[MisterMuncher]

Did Russell Brand know this was all coming? Fellow comics and experts claim star spent four years 'grooming' online cult following 'to support him when rape allegations become public' - while sex assault probe was ongoing


Ironically, that's a conspiracy theory in itself.

Hanlon's razor, lads. There's more than adequate evidence of sufficiently advanced stupidity to almost certainly dismiss conspiracy. Brand's flowery words* always merely served as glitter in which to roll the turds of his ideas. Like Quentin Letts dressed as Jack Sparrow.


*And yes, I'm consciously saying "words", not vocabulary, as the latter suggests the ability to use said words correctly

[Tubby Isaacs]

That really is the thinnest of thin gruel. Shocking.

It's David Miller stuff- here are some Jews on nodding acquaintance, proof of deep seated Zionist plot.

[Andy McDandy]

Plenty of people have applied for a job with the security services - I was one. I got told that sadly I wasn't good enough to make the 2nd stage.

Obviously the next day a little man in a duffel coat recruited me and we have weekly meetings by a lake in a park where I feed him information.

[Tubby Isaacs]

I applied for the Civil Service Fast Stream. CV got me an invite to some tests which I duly failed. Most likely down to what were rather unflatteringly called intelligence tests by some people at the time. I never liked those at all. I'd have failed mental health tests too, if they'd had those, so it could have been worse.

Not sure I chose a department to fail out of. I'd have failed whatever equates to traffic duty in old detective series.

I later worked for the Prison Service as an EO, where I wasn't fast or any good, for the most part.

[zuriblue]

For the Mail, the left is anyone who isn't 100% in goosestep with them.

FTFY

[Youngian]

Did Russell Brand know this was all coming? Fellow comics and experts claim star spent four years 'grooming' online cult following 'to support him when rape allegations become public' - while sex assault probe was ongoing


Ironically, that's a conspiracy theory in itself.

A celeb with a few bob in the bank taking a step back from the limelight with his new family wasn’t odd. But explanations as to Brand’s sudden metamorphosis into a conspiracist promoter are thin on the ground. We do know he’s an audacious chancer who’s not as smart as he thinks he is.

[Tubby Isaacs]

That's one of the better theories, but equally, it could just be that he clocked very easy money. And his talents are a good fit for it.

[Oboogie]

Brand's switch to conspiracy vlogger seems to coincide with his marriage to a blogger. Having been dumped by several TV companies he was presumably looking for alternative income streams and vlogging was presumably a good fit with becoming a parent.

[AOB]

Brand's switch to conspiracy vlogger seems to coincide with his marriage to a blogger. Having been dumped by several TV companies he was presumably looking for alternative income streams and vlogging was presumably a good fit with becoming a parent.

YT generates really good money for content creators who bring in viewers by the millions.

If you search on Google you get different figures from different sources for ad money generated per X number of views, but for example the most watched channel appears to be Mr Beast (if you log out of YT, clear all cookies and go to the home page you'll see Mr Beast's incredibly punchable face in a video thumbnail) and he earns reportedly roughly $40-50m per year on advertising revenue and he gets about 100m views per video.

Brand's reported £50k per month sounds about right for his 700k views per video. which is a nice steady income for someone who had done the previous work he had. I'm not sure he would have got that many views without having a long running theme, random videos from him wouldn't bring viewers back, but you will get them back if you target your audience though. I think he went down that route for this purpose, not because he pre-empted anyone coming to get him in the future.

Problem with going down the road he had is the way he did it. I'm all for people punching up and asking questions of authority, but there are ways and means of doing it. The few valid questions that they ask are lost in the myriad of absurdness of the rest of it which ironically helps out the targets of the ones they ask valid questions of as it gets dismissed as "conspiracy theory". I'm glad the internet wasn't around in the 90s because if a well known conspiracy theorist had jumped onto Hillsborough being a cover-up then the whole thing might have been dismissed as" something ridiculous that one of those loons" believes in. Like I say, I believe there are ways and means of asking questions.

[Spoonman]

Personally I find it hard to disagree with this take...

