Episode 293 · The Ben Avery Era
#293 - Fat Activism with Jessica Kirson | The Tim Dillon Show
with Jessica Kirson
Apr 3, 2022 · 1:21:54 · 979,000 views · 24 segments, 156 moments indexed
Tim is joined by the incredibly funny Jessica Kirson (Bill Burr presents Stand Up Special, JRE) to talk about being assaulted in the metaverse, a muckbang stabbing, and the body positivity movement.
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- 1 min
Getting Gray Hair Removed at a West Hollywood Salon
#Tim opens describing going to a hairstylist to remove gray hair before taping a special, riffing on the "perky gay men and brain-dead women" vibe of West Hollywood salons.
3moments
- Tim went to a hairstylist to get gray hair removed before taping a special.
- Tim wants to look 17 years old for Saturday's special by removing some gray from his otherwise nice hair.
- He does well with older women and lesbians.
- 4 min
Tim praises guest Jessica Kirsten as the funniest woman in comedy, and they compare notes on the misery of touring, the DXL fat store ritual for buying clothes, and how comedy audiences have changed since he started in 1999.
9moments
- Tim introduces Jessica Kirsten as the funniest woman in America.
- Jessica explains why she stays on the road constantly despite it being hellish—she's miserable and needs the depressing rhythm.
- Both discuss being addicts who are drawn to depressing hotel rooms and horrible coffee.
- Tim describes Jessica's packing method: she brings nothing, then drives to DXL stores in distant exurbs to buy three black 3XL shirts she may throw out.
- DXL locations are deliberately placed 30 to 40 minutes outside cities, in areas called exurbs, because retailers are ashamed of fat stores.
- Jessica explains her upcoming Europe trip will require buying clothing and luggage since she won't be home before leaving.
- Tim asks what comedy clubs were like when Jessica started in 1999, before current sensitivities about jokes.
- Jessica says she barely functions, so she just goes on stage and lets whatever happens happen.
- She describes encountering soccer moms with Teslas who think they're environmentalists but don't care where lithium comes from, and since she's not attracted to women, she feels nothing when they disapprove of her material.
Jessica KirstenDXLLaugh Factorycomedy clubsJoe Rogan
- 1 min
Tim and Jessica riff on Angelenos who claim to be "California sober" while doing meth, and mock people who take shrooms in Joshua Tree without any actual personal growth.
4moments
- LA people claim to be sober but do all the drugs—crystal meth users call it 'California sober.'
- Shroom tourists in Joshua Tree aren't having revelations or progressing in any area of their lives.
- Tim explains he can't do any drugs at all because it leads to other things, like sucking a guy's dick on the street corner.
- Everything is a struggle for Tim—food, his entire existence, he's a garbage can.
- 3 min
Jessica and Tim discuss the difficulty of quitting cigarettes and staying sober long-term, and Tim describes his family of addicts, including an aunt who wears men's shoes and a schizophrenic mother whose worldview he says the country has now caught up to.
9moments
- Tim has quit cigarettes 30 to 40 times in his life.
- Cigarettes are disgusting and kill you in 19 different ways, yet remain one of the greatest products ever made.
- Even five years without cigarettes, Tim would see someone smoking a cigar and feel the pull.
- Quitting cigarettes was the hardest thing Tim ever had to quit.
- Tim has told people in L.A. he doesn't smoke cigarettes anymore while actively smoking one.
- People in L.A. won't call you out on obvious lies because nobody is actually listening to anyone.
- Tim comes from a family of food addicts and drunks, and his aunt wears men's shoes because they're more comfortable, not for any other reason.
- Tim's mother is schizophrenic, but the country has now caught up to the things she's been saying for years.
- The country has become schizophrenic too, so they should probably just let his mother out.
- 4 min
Jessica asks Tim for advice on getting sober; he insists working a 12-step program is the only thing that's worked for him, and they discuss relapse rates, Ben's sobriety, and support systems among comics.
9moments
- Tim asks what the best way is to get sober and change your life from addiction.
- The program is the only way that works, according to Tim, despite trying every therapy available.
- Working the steps and helping other alcoholics has been the only method Tim found to stay sober.
- Ben didn't need the program the way Tim did—he got lucky with a relentlessly positive mentor.
