How to Communicate Like Jon Stewart
The most effective propagandist of the 21st century
I.
The other day I read something on a blog that made me go like “WOOW, SO TRUE!”. From TLP, Jay-Z Is A Genius:
Our postmodern society thinks it is clever for always looking deeper, for knowing there are always two levels. It "knows" appearances are lies, it knows the real truth is beneath the appearances. It tries to uncover.
We're not as smart as they are. Commercial art, Jay-Z, all of TV, all of the news, reverse the order of the levels. They hide the lie they want to tell you one level deeper, let you dig for it. And when you find it, after all the work, you accept that it must be the truth. "Backstage", "behind the scenes", "the making of", "investigative reporter", "obtained documents", "leaked"-- now we're getting to the truth!
This is related to that most important concept in education: that knowledge is not given by the teacher to the student, but rather the student creates the knowledge. The teacher is merely a guide on the student’s journey to understanding.
But I’m not interested in “teaching”, I want to know how to make effective propaganda. And with that goal mind, let us take millennial blue-tribe hero Jon Stewart as our guide.
Jon Stewart is a crazy good communicator. Anyone who watched TV between, say, 2000 and 2015 knows what I’m talking about. He’s back on his show as of recent, so you can check him out for yourself; his videos get millions of hits in days.
How did “fake” newscaster Jon Stewart become the most trusted newscaster in America? It’s not: his eloquence, his wit, his passion, or his boyish good looks. It’s precisely because he was a “fake” newscaster.
The secret to Jon Stewart’s success is that he’s not a master pundit; he’s a master pundit in a jester outfit. Jon Stewart has two “layers”, and he’s very good at jumping between them and playing up the contrast.
II.
Anyone who’s watched Stewart knows what I’m talking about. If you don’t, watch his shows, or better yet his TV interviews with O’Reilly/Chris Wallace/Larry King, where it’s even more pronounced. Stewart rapidly and masterfully switches between two tones:
funny: Jon Stewart the detached comedian, who cynically laughs at our clown, there to tell jokes not to preach.
earnest: Jon Stewart the eloquent blue-tribe advocate, who’s dead-serious about the important issues and eloquently tells it how it really is.
Laugh for funny-mode, clap for earnest mode. The audience can tell the difference.
Why this works so well: funny-mode provides cover for earnest-mode. Funny-mode disarms you; the image is of someone who knows too much to care, a man who’s become cynical with the bleakness of the world that he can only laugh at it. Then earnest-mode comes in with the gut punch: he does care! He’s not a cynic because he doesn’t care, he’s a cynic because he cares too much!
What’s going on here is the first rule of communication: before getting people to believe what you say, you have to get them to believe that you believe what you say. In other words, you must appear authentic. Back to what TLP said: If you take your sincere beliefs and don yourself with them, everyone will suspect you have some other agenda. What are you trying to sell me? What are you trying to recruit me into? You’re just clout chasing/astroturfing/shock jockeying/etc. The conversation is no longer about what you believe, it’s about whether you believe — why are you really saying that? (postmodernism amirite?).
Stewart’s “outer-level” is funny-mode. His inner level— who he really is — is earnest-mode. If Stewart was just earnest-mode all the time (like most talking heads), he would be seen as a fake (like most talking heads). Because the appearance is always fake. By placing his true convictions beneath his comedic surface, his earnest-mode tangents become authentic.
By playing the jester, Jon Stewart creates a dummy target for our postmodern suspicions. Funny-mode is a helmet-on-a-stick, that he pokes out from behind cover to draw out our postmodern sniper fire, which exposes us for his earnest-mode return-fire.
What’s Jon Stewart’s, the comedian’s, motivation? To get more views. To sell us tickets or subscriptions. To be a successful comedian. The parts where he gets serious, that’s just the human in him screaming out… The comedic pretense of his persona sets up the earnest outbursts to seem off-script, unplanned — i.e, genuine. He felt so strongly, he couldn’t contain himself! Unlike all these other career-pundits, Jon Stewart cares.
(It’s probably important to mention at least once that his two “modes” are more of a spectrum, with purely non-partisan comedy on one end, and total seriousness on the other)
(Also food for thought: have you ever heard Jon Stewart do pure comedy, e.g. stand-up etc.? I had to look it up. Without the contrast of earnest-mode that his pseudo-news show provides, his comedy falls flat.)
III.
Am I being too cynical? It doesn’t matter. Whether this is just natural to Jon Stewart or not isn’t relevant. What’s relevant is that this works, and you better take note if you want to communicate.
If you analyze many other successful contemporary communicators, you’ll notice a similar thing going on. Jordan Peterson has professor-mode/guru-mode. Tucker Carlson has anchor-mode/pundit-mode. Trump has crazy-mode/leader-mode.1 I think Jon Stewart is the best at it and seeing him switch back and forth with such ease is a treat. The tone-pairs are different, but they all have the same goal: get you to believe that they believe. Appear authentic.
And here’s maybe the most important thing I have to say: this isn’t just a sleazeball trick. In our world, this is necessary. Communication is not what you say, it’s the effect of what you say. That’s McLuhan, I think. It means if you truly are authentic about what you believe, then you’d better take heed and wrap the earnest expression of your beliefs with something else. Otherwise, people are going to wonder what you’re selling. Remove all doubt by selling something else.
Trump is worth a whole article. Don’t forget, what everyone loved him for in the beginning was his “authenticity” (“he says it like it is”) before we even knew his political positions. The question which has now been answered a million times: how come Trump doesn’t get in trouble for what would be career ending statements from any other politician? A: he puts the craziness on the outside, and everyone knows appearances are fake. The classic order of well-put together politician on the outside, likely-psychopath on the inside, was reversed. By doing so, he made the rest of those republicans on the debate floor look like a bunch of fakes.
Above everything else, the Trump phenomenon showed us that it’s more important to be authentic than it is to be correct.
Great essay....and this is just the tip of a giant iceberg. A person couldn't make analysis of Jon Stewart's propaganda methods a PhD thesis, or even more considering the mass of amount of material there is to go through.
Actually, if the transcripts are available, it will written ChatGPT prompt could likely surface many thousands of instances of deceit and misinformation for further analysis.
Taking down this whole method (Jon is but one pr3actitioner) within our culture should be high priority, and bi-partisan because it harms everyone ultimately.
Good point about Trump and his authenticity. I've heard many people claim he isn't authentic because he lies so much, but they misunderstand. He's authentic because when you hear him speak he convinces you that you you are getting the real Trump. The real Trump just happens to be crass and a liar, but his followers are so starved for authenticity from politicians that they value that above his obvious moral failings.