#163 — Ricky Gervais
Episode Stats
Words per Minute
181.59395
Summary
In this episode of the podcast, I speak with Ricky Gervais. You surely know Ricky from The Office and Extras, and many of his other shows, most recently Afterlife on Netflix. You can also see his great hour of stand-up comedy there titled Humanity, and he has another one in the works called Supernature. This conversation was a long time coming, but I took the opportunity to fly to London for this one, so I thought this was one that had to be done in person. And it was great to finally meet Ricky, and we talk about many things. We talk about fame, fame, the effect of social media, the risk of telling offensive jokes, and the state of journalism. We touch many things here. As always, if you find conversations like these valuable, you can support the podcast by becoming a subscriber through my website at Samharris.org, and I'll be rolling out the bonus questions I ve acquired for other guests to subscribers as well. And once my website is revamped, which is also happening very soon, we'll be adding bonus questions to the podcast and some other content that will be coming soon, so stay tuned for those! Sam Harris The Making Sense Podcast is a work in progress, and while the podcast itself is free, there are a few things you can do to help make it even better: you can become a subscriber by becoming one. If you enjoy what we re doing here, please consider becoming a supporter of the show by subscribing to the show, and you can get access to the bonus episodes and more episodes of the full-length episodes, and much more of the best conversations you vettings you ve ever heard on the podcast. You re getting a chance to be part of the making sense community. -Sam Harris . Thanks for listening to the Making Sense podcast, and if you like what we're doing here and want to become a supporter, you ll get a discount code: MADE Sense Sense. MADE MADE SENSING MADEENSE. by SAMHILLS PODCAST, which means you re getting 10% off the MONDAYSING SINGUAGE, which gets you 5% off of the sale of a new episode of Making Sense, plus an extra $5 or $5 off your first month, plus a discount on a second month off the second month only gets you an ad discount when you become a patron gets it?
Transcript
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Just a note to say that if you're hearing this, you are not currently on our subscriber
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The groups feature is finally launching, I believe, in the next update, so more or less
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And this will give you the ability to schedule a time to practice with friends and colleagues
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You can just go out to people in your world and then meet in a virtual group where you
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can sit in silence or listen to a guided session or both.
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It will obviously create social support for people and accountability, but I think it'll
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just be very cool to see your friends practicing with you in silence.
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I'm hoping that it'll simulate the intimacy one experiences on retreat.
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It's amazingly intimate just to sit with people in silence.
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Needless to say, if you discover bugs, please let us know at support at wakingup.com.
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And if you're not using the app and you want more information, you can find all of it at
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The app launched now nine months ago, and the feedback has really been great.
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It is very gratifying to know that so many of you are finding it useful, but it's still
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very much a work in progress, and it will be absorbing much more of my energy over the
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Well, in this episode of the podcast, I speak with Ricky Gervais.
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You surely know Ricky from The Office and Extras and many of his other shows, most recently
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You can also see his great hour of stand-up there titled Humanity.
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And he has another one in the works called Supernature.
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I've been emailing with him for years at this point, but we had never met.
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I thought this was one that had to be done in person.
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We talk about comedy, obviously, and fame, the effect of social media.
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We talk about the risk of telling offensive jokes or saying much of anything, really.
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And Brexit and Trump, political hypocrisy, the state of journalism.
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As always, if you find conversations like these valuable, you can support the podcast by becoming a subscriber through my website at samharris.org.
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And I left the bonus questions in this episode.
00:03:55.140
But once my website is revamped, which is also happening very soon, we'll be rolling out the bonus questions I've acquired for other guests to subscribers.
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So those, along with Ask Me Anything episodes of the podcast and some other content that will soon be coming, is there to incentivize subscription.
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Because while the podcast itself is free, subscriber support is what makes it possible.
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And now, without further delay, I bring you Ricky Gervais.
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Well, you are a podcaster, so you should have some mic technique.
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So I'm going to ask you to leave the room if you have to do that again.
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That big laugh, that's a lovely euphemism for annoying noise.
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He has the most cartoonish billionaire's laugh.
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It might be sort of a linear relationship of wealth to how funny everything is.
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Two idiots setting up to try and sound intelligent.
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You've, I've traveled a quarter of a mile for this.
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In my office, very near my house in Hampstead, you, you've flown 3,000 miles.
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It's been some years that I've wanted to just meet you and it's been, you know, I just noticed
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that, uh, it wasn't happening by accident, though we were exchanging emails.
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So, you know, so I just wanted to make it happen.
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You were a professional comedian and I know, but I'm scared.
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I'm scared that us two in a room, we'll egg each other on and we'll say, we'll say things
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that, that will be, you can't have a subtle argument anymore.
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There's, there's no, there's no place for nuance or, or everything has to be binary for
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the, for the right people to agree and disagree.
