Popular Social Media Comedian The Fat Jew Loses TV Show Over Plagiarism
A social media comedian known as the Fat Jew has been called out for plagiarism. While comedians have a history of reusing jokes — some have even gotten away with it — many comedians have pointed fingers at the Fat Jew. Famous comedians like Patton Oswalt, Paul Sheer, Norm Macdonald, and Doug Stanhope have spoken out against the Fat Jew (aka Josh Ostrovsky) for curating content on popular social media sites like Instagram and Twitter without crediting.
The backlash he has received from making a living recycling jokes has resulted in the social media celebrity losing a show over at Comedy Central. According to Complex, it all started when writer Maria Quint’s tweet went viral. At the time, she attached a picture of Ostrovsky and included the following explanation.
“For those of you who don’t know, this guy, The Fat Jew is someone whose entire career is simply stealing jokes from tumblr, twitter, etc. He is making a living off of the hard work of other people. The people he steals from are struggling writers, comedians, etc. They would love to be able to profit from THEIR OWN WORK but can’t because this complete waste of a person is monetizing their words before they even have a chance to.”
The scathing tweet continued, “When called out on his continued theft he either ignores it, says ‘whoops’ or says ‘geez I guess an intern stole it!’ This man makes nothing, contributes nothing, originates nothing, he is a leech, he is a virus, he is what is wrong with the world. Please please please do not support him. He is pure trash.”
She then encouraged his followers on Instagram and Twitter to unfollow him and even offers to provide a list of comedians in case they would like to follow someone who creates and doesn’t “curate.”
A better list would be comics that have dumped CAA or boycotted Comedy Central for signing @FatJew. That’d be inspiring. Anyone? Anyone?
— Doug Stanhope (@DougStanhope) August 17, 2015
hey @FATJEW saw you got a show with @ComedyCentral….since you like my jokes want me to write for your show?
— Davon Magwood (@davonmagwood) August 15, 2015
My favorite Jane’s Addiction song is “Been Caught Aggregating.”
— Patton Oswalt (@pattonoswalt) August 15, 2015
i would complain about the fat jew but i don’t want people to think i’m unsuccessful
— Megan Neuringer (@MeganNeuringer) August 17, 2015
According to Complex, the Fat Jew makes about $6,000 per brand that he mentions on his social media account. As such, he really is “robbing” from other comedians, especially those that are rubbing change together. As reported by Splitsider, in the wake of the backlash, Comedy Central has decided to shelve him.
“We reached out to Comedy Central to ask about the status of Ostrovsky’s pilot, and a rep confirmed with us that the network no longer has a project in development with him.”
[Photo via Twitter]
