GORDON LIGHTFOOT | Culture
OOH JOHN OLIVER
In classic style, New Zealand’s media has latched on to the fact that American late night host John Oliver has noticed New Zealand again.
22 year old Stuff intern Jaime Wallace was energised about Oliver inserting himself into the ‘Bird of the Year’ contest, (this year called ‘Bird of the Century’) getting behind some species of bird he picked at random.
“He’s launching a whole campaign for the pūteketeke! Crazy! Looks like Bird of the Century is going global!” she said without any sense of irony.
Even with John Oliver appearing in a fully feathered bird costume on some other host’s show, it appears Jaime and the rest of the New Zealand media haven’t noticed we’re being laughed at.
As the old saying goes in New Zealand journalism, “there’s nothing better than an overseas news story with a New Zealand angle”.
And now the conservation group RealNZ has taken the joke to humiliating new lengths, paying for billboards for their bird because they thought that Oliver was doing something like election interference.
Time will tell whether someone realises that John Oliver is not a lovely guy who loves New Zealand, he is in fact a bit of a prick who thinks we’re a joke.
More to come.
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