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They'll take anything out because it's all about point scoring.
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So that's why when I, when we're discussing, you know, contentious or having a discussion
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Let's, before we jump into that, I just want to ask you a few questions about just how
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And so at what point did you become famous and how, how long were you working in comedy
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before you had to think about the world paying attention to what you were doing?
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It was, I guess the, it's sort of an accident, a very slow, gradual process.
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And, and by the time I decided to be a professional comedian, I sort of nearly was one.
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Well, I actually started standup before the office went out.
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And I think my first Edinburgh show was while the office, the first series was, was going
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So I certainly started right in the office before I started doing standup to any degree,
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but they're about the same, but I think it was, it was still relatively late, you know?
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Briefly, I was a failed sort of musician, early twenties.
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I then, uh, eventually got a job, just a job in my twenties.
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And, um, I worked in an office for like nine years, I think, which is what the office is
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I wasn't thinking one day I'll be a comedian and I'll write about this.
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I was thinking this job's near my house and, uh, I've got friends and it's, it's fun, you
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know, and then, uh, because I worked as part of, it was the admin center for the university.
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I helped a local radio station get its license by letting them promote to the students and
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out of the blue, because I got on with them as a tiny little station had just got its license
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I was the head of speech and they wanted me to, you know, um, write little news things
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And I was meant to write things for the DJs, you know, what was on that night or bits of
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And, and because I'm lazy, I thought, I thought, do I have to type this out?
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I was just myself and I was sort of funny, but a normal guy being funny, never, never thought
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And soon I was popping up on three or four different radio shows throughout the day.
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And it was, it was just the day job with a little bonus, you know?
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And I think from that, I got, someone was listening.
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So, so it was sort of like a cutting edge, no hold barred sort of Saturday night live
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for new comedians and pretty much anything, anything, you'd say what you want.
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And I went on there a couple of times and, uh, I suppose that's, that was when I thought,
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Um, but still I was thinking, oh, this is, this is not going to last, you know, I'm just
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And, and then I thought, no, I'm early enough now to do this full time.
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And I'd already started, I already had David Brent along with lots of other things that
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Just again, it seemed like I was an amateur comedian all my life.
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So, so you had David Brent as a character before the office?
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It wasn't until, um, you know, he started thinking about it and he's got to have a
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And then there was this sort of nice synchronicity that I was earning enough and didn't have
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And, and it still didn't go out for another two or three years.
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And then I also got my own show from the channel four thing as a, as a little spinoff called
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You know, again, it was getting like a million people.
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And, but I knew I had the office and I knew the office was sort of more important.
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And I, and I thought, this is the, this is what I want to kick the door down with.
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Well, that was, that was certainly, I'd have to say that I would be getting recognized on
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the streets and have, and see things about me in the news and my picture around.
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Immediately the first, the first season of the office.
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But still, but to most people, I came from nowhere because all the other stuff was small.
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I had that, I had a bit of a cult following from the 11 o'clock show.
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And, but you know, we're still talking a couple of million people watching that.
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And indeed the first series, the office, I think only got like one or 2 million people.
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And then the first, the first episode of the second season got started at 5 million.
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But yeah, that was certainly when I thought, oh, okay, I'm a, I'm a professional comedian
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In fact, I feared fame before it happened because I was sort of older and wiser.
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And then after the first year of the office, I think I hit 40.
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It would have been, yeah, it would have been, yeah, July, 2001.
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And, uh, it's because I, lots of things, you know, I, I, I didn't want to, people to think
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that I'd, I didn't want to be lumped in with those people that just wanted to be famous.
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So I wanted to be clear that this was an upshot of fame.
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If you become a, if you become a, a successful comedian or actor, you're probably a bit of
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a famous one just because, you know, and, uh, I never signed that, never signed that deal
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with the devil, you know, make me famous and you can go through my bin.
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So I was quite militant about my privacy and probably too much.
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And, uh, I also thought it was, it would be an injustice for people to tell lies about
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me because I thought my reputation was everything, you know?
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And now I think it's still important, but I realized that reputation is what strangers
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think of you, you know, and characters, what your friends know you are.
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Now I hear things about me, I think, who cares?
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Well, I mean, people certainly pretend to care.
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So, yeah, but then if that's like, that's like, it really, if you, if you take, you
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know, social media, not just social media, you know, now lazy journalism, the worst bit
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of clickbait for me is so-and-so said a thing and people are furious.
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And we wouldn't even know about it if you hadn't made it a headline and shown two tweets
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If you take what social media is saying, you might as well go and visit every public toilet
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wall in the world and, and get offended by what they've written.
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Except there's, there are now real world consequences to this kind of amplification.
