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John Oliver buys $15M in debt and forgives all of it on 'Last Week Tonight'

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Re: John Oliver buys $15M in debt and forgives all of it on 'Last Week Tonight'

#111

Post by ritchiea »

bko wrote: post #66
coderdude wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a good show (he's funny and you learn stuff) but it's way too preachy. He gets just a little too excited about things that are basically impossible for anyone to get excited about. Clearly pandering to the young, left crowd. I'm sure it makes some people feel very warm at night but it gives me a bad taste in my mouth after binge watching.

My main problem with John Oliver is that he often chimes in on subjects he doesn't know anything about with folksy common sense logic that is often wrong. I remember him mocking some system for using tapes for storage on the belief that a technology that is so old cannot possibly be useful in modern technologies. In his latest clip, he mocks information being passed by Excel. How does he think things happen? Some mag…

At the end of the day it's a comedy show not a news show and his job is to make people laugh. You can't make people laugh with jokes about insider domain knowledge only possessed by experts.

If you consider the constraint that Last Week Tonight is primarily a comedy show themed around important newsworthy issues rather than an investigative journalism show it's hard to imagine it done any better.

Re: John Oliver buys $15M in debt and forgives all of it on 'Last Week Tonight'

#112

Post by vasilipupkin »

zymhan wrote: post #70
lujim wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not saying I do or don't agree with him, but you don't have to be wrong to be preachy. When you're a comedian you need to be at least 80% funny. If you're 50% funny 50% preachy I'm not going to bother. Southpark use to danced this line pretty successfully.

People used the "You're a comedian so just tell jokes" line against Jon Stewart for years. There's absolutely no reason someone has to adhere to some arbitrary ratio of comedy to seriousness (edit: or preachiness, etc).

He doesn't have to, but when it's a mix of serious and funny, it's easy to end up both not serious enough and not funny enough

Re: John Oliver buys $15M in debt and forgives all of it on 'Last Week Tonight'

#113

Post by hyperbovine »

dannypgh wrote: post #44
qmr wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I haven't felt urge to watch a single episode with him.

You're proud of the fact you've pre-judged Trevor Noah's performance without watching a single episode?

You mean like you pre-judged him to be prideful of this fact?

Re: John Oliver buys $15M in debt and forgives all of it on 'Last Week Tonight'

#114

Post by tkyjonathan »

robbiep wrote: post #30
wjnc wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That would mean he could probably pay it off at a discount?

except payment isnt going to the people who were originally owed it - payment is going to the last agency which owned it, and can't collect on it

Yes, but the people who owed it, now have less issues with credit checks and such. Maybe it will make it possible for them to be able to buy more medicine.

Re: John Oliver buys $15M in debt and forgives all of it on 'Last Week Tonight'

#115

Post by drostie »

lujim wrote: post #56
Justsignedup wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is very preachy but the problem is that often he talks about highly abused topics. - debt collection - voter identification and voter fraud - abortion clinic laws - trump And he doesn't ever state things as "fact" when it is speculation. He only specifies facts when they are facts. And he never tries to push opinions into sort-of-kind-of factual sounding things like most news sites. How would you talk about a topi…

Not saying I do or don't agree with him, but you don't have to be wrong to be preachy. When you're a comedian you need to be at least 80% funny. If you're 50% funny 50% preachy I'm not going to bother. Southpark use to danced this line pretty successfully.

It's worth pointing out that the Last Week Tonight clips that you see online are generally the second half or so of a longer-running HBO show: you only see the main story, and it generally comes with a spectacular call-to-action at the end (it's an intentional decision about what note to end the show on).

So the ratio for the full show is less 50/50 and more 25/75, which is much closer to your sweet spot.

Re: John Oliver buys $15M in debt and forgives all of it on 'Last Week Tonight'

#116

Post by pc86 »

zymhan wrote: post #70
lujim wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not saying I do or don't agree with him, but you don't have to be wrong to be preachy. When you're a comedian you need to be at least 80% funny. If you're 50% funny 50% preachy I'm not going to bother. Southpark use to danced this line pretty successfully.

People used the "You're a comedian so just tell jokes" line against Jon Stewart for years. There's absolutely no reason someone has to adhere to some arbitrary ratio of comedy to seriousness (edit: or preachiness, etc).

It's important to use the same words when discussing like this, because "preachiness" and "seriousness" mean very different things in this context.

We're talking about comedy v. preaching to the audience, not when to make a joke and when to make a serious point. They're completely different discussions.

And to the Stewart point, he was perfectly able to explain (using comedy) why he believed something without implying that you are lesser for disagreeing with it. Oliver seems to be able to do that at most 1/3 as much as Stewart. The remaining 2/3 is "not only am I right for believing this, and not only are you wrong and you should feel bad about yourself if you don't, but you're so wrong that I can't even comprehend how you could possibly disagree."

Re: John Oliver buys $15M in debt and forgives all of it on 'Last Week Tonight'

#117

Post by cloudjacker »

coderdude wrote: post #27
sethbannon wrote: post #18

I'm not aware of any other show that so seamlessly combines rip-roaringly funny comedy with essential insight into the way our society and system of government is deeply flawed. And on top of that, he even manages to direct action to fix the issues he draws attention to -- taking down the FCC website being one example[1]. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/jun/03/john-oliv...

It's a good show (he's funny and you learn stuff) but it's way too preachy. He gets just a little too excited about things that are basically impossible for anyone to get excited about. Clearly pandering to the young, left crowd. I'm sure it makes some people feel very warm at night but it gives me a bad taste in my mouth after binge watching.

yeah one time he was talking about intra-state groups that talk about and harmonize laws between states.

of course, on HIS show he was talking about why that is a bad thing, and how this shadowy conspiracy organization was influencing democracy. All the children on reddit gobbled it up of course, despite never having had a business dispute themselves that was hampered by incompatible laws in states.

Re: John Oliver buys $15M in debt and forgives all of it on 'Last Week Tonight'

#118

Post by pc86 »

ritchiea wrote: post #111
bko wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My main problem with John Oliver is that he often chimes in on subjects he doesn't know anything about with folksy common sense logic that is often wrong. I remember him mocking some system for using tapes for storage on the belief that a technology that is so old cannot possibly be useful in modern technologies. In his latest clip, he mocks information being passed by Excel. How does he think things happen? Some mag…

At the end of the day it's a comedy show not a news show and his job is to make people laugh. You can't make people laugh with jokes about insider domain knowledge only possessed by experts. If you consider the constraint that Last Week Tonight is primarily a comedy show themed around important newsworthy issues rather than an investigative journalism show it's hard to imagine it done any better.

Agreed, but just because it's a comedy show doesn't mean that he can be factually inaccurate about things and not get called out on it.

Re: John Oliver buys $15M in debt and forgives all of it on 'Last Week Tonight'

#119

Post by jug5 »

dvcrn wrote: post #43

As a non-american guy that has never seen John Oliver before, I found it very hard to sit through the entire thing until the end, though the payoff was definitely worth it. This guys looks to me like he's been in TV for a little too long and tries very hard to find a audience with very simple jokes (that feel kind of forced) amplified by background laughter. He has the right idea and did the right thing but I persona…

Couldn't agree more, pretty painful
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