#FuckFuckJerry

Overview

#FuckFuckJerry is a hashtag used in a viral campaign against the meme account-turned-marketing firm FuckJerry, which has been accused of stealing others work without credit or compensation. Those using the hashtag took offense to Comedy Central's hiring of FuckJerry to advertise their programming, finding hypocrisy in Comedy Central paying the company after FuckJerry had been accused of stealing material.

Background

On January 15th, 2019, Vulture editor Megh Writer tweeted ^[1] a screenshot of a sponsored tweet from the @FuckJerry Instagram account, adding "when your stolen tweets bring you so much success that they turn into a sponsored post template." Over the next few weeks, she continued to post more @FuckJerry posts sponsored by the comedy television network Comedy Central (shown below).

The following week, Vulture^[2] published the article "Comedy Central Is Advertising With Every Comedian’s Worst Enemy." The article states:

Tebele’s long-running joke theft has been called out and covered extensively by comedians and writers over the years, so more recently, the accounts have included attribution, presumably to ward off further criticism […] It feels particularly egregious to see the latest series of ads FuckJerry has been posting this month … promoting Comedy Central shows. Broad City, Corporate, and The Other Two have all gotten their own FuckJerry Instagram ads over the past two weeks, and to twist the knife for comedians everywhere, they’re all formatted like the stolen jokes Tebele used to post regularly.

There’s just something about advertising on an Instagram account that got successful for posting stolen jokes -- and spending ad money to run sponsored posts stylized like stolen jokes, no less -- that feels antithetical to everything Comedy Central stands for, especially considering that the network likely employs comedians and writers who have had their jokes stolen by FuckJerry at some point.

Developments

Comedian Response

Over the next week, as news of FuckJerry's relationship to the infamous Fyre Festival grew in the public eye, people began using the #FuckFuckJerry hashtag to mock the company. Comedians, however, appeared to be using it as a means of criticizing the company's past behavior and current acceptance by Comedy Central (examples below).

On January 30th, video editor Vic Berger tweeted^[3] an Instagram direct message conversation with FuckJerry Chief Content Officer James Ryan Ohliger in which Berger asks that his material be removed from the account. Ohliger responds, "Shut up." Berger captioned the tweet, "In 2016, #FuckJerry and their chief content officer James Ryan Ohliger aka “Krispyshorts” stole a bunch of my videos and posted as their own with ads attached. Here was Ohliger’s response after I called them out on @instagram. #FuckFuckJerry." The tweet received more than 3,000 retweets and 18,000 likes in one week (shown below).

That day, Wright tweeted,^[4] "🚨 Whoa! Interesting #FuckFuckJerry update, per a helpful source who sent me this tip. Today, the FJ Instagram account deleted 260 posts! Last column is new media uploads/removals." The tweet received more than 280 retweets and 1,400 likes in one week (shown below, left).

The following day, comedian Eliza Skinner tweeted,^[5] "Fuck Jerry steals content from struggling comics (who put it out for free) and then uses it to make money from ad sales. If you don’t want to help rich dudes make money by stealing from people who didn’t grow up rich enough to work the system then UNFOLLOW THEM. #fuckfuckjerry." Within one week, the tweet received more than 3,300 retweets and 20,000 likes (shown below, right).

Additionally, on February 1st, comedian Tim Heidecker posted a song entitled "Fuck Fuck Jerry." Within one week, the post received more than 145 retweets and 890 likes (shown below).^[7]

hey @megh_wright figured you could use a jingle for your movement #fuckfuckjerry https://t.co/wbuO5M8Inp

— Just Tim Heidecker (@timheidecker) February 2, 2019

Vic Berger Video

On February 1st, Vic Berger tweeted^[6] a video entitled "FuckJerry: Easier To Steal." The video edits and mocks the 2016 Nightline profile on FuckJerry. The video received more than 7,200 retweets and 28,000 likes in three days (shown below).

FuckJerry: Easier To Steal#FuckFuckJerry pic.twitter.com/MTAhN0t5Uo

— Vic Berger IV (@VicBergerIV) February 1, 2019

On February 4th, Berger reported that his video had been taken off YouTube because of a copystrike received by Fuck Jerry chief content officer James Ryan Ohliger, aka “Krispyshorts" (shown below).

Berger then re-uploaded the video to Vimeo, where is has been viewed over 216,000 times (shown below). The video gained over 47,000 points on Reddit^[9] that day. The drama was covered by AV Club.^[10] Berger also published an op-ed in Rolling Stone^[11] about FuckJerry.

Comedy Central Response

On February 1st, Comedy Central announced that all of their advertisements had been removed from FuckJerry's social channels. In a comment to Vulture,^[2] they wrote, “Comedy Central requested to have any existing ads pulled from the FuckJerry account. We have no plans to advertise with Jerry Media in the future".

FuckJerry's Response

The following day, FuckJerry founder Eliot Tebele posted a statement on Medium.^[8] In the statement, he said the company would no longer "post content when we cannot identify the creator, and will require the original creator’s advanced consent before publishing their content to our followers. It is clear that attribution is no longer sufficient, so permission will become the new policy."

h3h3 Video

On April 3rd, 2019, h3h3Production released a video entitled "It's Time To Stop This Content Thief." In the video, host Ethan Klein goes through a number of plagiarism and allegations of stolen content by FuckJerry and their various companies. The post received more than 2 million views (shown below). That day, Redditor^[12] TacoShower posted the video in the /r/video subreddit. The post received more than 1,700 points (87% upvoted) and 350 comments.

The following day, The Daily Dot^[13] published an article about the video.

Search Interest

External References