Hacker News Reader

Comment by paulcole | Hacker News Reader

> "I'm an idiot don't listen to me"

This is right out of the Jon Stewart playbook. He can say he’s a “comedian” when criticized but clearly loves the influence he has a “journalist.” Great schtick if you can pull it off.

View on HN

May be I am misremembering but I thought Jon always used it to mean “if I, a comedian, can ask these questions you should do better as you are the supposed expert”

We probably can’t agree here, but to me it was clear he wanted to avoid criticism by hiding behind his comedian status while simultaneously relishing the power and influence he had as a journalist.

It's definitely worth watching again.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=aFQFB5YpDZE

Damn, two people in this comment section brought up some random Comedy Central late night host from the mid 2010s. I feel like this is some elaborate bit, like Joe Rogan somehow has a secret conspiracy of how to reply to that comment, and they're all gonna pop out

I'm going to take a guess... you are probably under 30, and the people who brought up Jon Stewart are probably over 35. He was pretty big (bigger than Rogan, probably) when we were forming our political opinions in high school and college, and he also blended the line of entertainment and political commentary. It's a very natural comparison. Don't be too quick to cry conspiracy.

To be fair, I find Joe Rogan, Jon Stewart, and myself equally insufferable.

Random host? Jon Stewart was huge, he defined political comedy for over 15 years. His audience though likely didn't overlap much with JRE due to different political leanings (well, that and age).

He unfortunately taught a generation of millennials that simply pointing out hypocrisy was enough.

Trump’s presidency showed that it entirely wasn’t.

I, and my friends, were very skeptical of Jon Stewart taking over for Craig Kilborn but he really did a fantastic job. Think about how many careers were born on that show. Steve Carell for one. Stephen Colbert for another.

EDIT: for those who don't remember policital comedy/commentary shows were not a thing before The Daily Show. Sort of like how people forget conversational format and ajax weren't really a thing before gmail

Jon Stewart was just in the news in the past few weeks, working to get military health insurance benefits passed through the U.S. Senate. It's rumored he might run for a political office. P.S. Conspiracy theories are usually cases of apophenia, which could lead to dysfunctional psychosis.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com