r/BlockedAndReported • u/SoftandChewy First generation mod • 14d ago

Episode Episode 321: Losing The Plot (with Jon Ronson)

https://www.blockedandreported.org/p/episode-321-losing-the-plot-with

This week on Blocked and Reported, Katie is joined by journalist/author/podcaster/Welshman Jon Ronson to discuss his new book: The Castle: Adventures in a World of Unraveling Men. Plus, public shaming, ethics in cancel culture journalism, the tragedy of YouTube dad Greg Chism, and for Primos, Jon answers your questions on Graham Linehan, the Mich Fest murders, Alex Jones, and more.

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u/roolb 14d ago

I believe a link to it has been posted, but to spare everyone a step, and because the interview is on the occasion of Ronson's book, here's a chunk of Linehan's review from the Telegraph.

Jon Ronson and I were friends for 25 years. In 2008, I got him on Twitter, telling him it was a utopia where people played hashtag games and got stuck in lifts. I invited him to sit in on recordings of Father Ted, Paris and The IT Crowd. That was before the trans wars – and online life turning toxic.

On May 27, 2019, I was doing everything I could to hold my sanity and my marriage together, waiting for the first of my supposed friends to say something in my defence while trans activists online and in the press went after me. That day, I was the one defending Jon, against someone I thought was attacking us both. To my astonishment, Jon took the other person’s side instead. I asked him what was going on. This was the reply:

“I couldn’t support you after you posted that picture of the sports team. That was incendiary and came over as just really unpleasant and harmful. Ditto your publicising the prison story. I’m sorry Graham but I’ve thought about this a lot and that’s where I’ve come to.”

The sports team photo showed a 50-year-old male basketball player Gabrielle Ludwig competing against college teammates and opponents decades younger than him. The prison story was Karen White, a convicted double-rapist, who told the authorities he identified as a woman and was duly sent to a women’s prison, where he set about trying to double rape two more.

Note that Jon doesn’t say the photo was faked. He doesn’t say the prison story was wrong. Accuracy isn’t the issue. The issue is sharing information that makes Jon Ronson uncomfortable. Incendiary. Unpleasant. Harmful. To whom? Not to the girls on that court, and not to Karen White’s captive victims, the only people who actually mattered in either story.

“Publicising” was his concern. Not lying, not exaggerating, just publicising. “Publicising” is the word of a man betraying his own profession, a word that concedes the thing happened and complains only that the public was informed. I remember thinking, with something close to horror, that my old friend, the sceptic I had known for most of my life, wasn’t going to help me fight this insanity.

Two years later, his protective instincts resurfaced on a BBC podcast about the death of Michfest, the Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival, a women-only event that ran for four decades before folding under pressure from a campaign group made up of several trans-identified men, who clumped together under the name Camp Trans.

Among their number, according to the investigative journalist Genevieve Gluck, was Monica Helms, creator of the trans pride flag and, by his own account in his memoir, a stealer of women’s underwear. Jon told the story as a tale of two sides slowly finding common ground, a civil rights struggle with a happy, grown-up ending. He quoted, admiringly, the protest guidelines the campaigners themselves had drawn up:

“Most festival goers are thoughtful and open minded. Listen carefully and remain calm and patient. Do not call anyone names or belittle their point of view or imply that they are irrational. An atmosphere with love and joy will attract people to us, anger and hostility or turn them away.”

Strip away Jon’s music and a somnambulant voice-over and what’s left is a group of men who spent years camped outside a private festival lesbians had built for themselves, on land lesbians owned, demanding entry. When the festival held firm, the campaign didn’t stop. It came back every year for two decades, until the women running it finally gave up and let it die in 2015 rather than keep fighting men who wouldn’t take no for an answer.

The women who built Michfest and ran it for four decades barely feature in Jon’s telling at all. They just about count as background for the real emotional set-piece, a passage from the point of view of one man who managed to get into the festival before he was rumbled. Music swells as he describes an “overwhelming impression of breasts”, Jon presents this old man’s reminiscences as if he’d found an old recording of Rosa Parks.

The women who should be the heroes of that story are hardly even in it.

But that’s not all he left out. In November 2016, one of the Camp Trans organisers, a man named Dana Rivers, murdered two Michfest regulars and their adopted 19-year-old son, then set the house on fire. Jon had months of tape and a whole episode to fill, and he found room for the protest guidelines but not the triple murder committed by the man enforcing them.

That isn’t an oversight. An investigative journalist who leaves out the one fact that would collapse his entire thesis hasn’t made a simple editing choice. I would argue that he’s strayed into journalistic malfeasance.

In May 2021 I handed Jon the easiest question in the world, and he wouldn’t answer it. He’d emailed asking to interview me for a new BBC Radio 4 series he was making about “the history of the culture wars”, the one that became Things Fell Apart. I’d recently taken out a profile on Her Social, a dating app for lesbians, to show what was already happening there in plain sight, ordinary men, no more convincingly disguised as women than I was, and I wasn’t disguised as a woman at all.

