Josh Ostrovsky, a.k.a. “The Fat Jew,” is known for his profane humor and huge web presence.Steven Brahms for The New York Times
But he does hope millions more people will soon come to know him as “The Fat Jew.” It is his comedic alter ego, his Instagram persona (@thefatjewish has more than a million followers) and, if he has his way, his ticket to wealth and mainstream media success.
Thus far he has parlayed a profane sense of humor that mocks the tropes of social-media culture and the hipsters who propagate them; an apparent affection for pot, pets and grandparents; and his own slovenly, outlandish physical appearance (he strolls Manhattan streets, sometimes in a Day-Glo thong or in his grandmother’s printed nightgown, often with hair styled in a perpendicular-to-his-head pony tail that he refers to as a “Jew unicorn”) into a huge web following and the beginnings of an old-fashioned entertainment career.
Mr. Ostrovsky, 30, is in talks with Showtime to appear in a Dick Wolf-created reality series called “After 3 A.M.,” and has sold to Comedy Central a scripted project he wrote, which is based on his life. He is co-writing a book for Grand Central Publishing, tentatively scheduled to be published next fall.
His résumé also includes paid appearances at a pregnant women’s wet T-shirt contest as well as at a bar mitzvah in Portugal. He is working on a sponsored Instagram campaign for a beef jerky company in which he will be photographed in a jerky jacket, and has already shilled for Burger King. “I got a tattoo of the logo, which I did for the money but also because I love chicken fries so so so much because I am very fat,” he wrote in an email. He won’t reveal his income but said it is “enough to have my dad take me seriously now. Sort of.”
Mr. Ostrovsky is trying to become a new kind of comedic celebrity — one who eschews the stand-up circuit in favor of stunt jokes that play well on YouTube and funny screen shots that get lots of “likes” on Instagram. He hopes to translate his smartphone success onto the small screen, perhaps becoming emblematic of the social-media star-making system whereby pop culture figures on social media find crossover success in Hollywood. If blogs begot best-selling memoirs, perhaps Instagram sensations can break into TV.
It’s too early to tell if his character can be more than an Internet curio. He sold a show making fun of Williamsburg, Brooklyn, to Amazon in 2013, but it has gone nowhere. Comedy Central sees promise. “His funny, unique and outrageous point of view could definitely translate to” cable television, says Jonas Larsen,Comedy Central’s senior vice president for talent and specials. But a social media following alone is not enough to predict success, Mr. Larsen said.
“Twitter and social media can shine a light on someone, but it can’t show you how they perform,” he said, adding that the network usually judges performers by attending stand-up comedy shows.
Given that Mr. Ostrovsky’s main oeuvre is a social media feed for which he mostly finds funny pictures or tweets on the web and reposts them with his own captions, his abilities as a live-action entertainer are untested. It’s an obstacle he is doing little to overcome. Mr. Ostrovsky refuses to join the stand-up circuit. “Why would I do that when I can roll myself into a giant burrito, take a picture and get paid?” he said.
Instead of sweating over the timing of monologue jokes, Mr. Ostrovsky creates a stream-of-consciousness work that he likened to performance art.
Last week, he posted a photo of an elderly woman in a grocery store wearing a yellow sweatshirt with the words printed upon it, “I hate everyone.” Next to it, he wrote a humorous, profane caption that indicated the degree to which “Grandma” does not care what others think. It has garnered more than 60,000 “likes.”
Another popular recent post (more than 40,000 “likes”) was a screen shot of a faux-Wikipedia page showing a man with a small patch of hair beneath his bottom lip and the definition of the term “soul patch.” “The soul patch is a lot like a Hitler mustache, but below the lower lip and worn by people much worse than Hitler.”
Of his video gambits, he is best known for lampooning the elite indoor-cycling chain SoulCycle and its clientele by leading a mock class for homeless people on parked Citi Bikes. The video went viral.
Despite his moniker, Mr. Ostrovsky said he doesn’t mine “Jewish humor.” Instead, he channels the rude, in-your-face ethos of comedians like Joan Rivers. (The day after Ms. Rivers died earlier this month, Mr. Ostrovsky posted on Instagram a two-year-old photo of Ms. Rivers standing near him, in which his hair is frizzed into a wide halo. He wrote in tribute that Ms. Rivers told him to get a haircut, adding, “Your face and head looks like my vagina in the ‘60s.”)
He also worships the legendary pornographer Al Goldstein.
“His public-access show was like our holy grail,” Mr. Ostrovsky said.
Raised on the Upper West Side, he had a cosseted upbringing. His father, Saul, worked as a radiologist and his mother, Rebecca, as a nutritionist.
By 2004, while majoring in journalism at SUNY Albany, the “Fat Jew” had emerged. To the befuddlement of his parents, Mr. Ostrovsky had chosen the school specifically to “drink out of red Solo cups.” He called it the starting point of his career. “When you start making real-deal life decisions for the LOLs, that’s when you’re committed,” he said. On the weekends, he performed for Team Facelift, a weirdo rap trio known for its onstage antics (the neon thong made an early appearance).
In 2009, he began to build a social media business.
Today, Mr. Ostrovsky employs three interns to help him. In February, he started Instagram accounts for each of his Cavalier King Charles spaniels, Toast and Muppet. Toast has 80,000-plus followers and even appeared on “Good Morning America” last month .
Mr. Ostrovsky finds material for his social media feeds on the web and works on his scripts while sitting with his interns in a room he rents in the back of a nail salon in Queens. He has two writing partners, a comedian named Jonathan Sollis and David Oliver Cohen, a social media writer behind the “White Girl Problems” Twitter feed. “Sometimes they come by and we work on our mutual projects, and sometimes we go into the front of the store and get mani-pedis,” Mr. Ostrovsky said.
He also said he has spent time writing in what is a decidedly off-brand location, given his character’s name — a friend’s country house in Connecticut. (Also off-brand, Mr. Ostrovsky is marrying Katie Sturino, a publicist, this fall, and she seems actually to be a normal person.)
He likes strip clubs too, like Rick’s Cabaret, where he recently stopped for a midday meal of chicken penne and a passion-fruit martini. He barely blinked as a gyrating blonde straddled a businessman a table away. He likes to imagine narratives about the daytime clientele.
“Who is going to a strip club in the middle of a sunny day?” asked Mr. Ostrovsky, giving little indication if he was in on the joke. “That’s what I want to know.”
View the original article here
No comments :
Post a Comment