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Twitter's, I mean, Twitter's become more and more of a cesspool and you just mustn't,
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And I don't, I don't get a lot of stick really.
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I see some people that it's like they're, they're keeping back a mob with a, with a
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It seems to me that you have created a persona for yourself that inoculates you against the
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I mean, so you, well, first of all, comedians in general have a little more latitude than
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A comic can get away with something that a politician could never imagine saying.
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Traditionally, traditionally, historically, but now it's like, it's like, it's worse to
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make a joke about a bad thing than to do the bad thing.
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So I want to, I want to talk about that, about whether comedy has become more dangerous, but
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I also want to notice that I do think you are, you're, you're managing to fly above or
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below the radar in a way that I feel like other comics aren't because you, I mean, I don't
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know if you understand the physics of it, but I feel like you are more bulletproof than
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most, partly because you don't appear to give a shit about the back, any kind of backlash.
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Well, that has to be the perception, I think, for a comic, because as soon as, as soon as
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you start apologizing to the, the mob, you might as well give hecklers the stage because
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that's all they are, they're hecklers and, um, you, you've got to be in charge and, and
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I think I, I, if I have achieved that, I've achieved it for lots of reasons that's, that's
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That is, I try and make my stuff bulletproof so I can defend it.
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I don't go out there and go, I'm going to say what I want and offend who I want and
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I'll ruin the day and I'll under, I'll, I'll undermine the moral fabric of society and I
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When these, these jokes, these routines hit, you know, Netflix or BBC, they've been, they've
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But then there's been a sea change in people's attitudes.
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Are there any jokes that you once did and could have fully defended at the time, but
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Well, I think the, the big impossible feat through, through recent changes is you can make
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your jokes bulletproof at the time, but now you have to make them bulletproof for 10 years
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John Wayne was cancelled 40 years after he died recently for, for not being woke enough
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In, in, in, in an interview for Playboy magazine, no less.
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It's like, people reading Playboy nowadays are going, this is, this isn't woken up, you
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So, but you, you can't, you can't legislate against stupidity.
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All you, all you can hope is that people understand, like, um, I talk about this in
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my new show, Supernature, about the cancel culture, that it's not enough to apologize anymore
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People want you ruined because it's a point scoring competition now.
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So Kevin Hart did some shitty, childish, homophobic tweets 10 years ago, right?
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Then he gets the job of his life, you know, last year, um, hosting the Oscars.
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The tweets come back up, the mob on Twitter going, what about these tweets?
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You're going to, you cannot, the Oscars, you go, oh, just apologize again, Kevin.
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Now he's got a point really, because if there's no value in saying sorry and changing and progressing
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Also, if the apology isn't sincere, I mean, that's the, actually, I want to talk, let's
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I want to talk about what I am thinking about as kind of the physics of apology.
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What, what should constitute an adequate apology?
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Before we get there, I want to, I want to just stay on this, this issue of, of dredging
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Because I, this did almost happen to you recently.
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But so you had that interview show where you did, where you sat down with Louis C.K.
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And you guys used the N-word and you were, you were discussing why it is that, that only two
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of you ever use the N-word and the other two of you never do, but you're using the N-word
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in the, in the context of having this discussion, right?
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And then this gets exported to social media in, in, in, in media in general, in the most
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I mean, the thing that was, in my view, totally exculpatory, and it was exculpatory at the time.
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I mean, I don't remember you getting grief at the time for this.
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Was that you were explicitly referencing one of the most famous bits of comedy ever is
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that Chris Rock's bit about the N-word, you know, there are black people and then there
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And me and Jerry were saying we never use that.
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And then Chris, he and Chris were going back and forth about, about that.
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And, you know, I think Chris said that he was, he was black or something.
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I mean, so, but it was, it was, the most important point is that at no point was there an indication
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that anyone there was a racist or would ever use this term to express racism, right?
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And, and, and the, and the person who got the brunt of it, of course, was Chris Rock for
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He, he, you know, the uncle Tom, he helped midwife this atrocity.
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And, uh, uh, the rest of us was sort of like collateral damage, but, um, he was the,
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he was the one that got, that got the real hate.
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They were trying to find other reasons to bury him further.
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Well, I, I actually, I want to talk about that as well, but you heard, you must've
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heard what happened to, um, this guy, Jonathan Friedland at, at Netflix, the communications
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So he, I probably do, but I, this is probably now a year old.
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I mean, this, the story is, didn't get a lot of press, but it's so emblematic of what
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So I just want to kind of get your intuitions on it, but the comic Tom Segura, who has a
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couple of Netflix specials, very funny guy who in his latest special used the word
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Oh, I do know about this, but I can't remember the details.
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So he used this word and there, there was a lot, a lot of blowback.