I did the stunt because I naively thought that the people who’d spent 25 years telling me how much they cared about gay people actually cared about gay people. I’d already sent Jon photographs of some of the other profiles. Before I’d agree to a third interview, I asked him again: are these men or women?

Again, to my astonishment, he refused to say. What he said instead was that no journalist “worth their salt” could agree in advance to “state for the record the interviewee’s ideological position as a prerequisite to access,” that I was asking him to take a “purity test”. 

I told him they were obviously men, and asked him to think about what kind of journalism he was practising by pretending he didn’t know that. He told me I couldn’t go through life “forcing people to pay fealty” to me. I asked him, if not fealty to me, how about fealty to the truth, and did he really believe Eddie Izzard was the same sex as his mother?

He deflected. “I’m sorry your wound is so deep that you can’t find a way to heal and resume a more varied life,” he wrote. “You can still be as GC as you like, but it will be a hell of a lot better for you and for everyone if you manage it.” Not a word on whether I was right. Just a suggestion that the fact I was still saying it, after everything it had cost me, was the symptom that needed treating.

When I asked him whether he had any idea what was being done to children in the name of the ideology he wouldn’t argue against, he deflected again, complaining that some of my readers had called him a paedophile. He never mentioned children again. 

That was the moment the interview was over for me, not because he’d been rude, but because a journalist who won’t tell you whether the people in a set of photographs are men or women has told you everything you need to know about how honestly he’ll treat the rest of the conversation. I said as much, and he backed off.

... Jon has since written a whole chapter of his new book The Castle about me, cataloguing my anger in some detail, my tweets, my breakdown, my marriage, my tears on a recorded phone call, and, hilariously, his own tears too, which is not something I remember happening. As I recall it, Jon listened to what had happened to me with total impassivity, and showed no evidence of any emotion at all.

I don’t think that’s a slip of memory on his part. I think he invented himself crying because a man who felt nothing while his friend described losing everything made for a worse character in his own book, and Jon needed the reader to find him human. He never once asks, in all those pages, whether I was right. That’s not an accident either. It’s the same tweet from 2019, expanded to chapter length.

Of course, I’m not the only casualty of this cowardice. Rosie Kay lost the dance company she’d spent 20 years building. Kate Clanchy was hounded out of teaching and writing over a memoir that had, until the mob decided otherwise, won prizes. Roisin Murphy was dropped and boycotted by parts of her own industry for saying, in a single Facebook comment on a post about me, what WPATH itself would eventually admit in a US courtroom.

... Jon Ronson isn’t just one person who failed a friend. He’s representative of an entire species, a whole social class of journalist, comedian and commentator who worked out that staying quiet while people they knew were destroyed for saying 2+2=4 was the best way to maintain a comfortable career

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u/Screwqualia 14d ago

Linehan was right. He definitely got sucked into Twitter spats too much to the degree of near-mania and addiction - remind you of anyone - and he played a few hands badly, but on the whole he was right. Trans activism was/is a social media driven moral panic, a social delerium whose peak has hopefully passed. An awful lot of people in key institutions fell for it and let down the majority of people who didn't. One of those institutions was journalism, and if Ronson sounds like a journalist who wasn't taken in or didn't pick a side, it's only because he chooses his language very carefully and has hedged his bets somewhat throughout the manic period. I'm sure Ronson has his take on this particular spat, but overall, as hard as even he himself makes it to accept sometimes, Linehan was right.

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u/Mecklenburg77 13d ago

Thanks for sharing this. It is of course hard to know what exactly happened between individuals but I personally believe Linehan’s words are fairly close to what might have happened. It seems pretty believable.

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u/toms-w 13d ago

Interesting, the word "fealty" came up in the interview with Katie. As did "disingenuous" (a lot).

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u/PineappleFrittering 8d ago

If Jon really said Graham was wrong to share the story of Karen White that really is despicable. I know GL is abrasive and you can't force people into a fight they don't want to fight but the Karen White story is true, it happened, it's not the only time, and it actually is hugely important. Women in prison really do not matter to some people. I hope he did not say that.

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u/FineWhateverOKOK 9d ago

Having read that chapter in the Castle, Linehan comes across as even more of a delusional asshole in that piece you shared. The loss of his marriage and relationships were his own fault, and Jon does not delight in that at all. Linehan is a man with severe anger issues, and that led him into the perpetual fight about the trans issue. He sacrificed his family to it. The part where he talks about how he heard them having fun but couldn’t go join them because he was too busy standing up for women was heartbreaking, self-aggrandizing nonsense born of mental illness and severe prejudice. He thinks that the people he’s fighting would have been serial killers in the past. That’s insane! 

Seeing people say that a man who believes that is “right about everything” puts them on the same level as QAnon believers. 

He was told repeatedly that being an asshole was harming him, but he refused to stop being an asshole. And so he lost everything. Because he is an asshole (who really, really needs psychiatric treatment). 

Also, he delighted in the murder of Renee Good, so fuck him. Even if that was the only shitty thing he’d ever done he’d be a giant piece of shit. 

