
Jon Stewart to Reddit: you don't matter - kilian
http://www.fark.com/cgi/comments.pl?IDBlog=169
======
tptacek
This person seriously has a screw loose.

When asked the question, Colbert jumped in and preempted the answer to _thank_
Reddit for raising half a million dollars for Donors Choose. Both Colbert and
Stewart said the Internet support was nice, validated their idea, and they
were thankful for it. Colbert in particularly clearly knew exactly who Reddit
was.

On the other hand, both of them independently said that the rally was in
planning months before anyone on Reddit brought it to their attention. Reddit
wasn't instrumental the rally. Get over it. Glen Beck and Louis Farrakhan were
also able to get hundreds of thousands of people to the national mall;
Farrakhan doesn't even have a top-rated TV show to do it with.

~~~
jozo
Agree. This guy seem to have a bad case of confirmation bias (1). The question
was "What role did the Internet campaign play __in convincing you__ to hold
this rally? _Don't pander_ " (2), not if it helped to make it possible.

(1)
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias#Biased_interp...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias#Biased_interpretation)
(2) <http://edition.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/1010/30/cnr.07.html>

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marcamillion
Ughhh....the internet needs to get over itself.

Colbert literally acknowledged Reddit and Alexis and thanked him for the half-
a-million dollars they raised.

Jon, too, while he did not grovel at Ohanian's feet, he was thankful for the
work that Reddit did.

He was being reasonable, cut him some slack.

------
abraham
Response from Reddit:

I appreciate Drew Curtis' looking out for us, but honestly, we had a great
time and don't really care about who gets the credit. At "best", we convinced
Comedy Central to pull the trigger on something they were kicking around
indecisively and might not have otherwise done. At "worst", they were totally
committed to doing it anyway and we "just" pulled off an incredible donation
movement for a really good cause, beefed up attendance numbers, and got to
meet hundreds of redditors in person. I think I speak for all the staff when I
say that we love Jon and Stephen, regret nothing, and don't feel anyone owes
us an apology. Edit: That said, Fark is cool and we like Drew. :)

[http://www.reddit.com/r/reddit.com/comments/dzmrl/from_drew_...](http://www.reddit.com/r/reddit.com/comments/dzmrl/from_drew_curtis_blog_jon_stewart_to_reddit_you/c144cop)

~~~
pak
Ah, the high road! I'm glad _somebody_ actually understood the message of the
rally, and witheld from blowing a nonexistent conflict out of proportion for
some fleeting eyeballs.

------
hamilcarbarca
"On Wednesday Colbert responded to the online campaign with a letter to Reddit
users. "You have inspired me by helping untold thousands of students; with the
momentum you've created, we could stage a hundred rallies," Colbert wrote. "I
might just call on you."

Two nights later, Stewart and Colbert announced on their shows that they will
march on the Mall."

Source: [http://voices.washingtonpost.com/blog-
post/2010/09/rally_to_...](http://voices.washingtonpost.com/blog-
post/2010/09/rally_to_restore_sanity_to_mee.html)

The idea for a march to counter Beck's had little value in itself. Putting the
effort and energy behind it like the Reddit community did is what made the
rally happen. The March then grew into something larger than its humble
internet founding.

StewartColbert:Reddit::Edison:Tesla edit: this analogy is terrible as colbert
has yet to execute an elephant. and other reasons.

------
thehigherlife
While I think it was a definitely a little bit of a snub, I'm not entirely
convinced it was as much of a 'attack' as it's being portrayed here.

~~~
Udo
They probably acknowledged Reddit and the internet in general as much as they
could without alienating someone. See, the internet is something of a stigma,
especially when it comes to political events. References to the influence of
the internet for some reason appear to anger conservatives, moderates, media
people, donors, politicians and lobbyists. Even worse, for some reason the
average TV viewer wants no part of it. I would even go so far as to allege
that the influence of the web is somewhat of a taboo in our society.

I remember the early days of the Obama campaign trail, for example, were all
about the 'net (mainly bloggers and social media types did a LOT for him). He
even went so far as to indicate that he might be in favor of a right to
privacy and a possible cutback on the free rain of big corporations on
lawmaking, including the allmighty entertainment lobby that is currently
writing all of our IP laws. Today, the president wouldn't come close to these
issues if his life depended on it, much less acknowledge that early internet
support might have been a decisive factor during the campaign.

------
heed
Can someone please explain what the intended purpose of this rally was? I
still don't understand what it was about.

~~~
jonursenbach
Watch/read the final comments that Stewart made towards the end of the rally
to understand.

~~~
rradu
Link to speech: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6JzGOiBXeD4>

Stewart summarizes his points passionately and of course, reasonably

