power there, actually, right? SK seems to be arguing political comedians and comedy shows and entertainment can activate political awareness in people who wouldn't otherwise have it since print media and whatever else is too boring. AS I HAVE SAID, that's surely true! As an entry point, that can be a powerful tool for genuine ideologues.

But: you actually have to harness the thing. And that puts an awful lot of authority and gravitas into the hands of infotainers. That's dangerous, too. See how it could be used, as a for instance, to normalize someone like Trump. Or you know, see literally all of my prior posts to this one in the last day.

SenorKeed: all you have to do is make the leap from "The people whose only news source is TDS isn't exactly going to have been reading the Economist and the Washington Post if TDS wasn't on" -- a point we agree on! -- to recognizing that I don't inherently trust TDS, SNL, John Oliver, etc. to command that audience's attention into the appropriate political actions from that point. You are correct! They are capturing a lot of people who aren't really getting news from The Economist or WaPo or whatever. I agree: THAT INITIAL ENTRY POINT COULD BE USEFUL. But it might not. That's dangerous if it's not. It might be put to bad uses or create bad political impulses and emotions. And I think Fallon ruffling Trump's hair like a school boy or SNL giving him 1.5 hours to yuk it up in late 2015 as host are demonstrative of the danger.

FFS all this pearl clutching over some liberal comedians is absurd. When it starts to ****ing approach conservative talk radio hosts or mega church numbers get back to us.

Isn't it responsible to control it before it gets to the point where it approaches the worst outcomes? "Rile up angry whites with infotainment over 40 years for fun and profit, everyone chill out, it's fine, well up until the very last moment then hope and pray Marco Rubio holds off the fascist game show host whose main source of information about the world is infotainment" is the model for how not to do this.

I AM NOT SAYING POLITICAL COMEDY IS FOX NEWS but I would hope at this point that we appreciate "chill out and wait until we get to 2010 levels of right-wing attachment to tabloid entertainers before acting" would be transparently bad advice.