"Of course Russell Brand's followers deny the allegations. He has groomed an audience to deny/disbelieve everything they see and hear, which is very different from healthy skepticism. This knee-jerk denialism is precisely why people with plenty of skeletons in the closet love conspiracy culture: they have a built-in defense against accountability. It's all a conspiracy, always. I have met Brand, been on his show (years ago). It took a hell of a lot of courage for these women to come forward. They have all my solidarity."
- Naomi Klein

[MisterMuncher]

It’s all a witch hunt, a political stitch-up, a blatant attempt to have Julian Assange/Donald Trump/Russell Brand “cancelled” and silenced because they are telling the truth.


Are we seeing a theme, here?

It's only a matter of time till someone, and I'm going to put a tenuous fiver on it being Lawrence Fox, starts to describe rape accusations as a badge of honour.

Yeah. I'm calling that close enough, really

[Youngian]

Comics blacking up in the noughties (League of Gentleman, Little Britain) weren’t Lee Hurst anti PC backlash types. As someone who grew on 80s comedy, I assumed there was some knowing post modern consensus going on. ‘They were different times back then but I’m sorry,’ Walliams and Lucas now inform us. No they fucking weren’t, you’re not Spike Milligan or the Goodies from 1970.
Likewise Brand, a bright guy who knows his comedy history, I assumed the exaggerated vulgarity was a wacky take on Max Miller or Sid James cheeky chappy saucy seaside postcard persona.
Like Julian Cleary’s single entendre material. Ben Elton’s nostalgic turn the other month was a reminder I’d been asleep at the wheel.

[The Weeping Angel]

Some of Milligan's stuff was hardly any better in fact in some respects it was worst, have you seen Curry & Chips or the Pakistani Dalek sketch?

[MisterMuncher]

I think the point being made is that as tenuous as it may have been, Spike could claim "different time, different rules" with a bit more credibility than yer Lucas, Walliams, Baddiel or that cunt Leigh Francis

[Malcolm Armsteen]

And fairly so.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Comics blacking up in the noughties (League of Gentleman, Little Britain) weren’t Lee Hurst anti PC backlash types. As someone who grew on 80s comedy, I assumed there was some knowing post modern consensus going on. ‘They were different times back then but I’m sorry,’ Walliams and Lucas now inform us. No they fucking weren’t, you’re not Spike Milligan or the Goodies from 1970.

The Black and White Minstrels stuff was off limits, but I don't think all blacking up was 25-30 years ago. Notoriously Baddiel probably thought he was OK because hew as "impersonating" a particular person (Jason Lee). I don't recall too much backlash against it. I can see how eg the League of Gentlemen would have persuaded themselves they weren't doing anything wrong, maybe (as you say) citing post modern irony for a knowing audience. Who knows, but I'm inclined to give them a bit of slack (not to Baddiel, mind).

Here's another spectacularly egregious example from 1987. Greebo rockers, Gaye Bykers on Acid. There's probably a joke here that the Black and White Minstrels are playing cool kick arse heavy metal (it was 1987), instead of simpering around like fools for their masters. That wouldn't be enough now, of course, quite rightly.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Your champion show for blacking up was Copy Cats (1985-7). I don't know if they do it in the series Gary Wilmot did. They probably do.

[Oboogie]

Rory Bremner blacked up to do Nelson Mandella and Trevor McDonald in the 80s/90s, I don't recall a backlash then, or since. Of course they weren't the target of his jokes and his versions of them were affectionate more than anything else - but it was still a white man blacking up which would be roundly condemned today. It doesn't seem that long ago to me but the times have definitely changed.

[MisterMuncher]

I think it was implicit that Papa Laxarou( league of gentlemen) was a minstrel, not someone pretending to be black, and as such, a bit of a bastard, so there's a few layers there. Still, best done away with, and I don't I imagine it's anyone involved's proudest moment.

[Abernathy]

Rory Bremner blacked up to do Nelson Mandella and Trevor McDonald in the 80s/90s, I don't recall a backlash then, or since. Of course they weren't the target of his jokes and his versions of them were affectionate more than anything else - but it was still a white man blacking up which would be roundly condemned today. It doesn't seem that long ago to me but the times have definitely changed.

I recall that he also did a wildly exaggerated Ainsley Harriott (“Wot am I like? “), with halved ping pong balls for eyes, which I thought was very funny at the time.