What are your thoughts on Jon Stewart?
I love the guy and the courageous left-leaning progressive stances and slandering he's doing to the you-know-who administration atm.
I think he's up there with Ruby Setnik, Romesh Ranganathan and Stephen Colbert as my favourite leftist satirist, and his podcast is such a fun time-waster of a audio frequency too.
But I respect your opinion if you aren't a big fan of his.
96 replies
He's awesome
Jon is on the side of common sense and that’s his biggest advantage. If you look at his career as a whole you’ll see that he’s not afraid to call out absurdities and injustices regardless of what side of the aisle it comes from. He critiques government, not just republicans.
Also incase you haven’t picked up on it from others, you’re using the word ‘slander’ incorrectly.
And not even using the word ‘slander’ incorrectly to be able to quote j jonah jameson
It's not slander if it's true or satire.
Guy has called out abuses of power, non-stop, for decades. What's not to like?
And he doesn't just do it on his show for ratings. Guy stood the fuck up, in person, in DC, for 9/11 responders for YEARS to get them what they deserved.
He is a traitor to America and the American people! Who does he think he is to abandon me on my vacation! I have had an entire week with no Daily Show! Please come back Jon.
What a bastard, Columbus day indeed!
Oh! America has Columbus Day on Original Thanksgiving day. T.I.L.
Very intelligent guy. He was always aware of his privilege and used his position to fight for the right things. Amazing interviewer.
He's my favorite Green Lantern
Lanterns ended up being a solid show...assuming they allow it to be a miniseries.
I did enjoy it, but I'd prefer they not do thr TV show format for Green Lanterns moving forward. The writing, character development, casting, and acting was all quite good, there just was not NEARLY enough Green Lantern-ing. And it was interesting what they were able to do with a limited setting, but I don't ever want to see that Nebraskan town or anyone in it ever again. Except the kid, for obvious reasons.
4 years from now when there is a Green Lantern movie, the climax will take place in Rushville and somewhere in the world, I will be hearing a feint scream.
Remember that James Gunn is on the record as saying that they want the DCU to follow the "graphic novel format rather than the MCU's comicbook format. Things will be more themed and relatively self contained. See Lanterns as a True Detective story and Clayface as a straight A24 or Neon style body horror film.
Probably why John Stewart's patrol beat at the end of Lanterns is more focused. More investigation, less super powers.
I do overall prefer the idea of that approach. I like shared universes but Marvel for example has become droll with every movie or show being a trailer for the next slop content and nothing else. So I liked it, don't get me wrong. But I have some notes...and if this is the only GL thing we're getting I don't know if I'd say I'm "satisfied", especially given the completely lack of GL content since... ever. I am on board enough to continue watching the DCU though.
Oh goddammit ya got me good. The ole made ya
lookgoogle.Top tier comedic timing and master of facial expression physical comedy. He just brings an energy to the Daily Show that's unmatched.
It's not slander at all if it's true, just saying.
I generally like him, but he can be frustrating because his general mindset seems to be that of the comfortable liberal. Sure he sees problems, but he's wealthy and comfortable and doesn't really want the system changed because it works for him and at the end of the day that matters more than the people currently getting hurt. Order and property like all the rest.
Thats why so many of his takes seem focused on market solutions. He's a capitalist who refuses to acknowledge that capitalism is the inherit source of all the issues he claims to care about. So no matter how much I enjoy his wit or comedy he'll always come across as somewhat hypocritical.
Yeah but have you tried John Stewart on weed, man?
The best way to approach famous people with good points is to agree with their takes while not necessarily idolizing them
He started Tucker Carlson's villain arc, which is at least hilarious. He has a higher hit rate than most but also occasionally suffers from old man syndrome. As progressive as he started, he is now an affluent old white man that's been insulated from hardship for decades, and sometimes suffers from the lack of contact with reality that results from that.
i remember he was making fun of his boy- bowtie and he stopped wearing it after. conservatives and thier wealthy supporters(who arent neccesarily cons themselves) care alot about thier appearances.
RIP the bowtie
He's mostly fine, but he misses the boat sometimes on some issues where he is blinded by his idealism and ignorance on certain topics, and he kind of pushes his ignorant opinions on certain things way too hard rather than letting his guests speak more.
A lot of his guests are too pie in the sky liberals and not enough are pragmatic. I also feel like he pushes back against his more pragmatic guests in a way that he doesn't against the idealists and tries to push them into idealist thinking and gets annoyed when they don't take his bait. He needs more diversity of of opinion on his show, but that might alienate his core audience who goes to him precise for the ignorant idealism and the American Way stuff. He also by into hype train nonsense way too much and doesn't really dig for details enough.
I also think he's way too much of an optimist about people, which is true of most folks in his situation/generation who all tell the same 'rags to riches' stories and think that's possible for anyone if you just 'work hard'. Often comedians like him were from well-off families, who just didn't think they were well-off because they didn't own a yacht growing up. They don't really seem to acknowledge the privilege of their backgrounds, but then again nobody else really, anyone. I think my biggest annoyance is when he has another celeb guest and they jerk off about what 'jersey boys' they were...