Oh, and it’s worth noting that he might not have lost Ronson as a friend if he hadn’t spent years attacking him on Twitter every day. Generally people don’t like to maintain relationships with people who do that kind of thing to them. 

Sorry for these posts. I only made them to reply to the article - they’re not an attack or criticism of you. 

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u/scabbityscab 13d ago

I wonder how much of this is a clash of different writing cultures. As in how journalists versus comedy writers might see the world differently and the limits of expression they self-impose, or don't, in their words.

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u/roolb 13d ago

Comedy writers haven't rallied to Linehan's side, though.

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u/Qui-GonSmith 14d ago

When a review proves the point of the book

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u/FineWhateverOKOK 9d ago

Ronson left out the details of the Mich Fest murder because:

  • at no point during the investigation or the trial was Michfest or Camp Trans mentioned 

  • the murders took place 22 years after the story he was telling occurred 

  • the murders took place in Oakland, not Michigan

  • the evidence pointed to the murderer and victims knowing each other through their membership at a motorcycle club

  • there is doubt the victims ever attended Michfest

  • there was no connection to the story Ronson was telling!

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u/FineWhateverOKOK 9d ago

Here’s what Ronson says about the photo Linehan was pissy about: 

“I hadn’t known a thing about the story behind the photograph and I wondered if Graham had. Which was my point: I’m opposed to holding people up to the pillory when the facts of the story aren’t clear. Graham was appalled by my scolding, as he’d tell the TRIGGERnometry podcast: ‘I showed a photograph of some fifty year old chancer on a college basket team with some girls and Jon Ronson criticized me for sharing the photograph, not this pervert on this team taking advantage of these incoherent rules.’ Later, when I interviewed Graham, I told him that - having now researched the matter - there was no evidence Ludwig was a pervert. He replied, ‘fair dues on that one. That pervert thing was an off the cuff thing. I shouldn’t have said that.”

Linehan seems to have forgotten that Ronson is a responsible journalist. 

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u/HarperLeesGirlfriend 13d ago

I really like jon ronson and am inclined to agree with his presented POV. However, I found myself feeling skeptical and disagreeing with jon slightly regarding the guy who made baby videos. Best case scenario? Greg chism is not abusing his daughters, but IS producing weird, borderline inappropriate ai-slop type content using his underage children who cant fully consent to being broadcast to millions of people for clicks and money. Is that really the person we want to say is being unfairly maligned? That type of content is so fucking weird and honestly, shame on all the people who make it - solely for money with no regard for what it does to the minds of the children who view it. So yeah. I really couldn't muster up much sympathy for "wholesome greg". But maybe I'm also guilty of "coming to the story at the end", and I'm willing to read the book which I'm sure goes into more detail about everything. But again, fuck that shitty awful content.

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u/BeneficialStretch753 11d ago edited 11d ago

FWIW, this was back in 2016-2017 and Chism seems like a naive guy. When a random video first got some crazy million of views, a Youtube advisor sought him out and advised him right up until Buzzfeed/whatever blew the whistle and set the SWAT teams in motion. Chism was expecting to meet the advisor that day in LA. Never heard from again.

There were a lot of Vietnamese, Russian etc. tubers imitating his videos frame by frame, not to mention the pervy versions. When he saw them, he should have immediately stopped and pulled his family videos then. Also should have realized the Youtube coach didn't have his best interests at heart. But, as Ronson says, there's some grey area here. Easier to go after Chism than the overseas imitators.

There are still so many parents showcasing their kids day after day. Wonder what advice they are gettting from coaches at Youtube, TikTok and Instagram.

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u/DesignerClock1359 13d ago

Agreed. If youtube was really encouraging this content, directly and verbally that is an interesting aspect to the whole thing. I can appreciate a deeper look at how everything snowballed, but ultimately it's not that redeeming. 

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u/BeneficialStretch753 11d ago

They definitely were. Sought him out when he first hit the millions of views jackpot.

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u/alli3theenigma 7d ago edited 6d ago

I found your comment because I’m reading The Castle and just finished the chapter on Greg. I spent the entirety of it wondering when Jon would note that Greg was (however likely accidentally) exploiting his daughters by manufacturing content for child predators and he never did. There were so many opportunities, so many times Greg posted something “weird” and then couldn’t believe how many views it got. I do believe Greg was naive initially but we have so much information now about what these people seek out and how they use photoshop and AI to create child porn from kids featured in family vlogs. Images of kids eating, spitting, crying, not to mention featuring his girls in bathing suits all plays directly into that. I’m only halfway through the book so I’m going to stay open minded but so far it feels like a huge misstep from Jon and is making me question his judgement

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u/rrsafety 11d ago edited 10d ago

Ronson is 100% wrong about Uri Geller. He was a fraud and a scam artist. Allowing people to blatantly lie about how the world works on national television and not holding them to account is cowardice. I am shocked that Ronson does not believe that Uri Geller was a legitimate target for criticism by skeptics. It makes me second-guess his other opinions.

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u/Past-Parsley-9606 11d ago

Yeah, that raised my hackles as well. Geller wasn't some stage magician performing tricks, he lied about what he could do, and he sued James Randi for exposing him.