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The, I mean, Netflix got lots of grief from, you know, parents with, with kids with mental
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And, and so they had this sort of emergency meeting of the, you know, the top brass at
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So it's this Reed Hastings, the CEO and, you know, the 10 people under him and this
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guy, Jonathan Freeland, who was their communications director.
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And he said, listen, we've all been blindsided by this.
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You know, who knew this, it was this bad, but apparently the word retard is as bad as the
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He said, it is as bad as, as this word for the black community.
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And we just have, we have not, you know, understood this yet.
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So we have to, so he's, he's using it in the spirit of saying, this is how bad it is.
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He used the word, he used the, he used the R word in full or he used the N word in full.
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He used the N word in full to illustrate how bad the R word is.
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But again, it was in the service of saying, this is how woke we have to be.
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This is, we have to figure out how to navigate this such that we make amends and don't offend
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But his uttering those magic syllables, again, in a context where not only was he not expressing
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racism, he was expressing the most energetic anti-racism, right?
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They fired him because the magic syllables had been used in that context.
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And I happened to find myself at dinner with him just randomly at a dinner party and had
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So I'm hearing it directly from him and his wife in the, you know, maybe two months after
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And it seemed to me they hadn't, they hadn't even absorbed what had happened to them.
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So I'm asking him, I said, well, wait a minute.
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So did anyone in that room, you know, did Reed Hastings or anyone under him or even any
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of the millennials at Netflix who were calling for your head, did anyone think you're a racist?
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And, but he hadn't, it's like, he hadn't even absorbed the implications of that.
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It's like this, this was a human sacrifice to a taboo.
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And it seems to me that we have to pull back from us.
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But then, but then again, there's something comforting in that because a lot of people,
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if that had happened to me and I'd been fired and lost my livelihood, I'd still want people
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That would still be the worst bit for me, for people to think I was a racist.
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So I get, so that, that to me is like a little light at the end of the tunnel that, okay,
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I'm fired, I've lost my, but at least I'm not a racist.
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They know it's the worst thing to be and accuse someone of.
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And that's the, that's the, do you know what I mean?
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So that's the power people have when there's a, when there's a, you know, a lynch mob out
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People do sacrifice good people because they can't get to the bad people.
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But that, that's what's so perverse about this circumstance because what it's selecting
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for politically, especially are the bad people who don't care about being called racist.
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Because everyone, everyone that's being fired and publicly embarrassed about a misdemeanor
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and being called a Nazi, there are real Nazis who are getting away with it.
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I mean, we've got, we've got people out there calling people who aren't Nazis, Nazis, which
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makes us look, they don't know, they don't know the real Nazis from the people who said
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And it plays into the hands of the genuinely bad people.
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There are real racists and there are real Nazis and there are people who are oppressing,
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And then the people who joke about these things, who are the poster boys, they get the brunt
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I want to swing back into social media and controversy for a second.
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Have you gotten too famous for your own comfort?
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If you could reel it back and be less famous or be differently famous, would you?
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I mean, how much does fame complicate your life?
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But then that's like saying, I want to be able to turn it on and turn it off.
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I like getting a seat in restaurants, you know, but I don't like people looking at me when
00:27:10.320
I live in a place where I can walk around and I'm not bothered.
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Now, how how different is that from city to city?
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Are there cities like if you go to L.A. or New York, are you bothered more than in London?
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I'm not bothered because I'm not bothered because I'm I'm a 58 year old in a stable relationship
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who doesn't do drugs or gamble or break the law or go to you know, I don't I'm not an
00:27:39.440
But you must get the incessant demand for selfies and.
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It's always that's nice, you know, because I hear stories of some of some of some of some
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and so, you know, a person who's genuinely likes your work and they think they know
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you and they have to pluck up a bit of courage to ask for a selfie.
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And that that's not that to me isn't being bothered.
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You know, if I wasn't famous and someone asked for help that didn't take anything,
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It's not like you don't walk away going, what a great person I am, you know, so that's
00:28:24.660
enough that that that means it's no skin off my nose.
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And so you're in a restaurant eating with friends and people come up to the table and
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Again, slightly annoying that they haven't they haven't read the situation right again.
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But usually I'm really left alone in restaurants because people get there.
00:28:45.080
If I went to some sort of loud, drunken bar at 11 o'clock, I'd be bothered.
00:28:52.160
If I go to a posh restaurant, I'm not bothered because you sort of create your safe spaces.
00:29:03.480
There is a level of fame that's clearly paralyzing or at least deranging of a normal life where the people like, you know, I guess it may correlate with some of the variables you just checked off as not having.
00:29:15.560
I mean, being, you know, whatever the, you know, the Justin Bieber level of fame is or the, you know, the, the Lady Gaga level of fame.