- Tim's doctor told him his biggest health risk is relapsing, despite being physically healthy.
- They run an AA meeting every day, and if people don't work the program they end up at each other's throats.
- Working the steps is especially critical in long-term sobriety to avoid getting cocky.
- Comics have good support for sobriety, with a bunch of sober comedians and a helpful system in place.
- The comedy business makes Tim want to shoot heroin into his anus.
12-step programsAA
- 3 min
Jessica talks about being mostly absent from raising her kids, her daughter Zoe pursuing acting and singing, having twins via IVF, and getting along with both of her children's mothers; Tim jokes about wanting to be pregnant himself.
7moments
- Tim has four daughters, all stunning, which he says is what matters most to him.
- He has a six-year-old daughter and twin three-year-olds with two different baby mamas.
- His oldest is from his ex Sherry, and his current wife Danielle had Isabella, Madison, and Charlotte.
- Tim says he would never carry a child himself because he's very male and the idea horrifies him.
- His guest reveals she actually thinks it's inevitable that she'll get pregnant and have a child, and likes the idea of being entitled and angry with cravings.
- He puts money into real estate because his business manager will steal it otherwise.
- His business manager, who showed up with mustard on him from Five Guys, talks about racing NFT horses and is clearly unstable.
Long IslandFive Guys
- 3 min
Jessica describes her dream of raising a daughter who is cold, withholding, and aloof so she picks better partners, and they discuss worries about daughters choosing bad men.
6moments
- Tim's ideal daughter would be cold and withholding, not nurturing or warm.
- He likes women who smoke cigarettes and stare at the sky, with a kind of aloofness.
- Deliberately damaging a daughter with inconsistency and lack of physical affection would be the parenting goal.
- Cold women select appropriate mates more carefully than women who make impulsive relationship decisions.
- Tim worries a lot that his daughters might choose partners who aren't good for them.
- His own family was never involved in his life—his father doesn't ask about relationships or well-being, only about business and celebrity mentions.
- 2 min
Jessica delivers an extended riff on the Boomer generation's selfishness despite easy circumstances, then ties her own painful upbringing to her belief that the funniest comics have suffered the most.
7moments
- Tim was raised by the worst generation on earth — boomers conducted an exhaustive survey, and a lot of them were terribly selfish people.
- Boomers' entire lives have been a struggle in their minds, even though houses were cheap, cars were cheap, and the land was theirs to pillage.
- The boomer generation believed kids were obstacles to their own fulfillment, and their fulfillment involved golf and wine.
- They were hippies who turned hard away from that culture, keeping the self-focused part but losing all the spirituality and becoming very selfish people.
- Regarding his own parents, Tim says the main thing is they probably shouldn't have been parents.
- His parents have let him know that a lot of what happened was his fault — which he now recognizes as horrific.
- Tim believes he's funny because he went through so much pain, and that humor definitely comes from pain.
- 6 min
Jessica and Tim discuss overly clever "comedy for people who went to Vassar" comics, then play and dissect Jerry Seinfeld's unusually honest, cynical Clio Awards acceptance speech about loving advertising and lying.
11moments
- Tim has never laughed at Seinfeld despite calling him a great writer and technically brilliant comic.
- The one time Tim really laughed at Seinfeld was during his Clio Awards speech, which felt unusually real.
- Seinfeld opens the speech: 'I am excited to win this—this is the award they give you when they don't think you can actually win one.'
- Seinfeld explains his love of advertising: 'I love advertising because I love lying.'
- The happiness is in the gap between seeing the commercial and owning the product, before discovering it stinks.
- Seinfeld on duping innocent people: 'Spending your life trying to dupe innocent people out of hard-won earnings to buy useless low-quality misrepresented items is an excellent use of your energy.'
- Materialism gets unfairly criticized; the problem is not buying the right things, not having too much money.
- In 1991, the Clio Awards screwed up and left trophies lying around, so ad executives climbed on stage and grabbed them.
- Seinfeld: 'I got this. I didn't really win it but I got it.' Tomorrow he won't know where it is; eventually someone will sell or throw it out.
- The award represents the same happiness those executives felt in 1991 when they ran onstage and grabbed trophies that weren't theirs.
- Tim's conclusion: this speech is real, dark, and unlike Seinfeld's usual safe material—it's a different thing for him.