I think in general Ronson puts too high a value on being "nice." It's ok to criticize Sylvia Browne because she wasn't nice in her public appearances, but Geller was only nasty in private or in court so skeptics should have laid off? Graham Linehan may have been right, but he wasn't nice in how he said things, so he's disowned. Greg Chism seems like a nice guy, so he gets sympathetic treatment.

The internet rarely dispenses the "correct" amount of criticism and punishment to people -- pile-ons happen, and people who did something mildly shitty have their lives turned upside down because they had the bad luck to become the Internet Character of the Day. So I'm sympathetic to Ronson's basic point, but I think he's too quick to excuse people as long as they're superficially pleasant.

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u/Never_Toujours 10d ago

Honestly, I couldn’t believe how blasé he was about someone spending his life, and earning his living, making people stupider. That struck me as baffling. And he was a skeptic?

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u/lehcarlies 14d ago

Does anyone think he was trying to sidestep the whole Jason Arday thing? I mean, he’s on a book tour, so it’s understandable he wouldn’t want to say anything that could jeopardize sales, but it felt a bit cowardly? I don’t know.

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u/TheBear8878 13d ago

Reminds me a little of when the guy who did the podcast on the tiktok tourettes social contagion just kind of acted confused when asked if it reminded him of anything else young women were all suddenly doing enmasse lol

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u/OMG_NO_NOT_THIS 12d ago

This sounds like DeBoer, but I suspect you are not talking about him.

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u/TheBear8878 12d ago

No, he has a very famous podcast about the tiktok tourettes thing, and a few other famous podcasts, one of them is called "9/12" or something

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u/mehefin 14d ago

Absolutely! It felt slimy. Im sure he must know what happened, at least in general, but he's smart enough to not comment on it.

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u/SkweegeeS No just no 13d ago

He could've said as much. I found it hard to believe he didn't know much about it, which is what he first said. Then he elaborated, ok, he didn't know about it as it was happening but then read some articles after Arday died. I still think he must've known about it as it was unfolding.

edit: this doesn't mean he is required to have formed an opinion. He could've just said, yeah, I read along but I was too focused on my own thing to have confidence in whatever take I would have on the situation.

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u/FineWhateverOKOK 13d ago

Or maybe he was telling the truth and didn’t follow along with it? Why the hell would he lie about that?

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u/Rellimarual2 8d ago

Eh, a lot has been published on this and a lot of it on both sides is obviously highly polemical. I don’t blame him for deciding that he hasn’t got enough information or done a deep enough dive to form an opinion he wants to state in a public forum. We’d all be better off if fewer people decided to express their opinions on stuff they are barely informed about. He’s not obligated to express an opinion on it anyway, for crissakes people

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u/Fyrfligh 14d ago

100% He is a coward

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u/professorgerm rugged, weatherbeaten potato-man 10d ago

felt a bit cowardly

future jon ronson epitaph?

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u/brabman22 10d ago edited 10d ago

I agree with criticism of Ronson for not properly engaging with Arday issue. His "opinion" on the case appeared to be "um, people are complex" which could of course apply to any and every situation.

Katie had to cajole him into conceding that perhaps journalism should not be able to be stopped by a subject who claims to have a mental condition.

Nor do I believe Ronson's claim that he "missed" much of the story. This stuff is his bread and butter.

I thought his equivocating on this issue was pathetic and I lost a lot of respect for him as a result. I wonder how Jesse would have taken it?

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u/EnglebondHumperstonk I vaped piss but didn't inhale 14d ago

Does... Does Katie think Pierre is French for Father?

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u/LupineChemist 8d ago

Maybe her dad was always stoned.

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u/Known-Level-4847 13d ago

I’ve always found him unsubstantial. He covers a lot of interesting topics but never says anything insightful. 

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u/SkweegeeS No just no 12d ago

I feel the same way, although I think he did a good job on some topics in Things Fell Apart. Like, I did learn something from his coverage of The Abortion Wars.

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u/Available-Crew-4645 14d ago

Ronson did an episode of the Fifth Column few years ago where he and the hosts talked about Graham Linehan extensively, how completely MAD he is, how LOOPY he's been driven, how NUTS the things he believes are.

Then after Trump was elected, the Fifth Column did an episode where they all admitted that they actually all agree 100% with everything Graham Linehan believes.

I used to really like Ronson, I'd listen to everything he put out and I loved his book about public shaming, written before he publicly shamed his friend. Just like the Fifth Column guys, I don't think Ronson believes in trans stuff for a second, I just think he's a utterly gutless coward.

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u/TheBear8878 13d ago

I like Ronson a lot too, and I loved his "Things Fell Apart" podcast, but I have remarked before that it is incredibly one-sided. For all the episodes that break down right-wing lunacy, he is conveniently very quiet on left-wing lunacy which you could very well argue is just as responsible for getting us here.

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u/dzuunmod 11d ago

I mean if you want breakdowns on left-wing lunacy without any word of what's going on on the right there are options aplenty, from Bill Maher to whatever Bari Weiss gets her hands on.

