How To with John Wilson

i get that it may at times seem like mental illness tourism, but on the flipside they are letting people tell their truths, without judgement (save the odd look-to-camera in AC's case); JW also makes it extremely clear he is Not OK either and that his show is as much him working through his issues as anything (the riff on why he couldn't cook risotto was darkly hilarious in this regard)

yeah but what I was getting at is that the JW not okayness is the same nathan for you shtick to do mental illness tourism (then again mental illness tourism is the basis of most comedy)

I'm trying to figure out why I'm ok with Bruce Gilden's Coney Island photography but this stuff ultimately seems kinda lame, and I think it's the disingenuous feeling (to me) JW nathan smol bean syndrome. I do like the pointillist JW thing, that's a neat trick

caveh from show about a show trying to strong arm JW to get Nathan to pitch his show to HBO is pretty funny tho

i meant 'laughably unfair' btw before dgmw

i think not having ever seen nathan for you means i don't quite have the same perspective on this

but on the flipside they are letting people tell their truths, without judgement (save the odd look-to-camera in AC's case);

Without judgement, save for the ominous Lynchian drone that plays when someone is MAGA-ing out.

But I agree that it's an unfair characterization of AGNB/Channel 5.

I can only work through my thoughts about comedy by being unfair to comedians

(then again mental illness tourism is the basis of most comedy)

this is why I have never laughed

AGNB/C5 is all about presenting America as it is, not as we wish it is, nor as we fear it may be, and letting people speak for themselves without intrusion (save the odd exhortation to rap)

definitely otm and very much what makes the show fascinating to me. the events he goes to get SO MUCH COVERAGE on news networks and social media but very little of that portrays what the atmosphere is really like. like those late night BLM rallies - he finds a lot of smart, articulate people who are protesting with a purpose, along with some more unhinged folk who look like they're ready to throw down if need be. he also finds the Rittenhouse types who feel their calling in life is to protect the local Walgreens from black people. all those narratives are there. but at the end of the day most of the folks there don't really fit any of them. they're trying to capture footage to go viral, they're doing it for social media clout, or just doing it for something to do, because finally something interesting is happening in their town. and I think that side goes pretty much uncovered. there's not really much logic to it and I think it makes some of the media narratives look ridiculous.

hence why he is often referred to as america's only journalist

the tweak season tiktok account is an interesting one to think of in terms of how grating wilson's schtick can be because at least in that one the guy who's controlling it is more plainly actually mentally ill and low key assaulting people in nyc while also making funny observations

bongo im losing your thread a little bit re:what forms of mental illness tourism are & arent good

when it's a white guy it's bad

also the Covid spring breakers, so many articles & tweets written with an almost scientific precision about how irresponsible and selfish they were, as though they decided to take some kind of calculated risk, and then you see these people and they're all so fucking hammered and can't even speak coherently about how much they wanna get laid

nah I'm kidding, I don't really know what I'm getting at overall, I'm posting through it. It's more like when it's a disingenuous narrative to make a comedy show, also I guess it doesn't really push anything far enough art wise, like if I felt that what they were doing led to art I would prob not think about things like mental illness tourism, but it just feels like they're scratching some american comedy itch

btw as great as nathan4u is, it would be willfully naive to say it doesn't punch down on immigrant small biz owners with accents

like ok uh put jackass, korine, a moment of pathos or epiphany in a blender and lets see what we get

nathan4u is amazing btw imago you should watch that if you like the things that you're currently posting about here

noted! onto the pile

btw as great as nathan4u is, it would be willfully naive to say it doesn't punch down on immigrant small biz owners with accents

― kurt schwitterz, Thursday, December 9, 2021 1:28 PM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

yeah its kinda hard to defend some of those parts but I guess there are a number of ways to read it. I mean everyone on that show is a mark to some degree but at a certain point you wonder if he was targeting immigrants because it was easier for him to get them to go along with whatever he was doing. otoh it's LA, like half the small businesses there are immigrant owned so who knows

it's because white people think immigrants with accents are funny to laugh at.

Nathan is an immigrant with a funny accent, too, so that makes it OK.

lol true

Re: "clueless" - I wouldn't call John clueless, but I did cringe a lot when he bought that car off Craigslist (like, come on dude, sourcing everything from Craigslist was one of the best running jokes on "Nathan for You"!)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B0PZ6xtnj5o

He’s flush with that landlord (and HBO) dough now, he figured he could afford a lemon for a good story.

I would say that I think JW and nathan4u both get by with the low blows because they actually try to relate it to a universal struggle. Like the dude in the last episode trying to drag his belongings down the sidewalk in a big Tupperware container was not funny because of his circumstances but his reaction to the situation was so relatable

want to go on record as saying that i don't find John Wilson's stuff exploitative or faux naive in any way and that it is often an excellent distillation of a year's worth of "did i just see that" while out and about in the city down to a half hour.

also nabisco just did an excellent piece:
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/07/magazine/how-to-john-wilson.html

S2E3 felt like a ratcheting back down to the subtler season 1 style, and I loved it.

Yeah, I actually liked that one being more scaled back.

How to throw out your batteries is the best thing I’ve seen in a while

Good documentary on how systems fail people

*post of dead rat*

How to remember your dreams is the perfect question for this series. I like “weird” John more than “documentarian” John.

Also omg the court-room shows! His random autobiographical drops always kill me

cant stop thinking about them putting all the frowny faces on nuclear waste because they don't know what language people will speak in the future

it won't do any good though. if we encounter something like that from 3000 BC we are opening it on the spot

Feels like the avatar ppl was punching down

Seemed like that at the start but it really came around when the guy was talking about his depression and needing someone. Typical of John Wilson’s style to seem potentially like punching down to start (I think that was my first impression of his documentation of his landlord), only to turn out as a sincerely sweet display of humanity.

Also I went to John Wilson’s subreddit and some of the avatar guys were commenting with enthusiasm, doing informal AMA’s on posts and seemed to be wrapped with their presentation. Actually really sweet, would recommend searching

That episode was the best this season so far I thought. He packed so much in and it held together somehow.

The avatar ppl were the joke the whole time cmon

yeah i had to mute that section, 2sad4me

Nah mate

https://bushwickdaily.com/arts-culture/hbo-comes-to-ridgewood-via-how-to-with-john-wilson/

lol that is some prime hipster complaining right there - bitch about how someone doesn't show the REAL neighborhood while not actually mentioning any (I checked!) businesses or local spots that should get recognition instead.

so fucking dumb

it's not a documentary about ridgewood retail stores!

i live in ridgewood and am perfectly happy for jw to elide the creeping yupster stuff and the glowering eastern european antisemites, the wilsonian ridgewood is delightful and as accurate a representation as anything else

The key quote here is ““Seinfeld” feels like Wilson’s central comic influence “

i watch a lot of reading rainbow these days and that show's "discursive mini essays nominally related to a central theme but really not really" approach feels of a piece w how to

his way
of talking
is
driving me insane

i suddenly stopped being able to enjoy this show because all i can
hear
is
the way he
breaks up sentences
(video of dog sniffing own butt)

The only way to keep the pacing of the corresponding visuals digestible.

yeah the show is very tightly edited and most of the humor is between what he's saying and what you're seeing. if you just transcribed his entire monologue from any given episode it would probably make no sense at all, or maybe like something an AI wrote