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Comment by elif | Hacker News Reader

I think the daily show format succeeded because of the ironic humor excusing some of the exaggeration and bias. I was a huge fan and even drove to DC for the rally to restore sanity during his heights.

Without the ironic humor, (and without editorial oversight) jon comes across as arrogant and self righteous rants which don't use hyperbole as a punch line but as if a legitimate replacement for informed journalism. The script reads as an unhinged op-ed with rare and cherry-picked factual justifications.

Even when I agree with 90% of what he's saying, I cringe at how over the top he takes it and at how his emotional investment and self-righteous attitude undercuts any thoughtful or reasoned articulation of the facts of the issue he is discussing.

I'm not shocked at all that apple cut this show, and I don't even see it as censorship.

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> I think the daily show format succeeded because of the ironic humor excusing some of the exaggeration and bias. I was a huge fan and even drove to DC for the rally to restore sanity during his heights.

I think they also just had an incredibly high concentration of talent for a while.

Sure it was a product of its time, and Stewart himself was a big part of its success, but in the early 00's (especially before Colbert left) they had some really talented comedians on the show at the same time.

I can't really blame the guy if he got increasingly jaded as he got older. He used to be an actual comedian and even an actor sometimes and was probably a lot happier. Becoming a full-time pundit has to be toxic to the soul. Poor life choice, but maybe this is an opportunity. Disconnect from the 24-hour outrage cycle and become human again. He's probably branded himself into too much of a corner to ever be a public figure except by being a talking head, but screw it, what's the point of money and success if you can't take it and go live a quiet happy life at some point?

That sort of disconnect was exactly what he said he wanted to do when he left The Daily Show in the first place. I was almost sad for him when the Apple show was announced because it very much felt that he had failed at his retirement attempt. The fact that the show was so very "Old Man Yells at Clouds" only added to that feeling of sadness.

That's pretty much why I never followed Jon Stewart outside of The Daily Show. It's not that I think he's a bad guy, but his general demeanor both on and off script tells me he's not someone I'd want to be around IRL. I first started to realize this when he was on Who Wants To Be A Millionaire (holy crap, I'm realizing that was probably over 20 years ago) and his attitude was offputting. It seemed as if he found Regis to be annoying and believed that everyone else believes Regis is annoying too, except most people don't. And in other instances, he seems very self-righteous.

The one good thing I'll say about Stewart is I think he's genuine, even if I don't like that side of him. For that reason, I respect him more than Stephen Colbert whom I think is always "on" and is more of a people pleaser, even though I think he's (somewhat) funnier than Stewart and is more likeable.

EDIT: Wow, he was more insufferable on Millionaire than I remembered. I just found the episode on YouTube and he starts being a dickbag in the first few minutes. Apparently people still think he was funny here, but to me this is one of the least funny Jon Stewart moments I've ever seen. My personal taste, I guess.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bD0vcmhmaCY

Watching that video, to me it seems like in the first few minutes he was playing a low energy guy, but was just doing a bit he expects people will find funny.

As this lady says, what people feel they're coming across might be quite different to how others perceive them: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=owORxKqX0nU .. in her book she uses an example of Obama feeling great after a debate with Mitt Romney, but the public's perception was he was too stand-offish...

Agreed. I'd add that it feels there's less of an establishment to rail against than in the Bush days. I'd bet there was a drop in numbers in 2009, when Obama started.

I would be happy to be on the otherside of that bet considering his ratings only got better during Obama's terms.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Daily_Show#Reception

This is more an artifact of liberal attention than of Democratic governance, which inevitably includes plenty of things to get mad about on the basis of the same kind of values.

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