I love it when the boys and girls of reddit.com get really fired up. Currently #1 on reddit is the plea that “Jon Stewart needs your support!”, which for any redditor worth their salt is a call to arms and battle stations.
We click, and learn the problem at hand: The Daily Show was subject to harassment and its on-air first heckler in eleven years after hosting middle east peace activists and daring to discuss the quagmire of Israel from their perspective. The guests reported uncertainty among the show’s staff in the lead-up and that the bit could have been canceled. They fear Stewart could take further heat.
Now reddit wants to counteract any criticism coming in and show support for the interview — which they apparently are doing, in vocal waves, overwhelming the station.
It’s no surprise that redditors are taking up this cause. Jon Stewart is among the slim pantheon of figures that hold any holiness with this often enthusiastically atheistic crowd. Modern, cynical and technosavvy, redditors occupy a strange smart section of society. They flare up passionately about human rights, government accountability, fair politics, unfair capitalism, religious hypocrisy, internet neutrality, computer programming, crowdsourced questions, comments, clever pictures and weed. Also, narwhals.
Stewart is a particular hero, but add in Israel and you’ve a recipe for a perfect reddit storm. The topic is a particularly prevalent and hot-button one there, due to the site’s often strongly libertarian, anti-authoritarian and anti-war bent. Israel is a sensitive topic in any forum, anywhere, and reddit is no exception. In fact, reddit responds in kind to the mainstream media’s sensitivity on the subject — wanting, like The Daily Show, to provide a place where authority is questioned, the news critiqued, the truth outed.
To have Stewart feeling threatened brought out a certain kind of reddit phenomenon: the follow-up “let’s do what action we can from the internet!” to some link or story that has struck a chord. This can be a good-hearted campaign like the one that saw ballsy news legend Helen Thomas sent a roomful of flowers for her unflappable questioning and reporting of the Bush Administration’s crimes.
This time it seems they’ve decided on sending Stewart a lot of beer, to lift his spirits in the face of having to navigate the thorniest of thorny entangled embattled issues, that of Israel and Palestine. Redditors have already depleted one store of online beer stocks. Are they showing support for the peace process? For the middle east? Solidarity with non-violence? Support of Stewart’s chutzpah? A sense of whimsy? Of alcoholism? Liking both Stewart and beer, and the idea of peace in Israel, does it all just make sense without needing sense?
This was summed up in fine reddit fashion in the comments:
thelivingk –> it would be far better, and far more useful to organize a large donation to a pro-peace israeli-palestinean charity. it will actually do good, and make the point a lot more clear.
if not someone should collect the money to buy beer to throw a pro-peace party somewhere and amplify the donation. otherwise, scotch or wine is a far classier drink gift, more on par for flowers. I applaud the idea of thanking and encouraging Jon though.
falconk –> STOP BEING REASONABLE/CONSTRUCTIVE, FREE BEER!
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Tags: beer, comedy central, free beer, israel, jon stewart, libertarians, palestine, reddit, reddit.com, redditors, the daily show, the middle east
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