I listen to his podcast.
Yeah I've caught this a few times. It's easy to forgive him though cuz he's very much a positive force in the universe.
He's a liberal-elite and promotes liberal-elitism. If you're not a liberal elitist, he's not a force for good.
No he isn’t and no he doesn’t.
If you’re not a pseudo-intellectual wannabe socialist anarchist, you’d see that he is absolutely a force of good. But this requires nuanced thought- of which the aforementioned posers are incapable of.
He's my favourite Green Lantern. Sure, his constructs aren't as inventive as Hal Jordan's, and he's not as powerful, but I think h-... Ooooohhhh that guy. Oh...
Biggest annoyance with him is that he doesn't take responsibility for anything he says. "You got this wrong and you skewed the facts!" "We're just a comedy show! Don't take us seriously!"
Have you seen what The Daily Show was before he joined? It was basically The Onion but on TV. He transformed it but for a long time TDS still was just a comedy show. Some people tried to put higher journalistic integrity requirements on them then the news shows themselves had. When they did, he pushed back saying "we're just a comedy show" and he was right.
I would say things changed when John Oliver left and started his show which was designed from the start to do serious, in depth analysis of the topics it was covering. Other shows had to follow and get serious about fact checking. TDS also evolved and got better at it. I don't know if Jon is still using the same excuse today. I haven't seen any interviews or debates with him in recent years.
The one thing I remember is when he had a guest appearance on TDS and pushed the Covid lab leak theory. Which afaik is pretty debunked scientifically now and already was shaky back then (the honest take would have been "we don't know"). I remember most virologists back then already said that there's no evidence for it. And TDS has a pretty big audience, that does repeat its talking point regularily, so sure, you can say it's just comedy, but people do listen to these things, it does influence public discourse and I did find it a bit irresponsible at the time. Especially since a lot of the show is about commenting on actual news.
Does this make him the devil incarnate? no. And some of the backlash for that one thing was way overblown. But then his reaction was mostly just saying how the backlash was stupid, and I would have liked a more nuanced/reflective response. If you have such a big platform, comedy or not, you should consider the effect of your words more carefully imo.
I remember that and it was weak. He's not perfect but one mistake like that over such a long career is a close to perfect as you can get. He has been incredibly solid on most topic for decades. If more media personalities had his integrity we would be living in a completely different world today.
Yes. Just to be clear, I do think he overall has a pretty good track record, from what I know. I certainly don't follow him religiously and especially since Trumps second term I have very little interest in US late night TV, too much US on the news anyway. That was just the one instance that comes to mind. Also the one instance when I was worried that he might start to boomer, though luckily it seems that was not the case.
Some people took the Colbert Report literally.
Huge fan of Jon but you know what this is spot-on.
Just a prank bro kind of quality to it. It's serious when it's expedient; it's a joke when the truth falls flat.
Of course that's part of how comedy can broach uncomfortable things that can't be said anywhere and I think at heart he has good intentions.
You know it is just a comedy show right? Do you also take SNLs news update segment seriously?
The Daily Show should not be held to a standard higher than we hold Fox News to.
Never clicked for me. Glad he's out there as one more progressive voice who isn't a total dry loser, but not my personal cup of tea.
Satire like that really isn't my jam, but out of the easily accessible ones, I'm more likely to catch a Colbert or Oliver clip.
He would make a good president
Please, no more celebrities.
He is something good coming from the US, so you can inagine how precious and important he is.
America would be a much better place if he were President.
America would be in a much better place if a ham sandwich were president.
True enough.
America would be a much better place if we abolished the system
isnt he pretty soft on israel though, people thought his stance is wierd. he does advocate for troops, but unlike Sinese hes not glorifying them at every turn, if knows Sinese is very a very frequent visitor to reddit, always promoting how he helped the troops, or how he was in forrest gump, he suddenly came on reddit just before the '24 election, so he had ulterior motive.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K2zbN3AuHG8
I'm not really seeing it in this clip. Mind you, this is from 2024 but even then he seemed to understand the situation.
This HuffPost article from July 2025 also states:
hes pretty careful with what he says. sacha baren cohen is another one, but i think hes a slightly more supportive of of israel, not by much though.
Why is him being funny an issue you bring up here?
I gave my thoughts on him.
the only issue is that he's unpalatability bland. zero flavor. he needs to be seasoned properly for his true flavor to be expressed. might I recommend using conservative tears?
And why is him being a Jew a standalone thought on him?
i liked him a lot more on the apple tv show than the daily show (though i still do love him on the daily show) but i also think that by in large he's only as good as his writers and i thought the writing staff was FAR more intersectional and diverse on the problem.
i never watched his show before he left, seen clips of youtube. i only ever knew his association with colbert the most.
He's alright.
I don't recall, did he ever apologize for the two decades of the daily show where he constantly used trans women as the butt of jokes?
Yes, in 2022. Even Fox News reported on it, but here’s a Daily Beast if you don’t want to give Fox the clicks
Nice, I love Jon.
Yes.