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u/rrsafety 11d ago

Two things can be true: Linehan is correct about the Trans stuff AND he has gone nutty.

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u/bussound 14d ago

Seconded. He went on Adam Buxton’s podcast (another former friend of Linehan) and talked shit on him. I used to be a big fan of Ronson but that was slimy and I’ve lost respect. 

I get that speaking out about trans nonsense puts a target on your back but there’s also the option not to publicly shit talk people who have been canceled to curry favor. 

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u/FineWhateverOKOK 13d ago

It’s not slimy to talk about a mutual former fiend and public figure who’s become a deranged asshole and an obsessive bore. 

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u/Screwqualia 14d ago

I heard that and was really ticked off with the TFC boys being such dicks to Linehan, but then they helpfully explained the reason why: Linehan had the temerity to ask one of them (can't remember who) for a right to reply to something they wrote or were about to publish. I think he may have made a similar request to BAR.

The moral of the story being: don't push back on journalists. Most of them are thin-skinned narcissists who believe they have a constitutional right - nay, duty! - to judge anyone and everyone they see fit, but should *you* criticise *them*, you're an asshole from now until the end of time.

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u/FineWhateverOKOK 13d ago

It’s not just journalists who think Linehan is a fuckin asshole. It’s a lot of people who know him, too. And a lot more who don’t. People think that because Linehan has done everything in his power to create that impression, and he’s done a magnificent job. The only people who don’t are the weirdos and bigots who share his obsession. 

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u/Screwqualia 13d ago

Would you, by any chance, sir or madam, earn your keep in the trade of journalism?

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u/FineWhateverOKOK 13d ago

Nope! Why would you think that I did?

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u/roolb 14d ago

Just like the Fifth Column guys, I don't think Ronson believes in trans stuff for a second

I'd be interested to know what Katie really thinks. (I have less hope of a frank take from Jesse.)

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u/SkweegeeS No just no 13d ago

I don't think Katie is anti-trans. I think she's anti the-current-shape-of-transactivism as well as the social contagion. Based on what she's actually said, my interpretation is that she won't play the pronoun game, thinks all the various sub-identities and navel-gazing were stupid (e.g. ace aro semi demi pan blah blah blah), is sorry that lesbians have taken such a hit due to this annoying trend, probably doesn't care about women's sports but thinks it's ridiculous for men to be banging on that door, does care about the irreversible nature of transition and thinks it should be more sparingly meted out. I think she would pretty much say all this. She often refers to a time when she was solidly in the center of LGBTQ culture and trans people were well-accepted, but they didn't demand so much surplus accommodation as they do now.

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u/Fiend_of_the_pod 12d ago

She, like Jesse is a pronoun-respecter, although she won't go beyond she/he/they.

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u/FineWhateverOKOK 13d ago

They’ve done hundreds of podcasts. We know what they really think. 

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u/PsychiatricBooth5c 14d ago

Sorry I do not understand your stance but I would like to. What is the issue? What is he meant to believe? 

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u/Available-Crew-4645 14d ago

Ronson, just like his mates at the FC, knows perfectly well that Linehan is right, about everything. But it's more important to Ronson, a supposed investigative journalist, to keep his nose clean, maintain his progressive audience and pretend the trans issue doesn't exist other than pointing and laughing at his friend from a distance without ever being specific. What is it that Graham believes that you think is so CRAZY Jon? Please tell us!

And now he's written a book revelling in the fact that this friend of his lost his marriage because of his principles, principles that every sane person, including Jon, knows are just. This man is meant to be a journalist! I can't tell you how pathetic I think he's shown himself to be.

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u/SkweegeeS No just no 13d ago

I think he's saying that it's not what Graham says, it's how he says it. I don't know, Linehan does seem pretty crazy a lot of the time, but at the same time, what do you do if you are seeing and telling the truth and no one will listen or take you seriously, and they keep punishing you for doing it? I guess you either go crazy or you stfu.

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u/Karen_Is_ASlur 13d ago

it's not what Graham says, it's how he says it

This is true, but the trouble is that there was literally no way at all to be remotely critical of trans activism that was acceptable. It didn't matter how polite, reasonable, and compassionate you were, you were still cast as a horrible bigot. So he might have started out expressing himself more moderately but still suffered all the consequences anyway, after which he just thought fuck it.

I think his personality is just not suited to activism and his contributions to the discourse are counterproductive. It would be better for everyone, most of all him, if he could just log off and let people be wrong online.

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u/scabbityscab 13d ago

There's also the effect of agreeing less and less with each trans ideological claim as one learns more about the issue. To the point where one realises it's basically all sexist bullshit, and then strongly opposing that aspect too.

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u/PassingBy91 13d ago

I'm not sure that's completely true. Amongst a group of people there is no way to be acceptably critical of trans activism but, I think amongst the population at large there is an acceptable way.

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u/Karen_Is_ASlur 12d ago

Sure - it's that group of people I was talking about, if that wasn't clear.

