Fat Jewish Says He Will Credit Every Post Starting Now
Instagram celebrity The Fat Jewish aka Joel Ostrovsky said in an interview with Vulture’s Jesse David Fox that he will attribute all posts from now on, and will even retroactively add credit to all his posts.
This comes days after a number of websites and comedy personalities barraged Ostrovsky with accusations of joke theft.
Fat Jewish doesn’t seem to think the accusations are a big deal, saying things like “I didn’t realize the platform had grown so much” and “I want people to shine on social media.” Ostrovsky’s Fat Jewish account has nearly 6 million followers and he’s been earning as much as $6,000 for sponsored posts, so its hard to imagine how he might not have noticed how big Instagram is. He referred to his “army of interns” who work with him in the back of a nail salon. Maybe one of them could have pointed out that cropping out the names of people who created the work you’re using and letting people think it was your own is bad even on a small scale. Or that if you have an army of interns, you’re on a big platform.
Fox asked him if he ever stole a joke. He said no, not intentionally, but he had just defended his failure to give credit to the fact that he sometimes would hear jokes and then write them down. Ostrovsky’s insincerity is all over the interview, like when he claims that he didn’t understand the rules of the internet while moments later calling himself cutting edge on the web.
The only thing he actually regrets was a decision to post David Cross’ phone number years ago. “David Cross hates me, and I’m dead to him, and he’s totally in the right for that. He had thousands of horrible teen trolls calling him in the middle of the night. That was a shitty thing to do.”
But Fat Jewish says he’s a changed man, at least where credit is concerned. “I’m working to add attribution to every one of my posts, and will continue to do so. My email address is up. I urge people to reach out and say, ‘That’s my thing.’ I would love to give credit.”
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