00:29:26.000
You can't get out of the car because there's 100 people waiting for you and, you know, and you have to hide and wear beards.
00:29:33.420
I haven't I haven't got that because I haven't got that demographic.
00:29:45.960
They say horrible things and scummy things and they get they get scummy people and then they get annoyed when they're scummy people that they've pander to act like scummy people.
00:29:56.120
Now, all my fans are I like to think are normal, but they're not crazy.
00:30:02.440
So I haven't I haven't propagated that sort of environment.
00:30:09.700
If I go to a I might play with 10,000 people, but I'm in the car before they're out of the door.
00:30:15.880
If I went if I started stage diving, it'd probably get a little bit hairy.
00:30:27.240
So as much as I sort of fear it and I'm probably a little bit phobic about and I joke about, you know, the general public.
00:30:34.880
I treat I ironically treat him as scum and say things like that.
00:30:42.860
They know that I I appreciate my fans more and more, actually, as I get older.
00:30:52.220
But it's interesting that you so you have that layer of I don't know if this is on some level, you know, the David Brent persona or there's a few of your personas that that you use comedically where you're above everyone.
00:31:13.660
They're down in the mud with the people making fun of the king carefully.
00:31:26.000
Now, nowadays, people know what comedians like me earn.
00:31:40.100
I go, what, you think it's brilliant being rich and famous all the time?
00:31:47.520
Look how I embarrassed myself in front of the queen or the first time I took a private jet, they thought I was the cook.
00:31:57.380
I know I shouldn't be here, but it's like I'm taking the piss and it's not all roses.
00:32:02.900
The other way I get low status is I talk about things where they're better off than me, genuinely.
00:32:11.040
I talk about being old and I'm going to die soon.
00:32:20.960
And then, you know, you can sort of get away with more.
00:32:31.880
I think that's preferable to me going out there and pretending to be on welfare or pretending to still care about this or that.
00:32:38.900
So I joke about being rich and I do it arrogantly so that hopefully they get the irony.
00:32:47.860
It's a great position to be in because you're, you get all of the benefits of being honestly appreciative of your fans and you get all of the fun of playing that other layer of pseudo arrogance.
00:33:02.980
Yeah, but also, but also there's a part of me that says, honestly, if I can do it, anyone can.
00:33:11.060
They know that I probably worked hard and they know that I probably had something.
00:33:16.820
But it is quite an inspirational story, really.
00:33:20.680
A fat working class kid from Reading who suddenly makes it at 39.
00:33:26.920
It's not like I was born with a silver spoon in my mouth and I had privilege and I, do you know what I mean?
00:33:36.400
They look at me up there in my bad jeans and fucking sweat stained black T-shirt drinking Fosters out of a can.
00:33:50.380
They can laugh about it because we have to be the butt of the joke, really.
00:33:53.420
And with all that arrogance and with me playing the war story, I'm always the butt of the joke.
00:34:05.780
Is there an example of a comedian who has a fundamentally different geometry to their comedy who you would compare yourself to?
00:34:13.820
Well, there are comedians that don't go there with themselves.
00:34:16.400
They go out in a suit and they do puns and they're good at what they do, but those jokes are as good to read.
00:34:26.920
So my stuff can't be stolen, if you know what I mean.
00:34:47.720
And it's interesting what you thought about persona, right?
00:34:50.580
Because that's the other thing, the problem that some people don't get.
00:34:55.700
It's a persona as much as David Brent, but it's just more subtle because I use it as my own name.
00:35:01.100
So I treat the audience with a lot of respect in that I want them to be smart enough to know when I'm saying something I mean and when I'm saying something I don't mean.
00:35:11.320
And I almost explain that in my newsroom, Supernatural.
00:35:14.660
I come up and I do a joke and I go, that's irony.
00:35:17.960
That's when I say something I don't really mean.
00:35:22.820
You're laughing at the wrong thing because you know what the right thing is.
00:35:27.400
You also have that bit in Humanity where you go through a list of jokes that you would never tell while telling the joke.
00:35:41.700
And of course, they're not because they're ready for it.
00:35:45.460
And then people say, ah, but the problem with irony is some people don't get it.
00:35:50.620
And I go, so someone can be laughing for the wrong reasons.
00:35:53.760
And I go, yeah, yeah, I don't know what I can do about that.
00:35:56.240
Because if you water the irony down so much that it's not irony anymore, I might as well go out and say racism's wrong, isn't it?
00:36:08.260
So you want to sort of, to me, comedy is an intellectual pursuit.
00:36:12.320
And as soon as you start, you know, pandering or wanting everyone to give you a round of applause because they agree with you,
00:36:20.680
And I think you've got to be a bit cleverer with it than just going out there.
00:36:29.480
You know, when you play the 10,000 people, there probably is a rapist and a Nazi.