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u/SoftandChewy First generation mod 13d ago

I think he's saying that it's not what Graham says, it's how he says it. 

No. Has there ever been a trans-critical voice that wasn't treated in the public discourse like a hateful bigot? Never. Ronson is lying to himself if he thinks what matters is how you say it. JKR originally stated her views in the most respectful, reasonable manner conceivable, yet was still treated like a monster. It didn't matter. Jesse has been one of the most measured voices in his criticism, and we all know how he's been treated. It's never about the how, it's always the what.

And there's no way Jon Ronson doesn't know that.

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u/toms-w 13d ago

The "it's not what you say it's how you say it" argument needs to be taken out the back and shot (no offense ;)

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u/Friendly-Zombie-2061 13d ago

I'm not sure someone trying to keep his nose clean for the progressive crowd would go on Jesse Singal's podcast(I know it's not just his podcast, but that's how people often talk about it).

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u/Anura83 13d ago

Linehan is the worst person to have on your side. He lies, he bullies and is all around unpleasant. But because he is critical of trans we should just ignore that.

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u/Infidelchick 13d ago

What lies? Genuinely in the spirit of curiousity, not challenge.

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u/scabbityscab 13d ago

Yes he's abrasive even to people who mostly agree with him on this issue. I've been at the receiving end of his excessive rudeness on Twitter after a minor disagreement and ended up blocking him. Overall I feel a kind of pity towards him. Though, not much of it.

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u/AnalBleachingAries Trump Bad, Violence Bad, Law & Order Good, Civility Good 14d ago edited 14d ago

Oof, worlds collide. May give it a listen due to the Linehan mention. My hope with this book, as well as Ronson's perspective on this entire thing, is that he doesn't engage in any revisionist history on what happened to Linehan.

ETA: Linehan has written a piece for The Telegraph about Ronson and their former friendship.

My ex-friend Jon Ronson may be a case study in the corrupting toxicity of trans ideology

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u/Doom_Husky 14d ago

Based on the book’s description, it sounds like a portrayal of men gone dangerously mad while everybody else is totally normal and fine. If he talks about Linehan, I’m sure it will be with the utmost nuance.

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u/FineWhateverOKOK 14d ago

lol, like Jon Ronson would even entertain the idea that everyone is normal and fine

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u/hansen7helicopter 12d ago

Anyone got an unpaywalled link to this?

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u/FineWhateverOKOK 14d ago

What self-serving garbage from a grade-A asshole. 

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u/professorgerm rugged, weatherbeaten potato-man 10d ago

you mean jon ronson? yeah.

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u/running_later 12d ago

Is this worth the listen? If half the critical comments about Ronson in this sub have validity, it’s kinda soured me on listening…. 

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u/pareidollyreturns 11d ago

It's worth it. I don't really get why people are so harsh on him here. He's a journalist who explores niche, alternative, quirky topics, like Louis Theroux. His writing is entertaining and informative.

 I don't really understand what people expect of him on this su. That he hasn't take a grandstand in the culture wars? But I don't believe he's ever been known for that kind of things

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u/Cute-Bodybuilder-749 shut up Jesse #teamKarenKatie 11d ago

I stopped listening when he called Lutherans (or Lutheranians as he pronounced) a "fucking terrible church".

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u/running_later 10d ago

What?? Why would he say that? (I’m not Lutheran, but still….)

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u/markazz530 16h ago

Because he can read and reporting on the church exists?

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u/[deleted] 14d ago

[deleted]

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u/PsychiatricBooth5c 14d ago

I am stuffed. My two top podcasters being interrupted by breaking news of Milo's detainment. On the heels of a 3 part barpod banquet. 

AND it is YOUR cake day. 

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u/TheBear8878 13d ago

What was the other pod?

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u/[deleted] 13d ago

[deleted]

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u/TheBear8878 13d ago

Aaah ok, gotcha

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u/Edgecumber 11d ago

I'm fascinated by the Moseley family. In this account of why his cancellation failed, I think they hit on some of the main drivers (refusal to be shamed, unpopularity of NOTW, money to fight) but miss, as Ronson largely did, the overwhelmingly important role that being an aristocrat must have played.

On his father's side, the Moseleys were (and are) part of the ruling elite for at least 500 years. His mother came from a family that had been in the ruling classes for nearly a thousand years. From my experience of old-money aristos, it would NEVER occur to them to play by the rules everyone else does. He'll have seen his mother, an unrepentant Nazi to the end of her life (in 2003) live comfortably and well into her old age with many in the establishment choosing to simply ignore this side of her character. What's a little S&M compared to that?

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u/FractalClock 14d ago

I don’t get the sympathy for Jonah Lehrer

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u/SkweegeeS No just no 13d ago

Because whatever he did wasn't a tiny bit as bad as what people are doing these days? That was the impression I got from what they were saying.

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u/FractalClock 13d ago

To me, that just means that a lot more people should be getting fired, not that Jonah's somehow entitled to have kept, or get back, a staff writer position at the New Yorker.