- 4 min
They discuss how comics have become balkanized by identity, Jessica's experience with homophobia on the road versus in Long Island, and the claim that Tim is arguably the biggest openly gay male stand-up comic ever.
6moments
- Tim argues the comedy community is now divided by identity rather than united by the shared identity of being a comic.
- Comics have started going at each other, which Tim says never happened during his entire career.
- Tim claims he could hate someone's act and want them to die, but still believes they have the right to say it.
- Tim encounters homophobia on the road, particularly from religious audiences, though it's decreased significantly since he started.
- There's never been a big gay male stand-up comic before Tim, making him by far the biggest in history.
- Mario Cantone is an actor rather than a stand-up comedian, so Tim doesn't count him in the same category.
- 3 min
The New Queer: Straight Men Identifying as Queer
#Tim reads a confusing tweet from a man married to a woman who now identifies as queer, and he and Jessica riff on their bafflement, joking about the percentage of the country being mentally ill.
8moments
- Tim says there aren't that many famous lesbian comics, contradicting the claim that lesbians have had huge ones.
- He's never needed to see someone like himself on stage to care about comedy or feel that pursuing it was possible.
- A different generation of gay people exists now who have sex with the opposite sex, making gay identity a bigger tent.
- Being gay used to require actually being gay, but now it's "a big tent and a lot of the people that are in it are married and heterosexual."
- Tim reads a tweet from a man married to a woman claiming he's started identifying as queer over four months.
- The tweet claims he's attracted to a wide range of women but not men at all, yet doesn't know how to identify himself.
- Tim observes this is the success of the gay movement—straight people now want to be part of it.
- He estimates mental illness now affects 98 and a half percent of the country.
gay identity and sexualitymental illnessrepresentation in comedy
- 4 min
Tim describes a comedy club that felt like a mental institution, riffs on endless TikTok scrolling through unwell people, and segues into a Keeps hair loss ad.
6moments
- Tim describes a comedy club that looked like the game room in a mental institution, with audience members rocking back and forth, talking to themselves, flicking their fingers, and one person wearing a helmet.
- He says he constantly feels like he's on a sheet of acid—a heroic dose.
- Internet-driven mental illness: Tim's mother, a therapist, told him the internet has ruined people's lives and it keeps getting worse.
- Tim describes scrolling through TikTok and encountering one mentally ill person after another, all completely out of control.
- There's a lot of neurodivergence now, and it's becoming a brand in a weird way—people struggling with mental illness are being made fun of on the platform.
- A specific example: someone who is 700 pounds, in a tight t-shirt and boxers with one sock on, singing—has 786,000 shares and is being made fun of everywhere.
- 1 min
Tim reads the ExpressVPN sponsor copy about accessing other countries' Netflix libraries and streaming without buffering, briefly discussing his own VPN use.
3moments
- Tim uses ExpressVPN to binge Netflix from other countries, like Korean drama off South Korea's Netflix.
- ExpressVPN is ridiculously fast with no buffering or lag, and streams in HD without problems.
- Tim always has the VPN on when doing things for the show or logging into things because it makes no sense not to use one anymore.
- 5 min
The Pro-Fat Movement and Nikocado Avocado's Stabbing Video
#Tim discusses the fat activism movement, his own past health problems from being overweight, fat professionals in his life, and the disturbing mukbang phenomenon, including Nikocado Avocado's video where screams of a stabbing victim are audible in the background.
8moments
- Tim on fat activism pivoting from victimization to celebration of obesity.
- He describes needing intervention at 330 pounds, rashes and all, rather than celebration.
- Tim's fat professionals are constantly distracted by food and eating.
- He routes his entire tour around steakhouse openings so his fat agent can eat.
- The mukbang phenomenon: people watching others eat for hours online.
- Playing the clip: screams audible in background as he continues eating and narrating food.
- Tim: millions watching this type of content represents something the internet has unlocked that's terrible.
- Nikocado eats for hours in his videos, goes crazy, and is extremely popular.
fat activismmukbangsNick Avocado
- 3 min
Jessica describes more of Nikocado Avocado's content (Rascal scooter Target skits, cooking videos with his boyfriend) and they discuss the difficulty of raising kids amid disturbing internet content and easy access to porn.
