Terrence Clay
2024-02-21 01:59:36 UTC
https://www.thedailybeast.com/why-does-snl-host-shane-gillis-keep-promoting-these-holocaust-deniers
Seth Simons, the comedy critic whose resurfacing of Gillis' racist and homophobic podcast jokes in 2019 led to the comedian’s firing days after his Saturday Night Live hiring, writes in The Daily Beast that viewers watching Gillis host this weekend "will eventually meet Bill McCusker, the brother of Gillis’ co-host Matt McCusker, and Andrew Pacella, their longtime friend. The two have appeared nearly 20 times since 2019 on Matt and Shane’s Secret Podcast, currently Patreon’s top-ranked podcast with more than 80,000 paid subscribers. They have hosted a podcast of their own, War Mode, since 2020. Thanks in part to the exposure they received on Gillis’s platform, Pacella and McCusker have grown their audience to more than 12,800 Patreon subscribers, generating more than $32,000 in monthly income. Also, they’re Holocaust deniers. McCusker and Pacella have dedicated their podcasting career to exploring conspiracy theories, of which they subscribe to quite a few. They are Sandy Hook truthers, arguing in two separate episodes of Matt and Shane’s Secret Podcast that the slaughter never happened. They are 9/11 truthers who believe, per Pacella, that 'the Israelis' knew about the attacks in advance and may have orchestrated them 'to take over our media and destroy our country.' They believe in Pizzagate, the conspiracy theory that inspired a gunman to fire three shots at Comet Ping Pong, a Washington, D.C., pizza shop." Simons adds: "In the comedy world, there’s a popular argument that it does not matter what comedians say or do, because they are just comedians: It’s all a joke, and no one takes them seriously. But Shane Gillis—who has stood by the racist comments that led to his firing in 2019—illustrates that comedians actually have all the same powers as anyone else with a public platform. When a popular, mainstream stand-up comedian like Gillis sits down with Holocaust deniers and alt-right provocateurs on his podcast—which currently has nearly 50,000 more paying subscribers than the highly influential, long-running 'dirtbag leftist' show Chapo Trap House—the Holocaust deniers and alt-right provocateurs walk away with a bigger audience, and their beliefs take deeper root in our society."
Seth Simons, the comedy critic whose resurfacing of Gillis' racist and homophobic podcast jokes in 2019 led to the comedian’s firing days after his Saturday Night Live hiring, writes in The Daily Beast that viewers watching Gillis host this weekend "will eventually meet Bill McCusker, the brother of Gillis’ co-host Matt McCusker, and Andrew Pacella, their longtime friend. The two have appeared nearly 20 times since 2019 on Matt and Shane’s Secret Podcast, currently Patreon’s top-ranked podcast with more than 80,000 paid subscribers. They have hosted a podcast of their own, War Mode, since 2020. Thanks in part to the exposure they received on Gillis’s platform, Pacella and McCusker have grown their audience to more than 12,800 Patreon subscribers, generating more than $32,000 in monthly income. Also, they’re Holocaust deniers. McCusker and Pacella have dedicated their podcasting career to exploring conspiracy theories, of which they subscribe to quite a few. They are Sandy Hook truthers, arguing in two separate episodes of Matt and Shane’s Secret Podcast that the slaughter never happened. They are 9/11 truthers who believe, per Pacella, that 'the Israelis' knew about the attacks in advance and may have orchestrated them 'to take over our media and destroy our country.' They believe in Pizzagate, the conspiracy theory that inspired a gunman to fire three shots at Comet Ping Pong, a Washington, D.C., pizza shop." Simons adds: "In the comedy world, there’s a popular argument that it does not matter what comedians say or do, because they are just comedians: It’s all a joke, and no one takes them seriously. But Shane Gillis—who has stood by the racist comments that led to his firing in 2019—illustrates that comedians actually have all the same powers as anyone else with a public platform. When a popular, mainstream stand-up comedian like Gillis sits down with Holocaust deniers and alt-right provocateurs on his podcast—which currently has nearly 50,000 more paying subscribers than the highly influential, long-running 'dirtbag leftist' show Chapo Trap House—the Holocaust deniers and alt-right provocateurs walk away with a bigger audience, and their beliefs take deeper root in our society."