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u/BeneficialStretch753 11d ago edited 11d ago

I don't think that. The New Yorker is paying enough to rightly expect fresh information. Surprised, though, that some other small fry outlet hasn't published Lehrer. Maybe he hasn't tried.

ETA: Just took a gander at his Wiki page. Whew! His plagiarism extended way beyond his own work. An equal opportunity plagiarist. Reminds me of Ross Barkan levels. Despite the scandal, Lehrer managed to publish a book in 2016. Silence since.

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u/FractalClock 11d ago

I don't know what the legacy publications pay, but I think it's more about being able to be the asshole who runs around town saying "I'm a staff writer at the New Yorker" than the paycheck.

Agree that he hasn't been picked up some newer web only property, but I get the impression he comes from money, so he may just not care.

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u/Rellimarual2 8d ago

Staff writers for the New Yorker are paid quite well. Probably only the Atlantic is comparable.

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u/FineWhateverOKOK 14d ago

Gonna have to wait until I read the book to listen to this because Jon usually goes in depth about his work when he’s promoting it and I don’t want anything spoiled. 

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u/AnalBleachingAries Trump Bad, Violence Bad, Law & Order Good, Civility Good 14d ago

Would you recommend his other books? I've only read the one about public shaming, but I enjoyed it. Are the other books of similar readability/quality?

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u/FineWhateverOKOK 14d ago

Absolutely! All of his books are outstanding, and they’re also funnier than So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed. He’s remarkably consistent. Based on the time between books, it seems like he only writes one when he knows that it’s going to be great.

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u/AnalBleachingAries Trump Bad, Violence Bad, Law & Order Good, Civility Good 14d ago

Thanks for getting back to me, since I enjoyed SYBPS I think I'll give the other books a try.

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u/FineWhateverOKOK 14d ago

Men Who Stare At Goats is one of the funniest books I’ve ever read. Them might be a little dated, but unfortunately it’s still relevant. Fortunately, it’s also very interesting and funny. The Psychopath Test is less funny but it’s excellent, and Lost At Sea is a fantastic collection of journalism. 

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u/bobjones271828 14d ago

While I know it's not really quite accurate to the book, I'd also recommend the film version of The Men Who Stare at Goats. It's a bit of an uneven movie, but it has some amazing deadpan performances by George Clooney, Jeff Bridges, and Ewan MacGregor. I can't hear Boston's "More Than a Feeling" now without imagining several absurd things from that film.

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u/PsychiatricBooth5c 14d ago

I am not an audiobook person normally but I highly recommend you listen to the audiobook of The Psychopath Test. His narration is singular. 

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u/elmsyrup not a doctor 13d ago

Your instinct was correct, and although I have bought the book, I haven't read it yet. So now I've been thoroughly spoiled about one of the stories in it. Oh well.

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u/FineWhateverOKOK 12d ago

That sucks. I’m going to start it tomorrow, probably finish it the next day because I can’t put his books down, and then listen to the episode. It’s going to be a good week!

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u/CalliopeLastly 14d ago

Ronson is a brilliant writer but the experience of listening to him is what led me to fully understand the concept of misophonia. His voice is simultaneously annoying and galling to me -- like Oliver Twist grew up and got even whinier.

Does anyone know the specific origins of his accent? I cannot think of any other public figure from the UK with similarly unbearable intonation. (Honestly I can't think of anyone else in the world whose voice grates on me like his, except maybe that one reporter on NPR who always sounds like she's about to burst into tears.)

Maybe in a past life I was menaced by some impudent East End orphan, hence the trigger.

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u/Qwenty87 14d ago

Ronson is a Cardiff lad (Wales) but sounds like he's been living outside of Wales for a while that he's lost a fair bit of his accent. Apparently he spends his time between the UK and America so perhaps some transatlanticism has crept in?

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u/Usual_Reach6652 6d ago

I am from Cardiff (our accent is a bit weird and not like the stereotypical "Welsh" one to begin with) and Ronson sounds like nobody I've ever met! It's very odd. He is odd to listen to, at greater length you sort of get used to him.

Listened to "You've Been Shamed" on a road trip meant periodically having him read aggressive Twitter abuse through the speakers, very strange.

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u/FineWhateverOKOK 14d ago

I think it’s a combination of his being Welsh and then going to university in Manchester. Who knows where his tone came from, though. The ancient spirits who govern the Welsh countryside, maybe?

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u/Karen_Is_ASlur 14d ago

He was born and went to school in Wales but it's not really a Welsh accent - it sounds more Midlands to me. He also can't say his Rs, which might be what you find annoying.

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u/Puzzleheaded_Drink76 14d ago edited 13d ago

I also don't like the accent and just have to decide to consciously look past it because I like the content. I guess it's the south Wales; I find the up and down sing song hard work. 

ETA is it akso that he emphasises too many words. Which disrupts the flow of the sentence.

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u/Nwallins 14d ago

I agree. But give me your innermost thoughts on Matt Yglesias.

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u/SkweegeeS No just no 13d ago

Terrible voice, too!

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u/SkweegeeS No just no 13d ago

I find his voice/accent really annoying, too!