00:36:40.380
It's like I'm not responsible for the people at my gig.
00:36:49.200
And the intention behind what you say should be what's most important.
00:36:55.800
I mean, what you're honestly attempting to communicate, if your speech somehow misfires,
00:37:00.960
if you use the wrong word in the wrong context.
00:37:03.120
I mean, I think there was a, someone told me about this.
00:37:07.880
I think this is a British story, which this must be very well known to you.
00:37:11.240
And it's, I'm going to botch it because I'm from America, but wasn't there a comic who
00:37:17.640
recently used the phrase colored people in the U S saying colored people puts you in
00:37:27.960
I mean, you're just a straight up racist, but people of color is the perfect phrase, right?
00:37:34.180
But, but, and to get that wrong is, is enough to have your auto de fe.
00:37:38.700
It would have to be, it would have to be, it's about intent.
00:37:42.260
I think if you, if you were going around saying colored nowadays, it's hard to believe you
00:37:55.140
Cause I remember, I remember when it was the polite thing to say.
00:37:58.760
And then when I say that people thought it was too harsh saying black, you know, there's
00:38:03.540
people with good intentions and, and of course, if things change, then it's a bit odd that
00:38:10.080
you militantly stick to words that people have moved on from, but it depends whether
00:38:20.940
Well, I mean, the reason why it should be about intent, I mean, it's not that you can't
00:38:24.880
cause harm that you don't intend and, and, and, and, and one should feel sorry about that.
00:38:30.520
But the crucial bit is that the fact that you didn't intend it is the indicator that
00:38:36.780
you're not the sort of person who will cause those harms in the future.
00:38:41.740
In 10 years time, this podcast will have us two saying the C word, colored.
00:38:55.800
Well, I try and explain, again, I try to explain to Americans that, that how it doesn't hold
00:39:04.340
Saying cunt to a woman would be a bit, I'd never say that because it's just, it just seems
00:39:09.420
too, and I'm sexist for not saying cunt to a woman, but I try and stress that it's so
00:39:15.500
far removed from female genitalia in context in England.
00:39:21.860
And we call it, we say it to men for two reasons.
00:39:28.860
I was in Edinburgh once and two policemen walked past and they said, oh, Mr. Gervais,
00:39:38.120
It's a term of endearment as well, you know, but there is no misogyny.
00:39:41.660
It's, it's, in fact, it's almost the other way that you don't use it to, you know, so
00:39:47.340
it's very, very complicated nuance, but it, and that's the problem with social media as
00:39:52.380
It doesn't, it doesn't know international boundaries.
00:39:54.840
So when I, when I tweet from London, that's different.
00:40:03.320
And we, we have to be educated and, and I'm a fan of political correctness per se, that
00:40:09.120
I don't say the wrong, I try to not say the wrong, I don't want to be taken the wrong
00:40:17.980
Political correctness, like other things, has been, has been mugged and, and changed.
00:40:24.960
But yeah, I, if, if someone says, oh, we have a new term for that now, I go, good, good.
00:40:32.500
I didn't get the memo, but now I've got the memo.
00:40:35.080
I'd be a psychopath to still go around using the wrong term.
00:40:40.880
Well, I'm, I'm feeling the, the, the tractor pull of controversy is, is irresistible, but
00:40:45.600
I have, I have one left field question to ask you because I'm now, because I'm going
00:40:50.660
to forget it if I, if I don't do it in thinking about this interview, I, um, stumbled upon
00:40:57.240
a, an interview you did with Gary Shandling on YouTube, which was fascinatingly off kilter.
00:41:04.020
And I don't, I don't, I couldn't tell how much was being played consciously for comedy
00:41:11.660
I think he was, I, uh, I don't know what to say here.
00:41:15.520
Cause I've sort of, he, I don't, I don't think he was quite himself.
00:41:23.640
And he talks about it after, there's a thing on YouTube where he talks about it.
00:41:27.180
He says, I, um, he, he was trying to do a thing and it, it sort of went wrong.
00:41:32.440
What happened was he, uh, invited me to be on his, the, some sort of anniversary box set
00:41:40.260
behind a DVD extra behind, uh, Gary Shandling, uh, of Larry Sanders, you know, as a fan.
00:41:46.200
And I said, Oh, I'll do a thing with you as well.
00:41:49.800
I was going to do my, I did a thing where I was doing my three comedic heroes, which was
00:41:58.540
There's a conspiracy theory that goes around that after the Gary Shandling, I canceled the
00:42:07.780
People think that you do, you do it as you go along, you know, cancel the series.
00:42:12.640
Um, so, uh, I think it might've been the first one.
00:42:16.740
Oh no, Larry, I did, um, I did Larry David and then, uh, I did him and went there.