7moments
- Nikocado Avocado's content: filming himself eating fast food late at night while telling anecdotes with his boyfriend, cooking recipes on ramen, doing skits on a Rascal scooter at Target.
- Tim on why people watch destructive content: humans are voyeuristic and addictive, getting hooked the same way they do watching news and war coverage.
- The problem isn't going to improve—creators like this are being enabled and supported to do increasingly horrible things.
- Guest discusses how hard it is to raise kids in a world with social media, bullying, and impossible content to monitor.
- Tim compares sexual escalation: when he was growing up, second base meant touching a girl's breasts; now kids go straight to anal.
- The one good thing about the internet—you can press a button and get a burrito delivered—is overshadowed by dark web pedophilia and worse.
- Roseanne told a stand-up comedian at the Comedy Store something brilliant: it's very hard to be funny now when there's no such thing as truth.
- 9 min
The Metaverse, NFTs, and Sexual Assault in Virtual Reality
#Tim plays Zuckerberg's Metaverse demo and a Heineken virtual beer promo, riffing on fake tomato sauce, buying digital real estate via NFTs, and reads USA Today stories about sexual harassment and alleged virtual rape in the metaverse.
10moments
- Truth is subjective now, people create their own reality, especially online, and the metaverse will deepen that immersion.
- Zuckerberg's metaverse attempts so far have been pathetic and laughed at, but it will eventually become a thing like everything else.
- In the metaverse you have an avatar, recreate your physical home virtually, and exist in digital landscapes with meaningful relationships online instead of real life.
- This is the future they want—floating in space with robots, a complete digital escape where people buy things and consume through NFTs and crypto.
- People already buy real estate in the metaverse and then stay there while companies sell them things, with Walmart now demoing virtual shopping with real-world delivery.
- Heineken sponsored a metaverse beer campaign and released Heineken Silver, a virtual beer brewed with pixels instead of yeast, which was a complete failure.
- Tim sees it as a conspiracy—the metaverse lets you be a 400-pound person with any avatar you want, and companies want you there to sell you stuff.
- Instead of fixing the fentanyl epidemic, violence, environmental decay, and healthcare, they're preparing an escape where people live fantasy lives in the metaverse.
- Sexual assault is already happening in the metaverse—women have reported virtual rape and harassment within minutes of joining platforms like Horizon Worlds.
- Everything will eventually be an NFT you pay for—jokes, digital property, art—and the metaverse is heading rapidly toward making this the new economy.
metaverseMark ZuckerbergHeinekenEddie PepitoneRay KumpJoe Rogan
- 3 min
Tim reads the ShipStation sponsor copy about managing online orders, discounted shipping rates, and the offer code for a free trial.
5moments
- Tim discusses how humans becoming AI and getting chips in their heads to enter the metaverse is inevitable but scary.
- His biggest concern about the metaverse is whether comedy club lineups will be diverse there.
- Tim claims he doesn't get freaked out by technological advancement because he's realistic and knows it's all coming anyway.
- At Art Basel in Miami, vendors explained that kids will want digital items for clout instead of physical luxury goods like Prada sunglasses or Porsches.
- ShipStation ad: software that consolidates all online orders from multiple platforms into one interface for easier management and shipping.
ShipStationmetaverseBaselMiamiDarren Covett
- 2 min
Tim reads the Babbel language-learning sponsor copy, joking about only knowing English and wanting to learn Russian to "straighten it all out."
3moments
- Tim only learned to pronounce food words in high school Italian, like gelato for ice cream.
- Tim admits he's embarrassed that he only knows English while most kids in other countries are bilingual.
- Tim is learning Russian and plans to go over there and straighten it all out once he does.
- 4 min
Tim recalls never performing for major politicians but mentions Nassau County corruption involving Ed Mangano, then discusses hating LA, preferring wealthy crowds like Beverly Hills and the Hamptons for work but disliking rich comedy club audiences generally, preferring working-class crowds elsewhere.
8moments
- Ed Mangano, Nassau County executive indicted for bribes, received free deli platters and his wife got a $300,000 job as a food tester.
- Tim says he loves working people and spends time in Beverly Hills and the Hamptons because he likes working there.
- Rich people shouldn't be allowed in comedy clubs—they're entitled, horrible crowds with nothing to relate to.
