On the Media: The Fat Jew

The Fat Jew-

I was glad to hear that "The Fat Jew" (Josh Ostrovsky) was finally called out for his lack of talent, comedic skills, or anything resembling substance on NPR's On The Media.

I became aware of The Fat Jew through HBO's 3AM, a half-hour reality show and was shocked to discover that Josh was already well known and had 5.8 million followers on Instagram. I was also taken back that he was featured on HBO, seemingly only because he is savvy at social media and tries to defuse his lack of talent by stealing other people's material and calling himself a "fat Jew."

It was refreshing to hear Maura Quint and other comedians calling him out in public and in public forums like On The Media. 

The show focused on how people in social media can manipulate and steal content via images or written words and use them with no credit to the originators. In Josh's case, stealing them to create the illusion that it is his creative property. 

In the show they use the term aggregator, in this case meaning someone who collects and collates property. 

Though in Ostrovsky's case because he never gave authorship to the creators, he is not collating or collecting for our amusement. He is just simply stealing to attain attention and fame. 

In social media, this problem has been around before Josh Ostrovsky and will continue because social media allows anonymity. We can all steal, paste, and package anything that we find because few people seem to care or even know that they should care. Many who are stolen from never know it has even happened to them or they find out too late to do anything about it.

Our obsession with social media and being known for simply being known continues to spiral out of control. The Fat Jew is just one stupid example that comedians are upset about but no one else seems to care because we want what we want and we move on.

I disagree with the host's claim that the Kardashians don't fall into that category. I feel as if they most certainly do. They're simply known for being rich, they possess no talent to speak of. They are vapid, mind-numbingly boring and suck the oxygen out of the universe leaving a vacuum where my brain used to be. 

It seems to be a dumbing down of our culture as well as the whole planet. 

Social media is everywhere and with so much information at our fingertips, few people seem interested in using it to explore origins of art, commentary or thought.

Social-
Below you'll seem more in depth of how this contributes to society. The roles stealing ideas takes on the social aspect of life is ginormous. We don't want to take accountability for not being able to come up with our own art so we end up stealing other's ideas and saying they're our own for the pleasure of feeling good about ourselves and also how other's see us.

Cultural-
Again I spoke of these headings throughout my blog but I find it sad about low my generation can go when it comes to plagiarizing. We, including myself because I know I'm not above it sometimes, find it so easy to copy and paste someone's work and not credit them one iota. Our "I don't give a shit" attitude toward doing so is so incredibly discounting to the creator.

Temporal-
This is happening as my fingers type these words. I can't think of a time that ripping other people off isn't occurring. I think having such people called out for doing theses acts may be able to shift some sort of cultural attitude. I have no idea.

Physical-
Stealing ideas happens everywhere.
And not just in the good ole 'Murica.
Each little country that inhabits this planet has stolen some sort of idea from another.

Psychological-
I find a lot of times that calling people out for stealing ideas doesn't ever escalate and go anywhere. So I think more people just don't bother sometimes.
BUT, when someone that cares genuinely about their/other creator's work I know that when you get called out it's not pretty.
Coming back to Josh Ostrovsky.
His whole entire career will maybe consists of doing a game show, according to OTM. Getting caught in the act can ruin a career and maybe your life.
I know the emotions run high when a producer of an idea or whatever it might be, finds out that their work has been stolen/ripped off. I know when I write something that I may be semi-proud of and someone else uses it on Facebook or Instagram or whatever it might be, it pisses me off. And I'm a twenty-year-old that currently lives in St. George, Utah. So I can only imagine how infuriating it must be when you're a big deal and that's what you do for a living.

We are the ones who create the Fat Jew, the Kardashians, Paris Hilton and myriad others. Because we mindlessly support the vapid mediocracy and talentless hacks by not questioning authenticity and by simply watching. 

Maybe when we watch these talentless people and see them reap the benefits, it reflects back to us the possibility that maybe we can do that too. 

It looks pretty easy.

Check it out for yourself-

https://www.wnyc.org/radio/#/ondemand/527686

The Fat Jew: Super star or Super Villain?