00:42:21.060
I mean, he had that whenever I didn't know him.
00:42:23.360
I met him once very briefly, but social awkwardness was part of his comedy.
00:42:28.800
But off hair, he told me that he was in therapy five days a week.
00:42:42.060
And he says he thought he was recording for his thing at first.
00:42:48.040
There's a thing on YouTube where he talks about it.
00:42:51.180
Um, um, I can't remember what it was, but he explains it all.
00:42:56.220
I left it all in, you know, people think that it was a stitch up.
00:43:03.240
It's like, you know, that's what that's like on this podcast.
00:43:05.920
Occasionally I get people attack me as though they've caught me saying something on this
00:43:11.740
Like I, like I had a chance to take my foot out of my mouth.
00:43:15.820
No, we left it in because it's the, and also it didn't feel awkward.
00:43:24.000
Well, it felt, it was a weird, it felt like there were sort of comedic egos jockeying for
00:43:31.680
I said, I said at the beginning that he's my hero.
00:43:34.140
But then, but then it was also, it was not clear that what he was playing for comedy
00:43:39.580
and, and kind of, kind of faux status or whether he was, he actually didn't know who you were
00:43:47.660
to the degree that, that most viewers would assume in that, at that moment.
00:43:53.380
He was trying, he was trying to get something going, even, you know, even after the initial
00:43:57.120
thing where he says he didn't realize, I mean, then we had, then we had, it was like foreign
00:44:03.200
And then we had breaks and he, and he told me lots of stuff that he'd been through and
00:44:08.900
So it was just funny, it's funny to be to, you know, as a, an enormous fan of yours to
00:44:15.460
just have a document there and an enormous fan of his, to have a document there where
00:44:20.160
the two of you are, are collaborating and to actually not know how to interpret what's
00:44:27.020
I mean, it's a kind of a weird sort of cognitively straining document.
00:44:29.600
But it was like, we were doing it cause it was funny and interesting and we were winding
00:44:35.380
But then it seemed like there were moments where it was, it could have been taken personal.
00:44:39.860
I, in fact, you know, I could have put in the bits where, that we, where we stopped and
00:44:48.940
Anyway, there were lots of conspiracy theories that he, he owned me and he hated me.
00:44:56.880
And then, and then he, yeah, there's a great thing that you should find it is speaking
00:45:00.840
And he says that he got the energy wrong and he was trying something else and, and he
00:45:06.040
put it, you know, and then he, he, and it's funny cause when I got back with it, the broadcaster
00:45:13.940
You should do a new intro saying, oh, he was, he was weird.
00:45:17.620
And it was, I was going, no, I'm not doing that.
00:45:20.480
It's just, it's, it's, he had, he had a bad day and, you know, but yeah, it's, it's
00:45:40.440
So we, we've put our toe in the water a bunch here, but let's just focus for a moment on what
00:45:48.460
So you do seem to more or less just have a good time, at least not like the public facing
00:45:56.760
No one's ever genuinely hurt my feelings on Twitter.
00:46:01.180
It's like the, the, the, the, the analogy I use is I'm walking down the street and there's
00:46:11.460
And he shouts at me, you can't, am I going to get upset at that?
00:46:18.460
I'm not going to, you know, I might take a picture.
00:46:31.300
So let's just walk through this somewhat systematically.
00:46:37.740
I mean, the truth is I don't get that sort of, again, I don't know why, but I don't get
00:46:48.840
If I, if I'm doing a new bit, I'll put in a couple of words and find a mad thing, you
00:46:55.000
And someone said, Dan once said, why do you only retreat the maddest examples of, you
00:47:01.040
And I go, because a sensible Christian is not funny.
00:47:04.960
Whereas someone who just says, oh, I've got spirituality and yeah, live and let live.
00:47:11.260
Whereas someone that says, I hope you get raped by Satan.
00:47:15.800
That's why I choose that comedy is an exaggeration.
00:47:23.140
Well, now, is there a problem though, when you retweet someone to whatever it is, what
00:47:31.920
So is there a problem that, are you encouraging the Twitter mob to go after this person who?
00:47:38.060
Well, I am a bit careful because you don't want that.
00:47:47.940
Was there any point at which you felt your engagement with social media was out of balance
00:47:53.600
and just, and complicated in your life and you, of course, correct?
00:48:00.500
I can, you know, I can sit there and go through and, and I use it as a, I use it in many ways,
00:48:06.520
I think number one, I use it as a, a marketing tool.
00:48:16.400
I mean, and on that level, it, it may just be unavoidable.
00:48:20.780
I mean, when you have a, when you have a new show and you need to put tickets on sale,
00:48:23.820
it would be idiotic not to have a Twitter channel.
00:48:28.580
I don't spend anything on my gigs of pure profit because I don't have to spend anything on advertising.
