‘Am I the Asshole?’ is a live version of the famous Reddit thread – it’s as abysmal as it sounds
One of the most active forums on Reddit is titled “AmItheAsshole”. Around 2.7 million people regularly log on to ask if, in any given situation, they are in the wrong. Currently on the page: “AITA [that’s Am I the Asshole] for not wanting to quit my work position for my husband?” (No). And “AITA for asking my roommate to sleep in the basement?” (Yes).
In the 12 years since it was created, it’s been made into a YouTube channel, a podcast, its posts often go viral and it is endlessly memed – and so, in yet more proof that TV execs have run out of ideas, Comedy Central has turned it into a TV show.
Jimmy Carr seems a perfect choice for host – after all, he knows a thing or two about being called an asshole. In the last few decades he’s been under fire for making jokes about amputees and Holocaust victims, for tax avoidance, and, most recently, for performing at the Riyadh Comedy Festival in Saudi Arabia, and for hosting an Israel Independence Day event amid the assault on Gaza. I’ll leave you to make up your own minds about those.
To his credit, Carr takes the role of judging assholes in his stride, knowing full well the reason he’s sitting behind the desk, and has his name in the show’s title. “At the end of the show we’ll be deciding who is the biggest asshole and before you ask, as host I’ve got immunity,” he quips.
How does Jimmy Carr’s Am I the Asshole work? No one bothers to explain at the top of the first episode, so it’s up to us to figure out what it is we’re actually watching. It would appear to be simply a live version of the Reddit thread (though no mention of it is ever made). A parade of civilians are welcomed into the studio to sit on an uncomfortable-looking bench to find out if they are the asshole.
Joining Carr on a panel of judges are comic Jamali Maddix and rising star GK Barry, who has crowbarred her social media popularity into a TV career, appearing on last year’s I’m a Celeb and becoming a Loose Women regular. They are there only to laugh along with Carr’s jokes and provide dissident opinions on the degree of people’s assholery. It’s as interminably fatuous as it sounds.
Take the first contender Sarah, who wants to know if she is an asshole for telling a bloke after three dates that he was putting on weight. Instead of just saying: “Yes, that is an asshole move”, Carr and the gang go on to fat-shame this poor anonymous man (“did he take it on the double chin?”) before telling Sarah she was right to air her grievances and that she was not, in fact, the asshole. I thought fat jokes were a thing of the past – alas, not on Comedy Central.
The programme continues in this vein of cruel, lazy, early-noughties humour, as they welcome on complainants including someone who tricks “toxic men” into thinking that they’re balding, and a woman who wants to know if she is an asshole for pushing her brother out of his wheelchair. He had been run over as a three-year-old and had spent nine months in hospital having multiple surgeries. Anyone who thinks you “can’t joke about anything these days” should get a load of this.
Worse than the brutality, however, is how utterly dull it is. One woman is there to ask if she’s the asshole because she farts in front of her boyfriend and – prepare yourself – isn’t sorry. An entire section is dedicated to discussing whether a man is an asshole for wanting to split the bill on a date at Nandos – a discussion we were already bored of a decade ago. There’s nothing quite as jarring as hearing Jimmy Carr declaring someone a “feminist”.
Back when it was cool to be “edgy” (read: offensive) Carr was once one of Britain’s most popular (or at least, respected) comedians. Now it would appear his reputation has been dragged so far through the mud that he’ll take money for anything. Am I the asshole for finding this abysmally banal? I can think of one person who might say so.
‘Jimmy Carr’s Am I the Asshole?’ continues next Monday at 9pm on Comedy Central
