John Oliver's Last Week Tonight

I'm now reminded of when John Oliver claimed he was being paid about the same as Stephen Colbert, for just one night a week. To which Colbert responded by flipping him off.

I love Colbert's Sitcom Archenemesis antics to Oliver, like on Strike Force Five *THUNDERCRACK* when John was talking about his early days on the Daily Show and he was muttering in his mike about how he hated him for getting along with Jon so well.

Yeah, I love that too. For what it's worth, I think Colbert and Noah are much funnier, though I guess I have only seen the stuff that gets onto Youtube.

There's so many hilarious segments on this show that are often not on YT—at least not in the Main Story segment anyway—and my God is that regrettable when it happens certainly.

Here it is

I wonder if legal reasons kept it off YT for the first few days. It'll be a month since the offer to Thomas was made come 3/19 at night by the way. That's for those keeping track. Haha.

And that's a Tuesday night too. Haha.

I can't find an official source but I read WB is holding off on uploads until Thursdays in hopes it'll get more people to subscribe to Max to see episodes sooner.

Sorry, WB I don't have any money, and I'm fine waiting a few extra days.

Edited by Brandon on Feb 22nd 2024 at 9:46:53 AM

Yeah, I never got the "pay something to see an episode a week early" subscription plan.

Man, I knew some of this stuff in bits and pieces, but putting it all together in one video really shows just how corrupt SCOTUS really is.

Also, when you keep saying "my wife, who is totally my best friend in the whole world", it starts sounding incredibly insincere. Like, even a social shut-in like me knows not to trust people who call you "totally their best friend ever".

Edited by Redmess on Feb 22nd 2024 at 7:00:37 PM

I thought that the episode's absence was due to the giant Swastika that appears on screen around 11:30.

Edited by Bexlerfu on Feb 22nd 2024 at 7:31:07 PM

If Clarence Thomas is on social media, I wonder how fast his phone blew up after the episode aired.

Man, I'd drop whatever I was doing and get that contract. Who wouldn't like a million dollar yearly pension to just do nothing?

This is such a millionaire's club thing to do, by the way. Sure, it's for a good cause, but still. This is basically bribing a judge into silence permanently. John says "I can't believe this is legal" for a reason.

Amazing episode, absolutely blew me away with the writing, structuring, news, jokes, brick jokes, and punchline at the end.

Edited by PushoverMediaCritic on Feb 24th 2024 at 9:54:17 AM

HOLY SHIT!! All the episodes of Last Week Tonight IN FULL will soon be on the official YouTube now for anyone who can see!!

Edited by thuse on Feb 25th 2024 at 9:04:27 PM

Awesome. Will they be single videos, or chopped up into clips like The Late Show?

I don't mind the clips, but The Late Show does have an annoying habit of uploading clips out of order, which is especially notable with interviews.

They'll be single full episodes the same day they come out in the US!!
The announcement video:

Edited by thuse on Feb 25th 2024 at 10:02:01 PM

That one doesn't work.

I assume it's only for those outside the US.

We'll talk about this past weekend's when it comes out on YT and an embedded link gets posted. It's about Pig Butchering. Not actual pig killing for the record, but I figure that's probably obvious though.

Yeah I mean Thomas can reject it all he wants—though I would agree that it'd be smarter if he did since he'd at least be owning up to his corruption finally, but the damage is indeed done. John put the offer out; he didn't break any laws and thus will face no consequences for it and it now shines a big fat spotlight on the problem too—showing that just because the focus here is primarily on Thomas, that it's not something that's no constantly causing problems with others on the Court and now has to be systemically addressed in a more effective and blunt way too.

I mean, considering this show, it very well could be literal.

So want to explain what it actually means?

Latest main story on Pig Butchering.

A sort of summary on what Pig Butchering is that a fraudster lures you into a financial investment where you gradually put in more and more money, and once it reaches a suitable amount, takes the whole thing and disappears with it, called Pig Butchering because it's analogous to fattening a pig before slitting its throat. If you're wondering how they get someone to do that sort of thing, unlike other scams where they try to find someone incredibly gullible and have them invest a large chunk like your standard Nigerian prince, part of the scam is an initial link up where they slowly try and gain your trust and trust in the investment, which usually involves a bit of research and providing some return on the initial "investment" to make you think it's real, and a lot of them use some form of digital currency to obfuscate where the money is going.

It's basically spearfishing, then. A confidence scam targeted at people with a lot of money but little experience investing.

And yeah, I've gotten those "mistake" messages too.

Edited by Redmess on Feb 29th 2024 at 2:13:13 PM

Sort of, but not quite. Spear-phishing utilizes information about the intended the target to send a specially crafted contact that causes the target to drop their defenses in order to get them to click a link or give their credentials in one big swoop.

Pig butchering uses the knowledge to sort of ingratiate themselves to gain trust and ask them to do minor investments. So they're not asking you to send 50K to some Nigerian prince, they're saying "Hey, we've known each other for a bit and we trust each other, so here's the down low on this awesome investment. You just need to invest about $200 dollars a week, and you'll get a 10% return". Then after a year, of you putting in $200 and even allowing you to withdraw from it to keep up the act, once it hits a year that $200 (now $10K) suddenly disappears, you can't withdraw anymore, the ability to put in money is gone, and that friend you knew has their account deleted. It's a long drawn out process and ends with you having the rug pulled out suddenly. Numbers change depending on the target, obviously what is considered a minor investment changes with who the pig is, but that's the basic concept.

Edited by HeyMikey on Feb 29th 2024 at 5:27:58 AM

The other side of this scam is pretty horrifying as well. Makes the whole idea of pranking scam callers and such rather dubious as well.

It's related in principle to other scams where a desirable thing (a sexual partner, a large sum of money) is offered, but then the mark has to continually send modest amounts of money to secure this purported reward.

The game is to keep the mark hooked as long as possible, and it works through psychological mechanisms like the sunk cost fallacy and decision bias. The deeper in the hole you are, the harder it is to admit (to yourself or others) that you were had.

Edited by Fighteer on Feb 29th 2024 at 8:38:03 AM

Huh. I legitimately thought this week was about actual porcine pigs and like, the inhumane conditions of abattoirs or something.