- Working-class people are the best audiences because they need to come out and they're dying to laugh.
- Small towns without much entertainment have comedy clubs where people are grateful and desperate for laughter.
- The biggest comedians in the world hate following Tim because he's one of the biggest powerhouses on stage.
- Tim used to perform ten minutes in churches in Queens for crackheads while Jessica headlined.
- He destroyed any chance at decent relationships by sacrificing everything for comedy.
- 1 min
Tim and Jessica exchange flattery about each other's comedy careers, and Tim jokes about having trained Joe Rogan in fitness before dropping him over his sugar habit.
3moments
- Tim praises Joe Rogan's brilliant mind across comedy, fitness, fighting, and MMA.
- Tim claims he trained Joe Rogan at the gym but had to drop him because Joe wasn't serious about nutrition and eats too much sugar.
- Joe Rogan wears a corset and is actually 400 pounds, transforming into Lizzo when he leaves the studio.
- 5 min
Lizzo's Watch Out for the Big Girls and Heart Attack Risk
#Tim reacts to a trailer for Lizzo's dancer competition show "Watch Out for the Big Girls," raising the morbid possibility of a contestant having a heart attack on camera and riffing on eating compulsions among the dancers.
8moments
- Lizzo has a new show called Watch Out for the Big Girls, which sounds negative but is being billed as positive.
- Tim raises the concern that one of the dancers could have a heart attack during the auditions or on the show.
- Discussion of physical risks on the show: someone could have a stroke, split and injure themselves, or experience other medical emergencies.
- Tim wonders if the contestants eat while dancing and whether eating is a compulsive, emotional behavior they can't control.
- Tim describes the show as emblematic of cultural decline, with celebration of obesity paralleling how society is beginning to celebrate drug addiction.
- He imagines a hypothetical reality show where proud heroin addicts are celebrated the way overweight people are on current television.
- Tim pictures all the backup dancers collapsing and dying from cardiac arrest during the tour.
- He distinguishes between struggling with food choices personally and wanting others to celebrate or encourage that behavior, arguing people should help each other instead.
LizzoWatch Out for the Big Girls
- 5 min
Tim extends the fat-celebration riff into predicting reality shows celebrating heroin addiction and homelessness, and debates with Jessica whether extreme obesity can really be "healthy."
7moments
- Tim pitches a reality show idea: a homeless celebrity star living in tents.
- Cities offer beds and homes to homeless people, but can't force them to leave the streets if they refuse.
- The culture now celebrates everything, but Tim has never celebrated his own mistakes like cocaine use and staying in the closet.
- Tim explains he doesn't want addiction celebrated because he wants to be an example and help others avoid the same pain.
- Tim won't celebrate obesity because it's not healthy, pointing to his own experience with high blood pressure and physical illness at 500 pounds.
- Some people on the internet claim you can be 300-500 pounds with no negative health effects, which Tim calls dangerous delusion.
- Tim argues people stuck in false beliefs can't be convinced otherwise and there's no point trying.
- 1 min
Tim and Jessica discuss where they might eventually settle, with Tim predicting Florida and joking that everyone will end up holed up at home with guns and family given the state of the world.
2moments
- Tim's eventual plan is to end up on Florida's west coast, where he spends a lot of time already and has family there.
- He predicts everyone will eventually end up in a home with guns, minding their business and protecting their families because the world is falling apart.
- 5 min
Jessica plugs her website, TikTok crowd-work videos, and tour dates; Tim closes by praising her as the gold standard of New York comedy and tells a story about his dermatologist calling about a suspicious spot on his face before signing off.
7moments
- Jessica directs fans to jessicakerson.com for tour dates and her daily crowd work TikTok videos.
- Tim calls Jessica the gold standard of a New York comedian and defends that East Coast comedy is the highest form of the art.
- Tim tells Jessica she should be selling out stadiums and that it's just a matter of time before people figure it out.
- Tim claims his real problem on stage is being too attractive, which actually prevents him from getting laughs.
- A dermatologist from Orange County called Tim unprompted after seeing his Instagram to warn him something on his face needs a biopsy.
- Tim got a prescription called into a Ralph's in the ghetto and applied whatever it was to his face that same night.
- His friend always tries to save him money by calling in prescriptions to terrible places, which Tim suspects is actually an attempt to get him killed.