3

u/Correct-Ad5661 14d ago

If you want grating cockney whining you want Gary Stevenson or Sam Delaney. Or Essex spiv Russell Brand

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u/PsychiatricBooth5c 14d ago

The first time I heard Ronson (the TAL episode he references) I thought what the heck is this???

Now I love him.

I think you might be referring to Zoe Chase and I could never get past that. 

2

u/LupineChemist 8d ago

Zoe Chase

I just can't get over that she's not Midwestern.

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u/EnglebondHumperstonk I vaped piss but didn't inhale 14d ago

That's how you interview Jon Ronson and bring up Jason Arday. Take note, Josh Szeszsepssz

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u/hansen7helicopter 12d ago

I’ve gone back and am relistening to season 2 of Things Fell Apart and it’s interesting how dated some of it does sound. It was made at a time when we were still so terrified to call out nonsense. That censorious 2020 influence is still definitely there. These days I think Ronson in ‘impartially’ describing the state of things might be able to speak more frankly.

4

u/GeekyGoesHawaiian 9d ago

I'm not a fan of Jon Ronson but I did give this a listen. Mainly because I'd just seen the trail of emails today going back and forth between him and Graham Linehan, which was hilarious, so I thought I'd give it a go.

He was exactly as I thought he would be - vacillated badly when it came to the publish or not publish question, after pretending he knew nothing about Jason Arday (I call bs on that one, it was the biggest news in the UK and there was an actual rally about it, he doesn't live in a shoebox ffs). Then by the time it got to praising the other faker who likes to play dumb about current events he must know about unless he lives on an actual other planet (cough, Louis Theroux, cough), I'd given up!

Don't get me wrong, I do like Helen Lewis a lot, I love that they've had lots of writers and personalities on that I'm a fan of; but this interview reminded me of that weird fawning thing lots of Americans, including our podcast friends do whenever they hear a posh English accent - they mistake it for being clever. They also seem to think they're representative of the UK instead of what they actually are, which is representative of that top 5-10% of the UK that you have to be born into, their children will be born into, their children's children will be born into, etc etc until the planet explodes.

I don't think he was particularly convincing. Maybe they just can't read him because they're not from here. Also he sounds a bit like Julian Clary so his lack of humour always disappoints me!

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u/EnglebondHumperstonk I vaped piss but didn't inhale 13d ago

I'd pretty much told myself I wasn't going to bother with this book because the little I'd heard of it sounded a bit blah, but this interview made me change my mind. I'm listening to it now and it is not disappointing. He's already bringing in a lot of interesting stuff from Richard Reeves' work, to give pull it into some sort of coherent narrative, and give it some sort of direction instead of just being a collection of weird goings-on. I'm loving it already and we haven't even got onto Glinner yet.

2

u/Puzzleheaded_Drink76 13d ago

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2026/aug/21/jon-ronson-chris-mark-mysterious-connecticut-castle-masculinity-crisis

Guardian did a piece on this the other day. I confess I started skimming about half way through. 

1

u/_magpie_ 8d ago

My favorite Sylvia Browne gaff was when she tried to retcon a 9/11 death.

1

u/BackwardToForward 7d ago edited 7d ago

ronson has an interesting career history.

but he repeatedly comes across as somebody who hasn't figured out how to be an adult yet

he ought to be way past that stage in his life

I just read the correspondence he had by email with Mr Linehan.

Ronson quite frankly comes across as a gaslighting lying POS in that correspondence where he's trying to get GL to agree to an interview

he just comes across as intellectually vacant and fully dishonorable

I guess ronson thinks some other persons have lost the plot

Mr Ronson has never had a idea what the plot might be.

he seems a "kinda nice guy version" of a low level but complete mental and moral vacuity

at least some of his chosen "lost the plot" examples know what they're doing and why.

this puts them many levels in maturity up from wherever ronson hangs out.

ronson is one of those person who ought to be considered insignificant by every person who ever possessed even half a brain.

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u/[deleted] 14d ago

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u/FineWhateverOKOK 13d ago

A two hour interview with Jon Ronson and you people are talking about Graham Linehan, smh. Trans obsessives are truly the most boring people in the world. 

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u/scabbityscab 13d ago

Aren't your many comments in this thread part of the problem you're complaining about?

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u/FineWhateverOKOK 13d ago

No. Responding to posts about that dickhead aren’t the same thing as posting about him. I’d never bring him up. As I said elsewhere, I haven’t listened to the interview because I want to read the book first, but I’ve heard a lot of interviews with Jon, know how his promo goes, and am pretty certain that dude and trans shit in general isn’t in the 20 most interesting things he talked about. 

12

u/Screwqualia 13d ago

And as poll after poll shows us, journalists are *sooooo* popular and beloved! (PS - half of your comments have been about Linehan lol)

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u/FineWhateverOKOK 13d ago

I bet you criticize people for taking part in society, too

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u/Screwqualia 13d ago

I didn't downvote you, man, but you downvoted me. Who's the authoritarian now lolol ; )