Rip-offs

Queer celebs protest shady media company for profiting off of stolen jokes

F*ckJerry/Jerry Media founder Elliot Tebele
F*ckJerry/Jerry Media founder Elliot Tebele

Gay comedian Billy Eichner has joined other queer celebs like blogger Perez Hilton, journalist Ronan Farrow and chef Antoni Porowski to protest Jerry Media (aka. F*ck Jerry), an advertising and media company which achieved notoriety by re-posting other comedians’ un-credited tweets, videos and memes on their mega-successful Instagram page.

The protest’s hashtag is #F*ckF*ckJerry, and lots of other big-name comedians like Amy Schumer, John Mulaney and Patton Oswald have joined the campaign.

In 2011, F*ck Jerry began as an Instagram page which quickly gained a massive following by reposting other comedians’ work without attribution or payment.

While this might seem harmless, in doing so, F*ck Jerry denied struggling comedians greater exposure and income. Now, F*ck Jerry has over 14 million followers and makes an estimated $75,000 per sponsored post. Their success is owed in part to the people whose work they stole.

Elliot Tebele, the founder of Jerry Media, has also come under fire for helping promote and sell tickets to the Fyre Festival, the failed Bahamas music festival which scammed investors and ticket-buyers out of millions. (The scandal resulted in recent two documentaries about it.)

Related: Popular gay comedian accused of sexually assaulting straight man in hotel room

Jerry Media allegedly helped “[delete] any comments that were critical of the festival, and [ban] accounts who tried to inform ticket purchasers that the event was a sham,” according to Rolling Stone magazine.

When one comedian, Vic Berger, asked Jerry Media to credit them for a video of his they reposted without attribution, the company merely responded “Shut up” and then credited the video to F*ck Jerry. Berger has since become the loudest voice in the #F*ckF*ckJerry campaign and has even released a video about it (below).

Since the #F*ckF*ckJerry protest began, the F*ck Jerry Instagram account has lost hundreds of thousands of followers and Comedy Central and the dating app Bumble have both pledged not to advertise with Jerry Media any longer.

Furthermore, Tebele has since promised to attribute all jokes and ask comedians for permission before re-posting their work. But he didn’t say whether the company will re-compensate comedians whose work they stole in the past.

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