00:48:34.820
You know, they, they, they sell out around the world, you know?
00:48:41.540
That's, it'd be crazy for me to shut that down because there are a couple of idiots.
00:48:45.700
I use it as market research as well, because that's not a sample.
00:48:52.460
You know, if a hundred, 200 is a good sample, then 13 million, pretty much as it is.
00:49:00.120
They're still the echo chamber because they're presumably following me for a reason.
00:49:02.760
And, you know, I can't, but it's very good for putting out jokes and finding the ambiguity
00:49:09.180
because someone out there will go, do you mean this?
00:49:11.520
And you go, ah, I didn't know it was ambiguous.
00:49:18.940
I like that restriction of characters to, you know, it's no good for nuance.
00:49:24.960
It's no good for, so you've got to be manipulating that sample.
00:49:32.040
Does that mean there's something wrong with the joke?
00:49:36.680
You know, you don't, you don't care about, if 10,000 people are laughing, you don't care
00:49:42.180
It'd be madness to throw, ah, I'll lose that joke.
00:49:46.500
Sometimes I've explained the joke to people and the people who got it are angry.
00:49:54.300
When a comedian apologizes, I go, ah, fucking don't apologize.
00:49:57.320
That's, you know, so you can't please everyone.
00:50:01.820
You can't legislate against stupidity and you shouldn't, you know.
00:50:05.020
Well, so, but you, so you're, again, I'm trying to find the ways in which you are, you seem
00:50:10.480
to be uniquely immune to the pain here because, you know, like many people.
00:50:20.800
Is it because I act like I am or my response is or I shouldn't be, I've survived terrible
00:50:30.940
So, yeah, it's just, so it's one, the public perception of you not getting as much blowback
00:50:41.320
Because I'll tell you why it's not the public perception.
00:50:43.700
If you're on Twitter, you think that there's a war going on.
00:50:47.180
You think, if you go onto Twitter and you go, you hit the right buttons, right?
00:50:53.020
It's like the world is full of Nazis versus anti-Nazis.
00:51:10.140
And that's the terrifying equality that someone living in a bin can do a tweet and the next
00:51:25.980
So when you go on to these things and it blows up like it's a...
00:51:30.040
But you pick Richard Dawkins as a perfect example of somebody who has obviously complicated
00:51:38.440
And there's certain tweets he has sent, which I think had you sent them, it wasn't merely
00:51:47.920
It's that he functions by a different physics of reputation management than you do.
00:51:53.580
Well, my name comes up a lot on Twitter when there's ever controversy, right?
00:51:58.160
At a politicians' summit and people defend and go, oh, no, Ricky Gervais says these things,
00:52:04.280
But I want to go, well, hold on, let's look at it.
00:52:12.000
This isn't me going out and saying the wrong thing.
00:52:16.480
I make jokes about those things, but that's not a joke about the thing.
00:52:29.140
If you're dealing with really contentious, the more emotive and contentious the issue
00:52:35.720
Yeah, you know, you've got to go, oh, I get it.
00:52:38.920
And again, I talk about this on Humanity, that people often get offended by, let's say,
00:52:44.600
Let's talk about jokes, actual jokes, people saying things they don't really mean for
00:52:52.700
People get offended when they mistake the subject of a joke with the actual target.
00:52:59.460
So some people think that something shouldn't be joked about, which is clearly not true.
00:53:05.960
So, and they do that because they think, and there's lots of stages here.
00:53:10.220
They think that, so if it's a bad thing, if it's a joke.
00:53:26.100
Or is the Nazi that, there's lots of ways this can be okay.
00:53:31.200
You can make jokes about race without being racist.
00:53:34.520
We don't have to get to, you know, is it a racist joke or not?
00:53:37.740
It can be just a joke about race, and everyone knows that you can make a joke about race without
00:53:43.000
It seems to me that there are comics, though, that have completely changed their act in response
00:53:56.920
You say, oh, I'm dealing with irony, and I used to play the right-wing bigot, and everyone
00:54:02.480
got it, but now, right-wing bigots are in charge, so is it the right thing to do?
00:54:08.480
So I have to find a way where I can still make these sort of jokes, and people get them,
00:54:13.020
and, you know, so there's a, I do feel there's a responsibility to at least try to get the
00:54:19.800
So I get that, and sometimes, and then I get why people go, oh, it's just not worth it.
00:54:24.860
I'm getting shouted at, and my friends don't get it either, and I want to be in this club.
00:54:40.180
I'm happy to explain the joke, because I love the intellectual pursuit.
00:54:43.500
I love to say to someone, no, no, I'll give an example.
00:54:47.040
So, the Golden Globes, and now that's the only chance I get to write one line.
00:54:52.560
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