I don't have any real exposure to his TV stuff but I am at least aware of who he is.
And from what little I've seen he seems ok. Nothing bad to say about the dude. :)
Never really watched Steward and was only tangentially aware of him from the general internet where a lot of lefties seem to really like him. Then I encountered this skip intro video going into how he might appear to be progressive he is very much bothsiding things, and I question anything about him and his opinions a lot more.
John Stewart has always been a bothsidser though, it's not like a trick or anything. His style made a lot of sense when things were ""normal"" (like back in 2008) but it doesn't really jive with me in the current landscape.
Of course, you could argue that that's exactly what the technofeudalists want...
I find the real target of TDS is the media.
I like him
The goblin king you’re omitting the name of is Trump. Do not shield its name from public forums.
May it meet similar fates as other massive disgusting slug monsters who shall Hutt be named.
I love that they changed The Daily Show logo to TDS to mock Trump Derangment Syndrome.
John is a hardcore Neo-Liberal. He's always looking for a market solution to the problems of capital.
John will platform absolute ogres; ask them softball questions while holding up their new book. True, John gets a better class of ogre than Joe Rogan, but that's a pretty low bar.
He's also a member of the wealthy and celebrity elite and is quite out of touch.
I must follow a completely different Jon Stewart.
I think he has mistaken Jon Stewart for Bill Maher so far as the soft ball questions go
they both softball their guests. they aren't journalists, they are entertainers.
I need to make a shit leftists say community and your take of Jon Stewart basically being Bill Mahers will be the header.
It’s just .ml trickling into .world. This is how those clowns get their dumb shit spread while circumventing the fact that most people have blocked their entire shithole of instance. Nearly every .ml has a .world account.
you are probably thinking Bill maher, the self-proclaimed "leftist that is not on the left" now turn Magat. or was it sacha baren cohen,
Interesting take.
Who is your favorite candidate for the democratic presidential nominee in 2028 so far?
You can't tell by his answer? It's 100% Gavin Newsom.
I was thinking Tucker Carlson.
hes an heir of the swanson fortune or at least married to someone that is.
Appropriate username. lol.
I've never heard/watched a US satirist whom I actually thought to be funny. It just seems like reflecting my existing opinions and trying to derive enjoyment from that, rather than saying anything interesting or insightful. Maybe it feels different if you're embedded in the US media landscape where everyone else is a sop to the far-right MAGA crowd. This applies to Stewart, Colbert and also John Oliver who although British seems to also exist in that style of aggressive agreement.
British satire seems to have more going for it. But I have a fairly high personal bar because I also don't really like satire which consists of mischaracterising a person or situation in order to make fun of it. I remember Frankie Boyle often doing this when he's doing political stuff - I just find myself thinking, "but that's not true" or "that's not what they think" and being unable to find that funny.
Ah yes, the famed British opinion that if something isnt British then it is inferior.
You forgot the part where they steal it anyway.
So it could be made better.
So I am definitely biased but although there are American comedies I enjoy I think British comedy tends to be sharper and more subtle at the same time. What would to hold up to Blackadder for example?
blahblahblah blah blah, I'm superior, here's a show from 40 years ago, beat that.
Ok compare and contrast the UK office from the US office. Or Have I got news for you or even Graham Norton's chat show to the US late night equivalents.
It's been interesting watching the UK SNL and how it's humour differs from the US equivalent and that sort of live sketch comedy is pretty new to us.
you mean the UK "The Office" vs the wildly successful version everyone thinks of first when they hear "The Office"?
You mean the UK version with only 14 episodes vs the US version with 201 episodes, over 9 seasons?
You want to compare those?
There's an entire cultural zeitgeist describing fans of the US version. It's basically the show that went on to inspire many spinoffs such as Parks&Rec and VEEP.
Millions of people basically out themselves as being "basic af" by describing themselves as fans of "The Office" and literally everyone knows which version they're referring to. (it's not the UK version).
Let me demonstrate how inferior the UK version is.... most people who watch "The Office" don't even know there was a UK version.....
Those shows? You want to compare them, and your position is that the UK version is better? I'm sorry, but like, objective reality contradicts you. You can like your thing, that is fine, you can even prefer it, sure, that's your world to live in... but if you're trying to convince me that it is factually superior.... you're delusional.
I don't even like "The Office" and I am still telling you that your "opinion" is objectively wrong.
UK SNL is better than the current US one. The Thick Of It was really good.
Ricky Gervais sucks tho, there were like two genuinely funny things in the Uk office and I've forgotten one
OI NIGEL COME SEE THE TELLY
E'S DOING 'IS FUNNY WALK AGAIN
No thoughts. No idea who they are.
then why answer?
Are you the person answering Amazon review emails with shit like "I don't know, I bought it for my grandniece"
I think “idk who that is” is a useful response, in the context of this specific question. The number of upvotes show roughly how many people don’t know who Jon is. Seems like a minority, but still valid
Because it provides activity for the post which will bring in more activity.
so you're just serving the algorithm?
Am algorithm that doesn't even exist here lmao
Lemmy has limited content so make it organic when you can.