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u/Fenway1913 12d ago
I know some younger people who are just now discovering the show think it's totally trashing woke culture and are offended by it . I also know a lot of older Portland residents who consider it a eulogy of the city . All I know , is that it is comedy gold .Ā
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u/Striking_Shock_9130 12d ago
Damn. What a bummer. Because it is comedy gold. It's zeitgeist.Ā
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u/acleverwalrus 9d ago
I try to save the show for when I'm feeling really nostalgic for the 2010s. I had just moved to a city very similar to Portland in vibe and it captures what it felt like to be a teen in a new weird city
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u/frothewin 12d ago
It is. It was the left making fun of itself. You can't really do that anymore.
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u/dinnerthief 9d ago
I think you can and it still happens, some people will be offended but there is still plenty fo self deferential comedy out there
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u/frothewin 9d ago
Do you have an example?
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u/dinnerthief 9d ago
The most recent season of "Beef" is a good example.
Hacks, Always sunny, Search party also all have good pokes at it
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u/Far_Eye6555 8d ago
The episode with Mac literally on the fence about abortion is so so so good lol
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u/frothewin 9d ago
I haven't seen it but that's good to hear. The Curse also had some self-parody in it now that you mention it.
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u/Vivid_Limit5607 8d ago
Hacks was incredible at that. Debra doing a stolen land acknowledgement in Central Park in the finally about killed me. Miss that show
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u/EnvironmentalDog- 8d ago
I see left comedians doing it all the time. Stavros halkias and the rest of the ex cumtown guys, gianmarco soresiā¦
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u/CaffeineLiker 8d ago
Every time I read "you can't do ____ anymore" about something that's under 20 years old, it's always wrong.
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u/Formal_Waltz_5100 8d ago
You can't play the cult classic arena shooter "LawBreakers" created by Cliff Bleszinski on public servers anymore...
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u/blitzkrieg4 12d ago edited 12d ago
Yeah the left killed comedy.
Edit: down votes? Really? You're just proving my point. I was being sarcastic btw.
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u/narrrrrrrr____ 12d ago
lol Tim Heidecker and Fred did a parody of Bill Maher's podcast that riffs on that https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BAC5pYpoLWU
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u/ChefAsstastic 12d ago
And if you've never lived there, it's easy to misunderstand the comedy nuances.
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u/Admirable-Trade-8454 11d ago
I kind of thought it was an outsiders perspective of Portland. to me, the jokes were not meant for me, like "how quirky this city is" but I just live here.
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u/OpiumTea 12d ago
Are you friends with Bill Maher?
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u/Fenway1913 12d ago
I am Bill Maher .
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u/ChickenArise 12d ago
New Rule: don't be Bill Maher, ok
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u/Fenway1913 12d ago
You know deep down, you love Bill Maher .š
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u/Diskordia1 8d ago
I honestly believe this statement has been uttered at some point in time by Bill Maher to Bill Maher while finger gunning his reflection.
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u/AtticWisdom 8d ago
The same way I love the sheen of motor oil over a brownish puddle of piss in an alley...dreamy.
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u/Fenway1913 5d ago
We've always referred to that as "street gravy". ,as in , " hey don't wear sandals there's street gravy ".
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u/ORWanderer91 11d ago
As a former Portland native for 20 plus years I find the show hilarious. I just bought it on fandango to watch the whole series. Have only seen bits and pieces
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u/thriftstoremando 13d ago
Bro took a break from printing Bart Ska-mpson shirts to make a few of these!
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u/LetThemBlardd 13d ago
Heās making jewelry now
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u/TedFrump 13d ago
Do people there actually not like him? They need some LOUD LECTURES
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u/Good-Rest-7538 12d ago
Some don't like him and Carrie because they blame them for all the douchey people that moved to Portland, which ironically was a self fulfilling prophecy. Not sure thats the right euphemism but people saw it and said "that's me" and moved here. So it was kind of more of the same but I would argue those that came were more pretentious and fake. Portland has this Keep Portland Weird vibe/saying but the original weird people were just weird. Now it's this "look at me, I'm keeping Portland weird," kind of vibe.Ā
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u/grounds_ 12d ago
People who blame a TV show with a cult following that was broadcast on IFC for the demographic changes in Portland really are missing the mark. 30+ years of neoliberalism and austerity; 30+ years of declining union membership and power; the stratification of sectors of the economy (like tech) making it totally infeasible to afford to live in places like the Bay Area; the cost of living crisis in general; all capped by the crash in ā09 have so much more to do with people flocking to Portland than some TV with a marginal audience.
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u/glorybetoganj 12d ago
And weāre standing here with our dicks in our hands. Weāre shitting bombs out of our asses. Guess whoās gonna blow up? Our own assholes
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u/Rich-Canary1279 12d ago
Yeah it used to be grimy weird ala punk rockers, strip clubs, junkies of every color. It got more PC weird, around the time of the great invasion of Midwestern proto hipsters in the 2000s.
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u/daddyhonkers 11d ago
Iāve also heard a lot of pretty nasty townie rumors about him being a nasty dude. No way of validating them or anything, but I think most people tend to believe them
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u/hogsucker 9d ago
He is known to be a sex addict who thrives on relationship drama and ruining other people's personal lives
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u/daddyhonkers 9d ago
Pretty much the jist of what Iāve heard. Thereās a rumor about his team paying off a local woman for an abortion when he was married, but seriously who tf knows about that
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u/DryDiscipline2001 7d ago
Thatās ridiculous. Portland was ALREADY that way which is why the show was FUNNY and not just random quirky made up location
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u/Tastybaked420 13d ago
I also wanna know if locals beef with fredš
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u/graybotics 12d ago
I live across the river from portland and frankly portlandia is almost a documentary
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u/FabulousValuable2643 12d ago
I lived in Portland for a year and can confidently confirm, Portlandia is a documentary. Some people I worked with hated the show because of how accurate of a representation it is.
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u/Careful-Wasabi 12d ago
This show started around when I moved to LA from Portland and I would watch when I felt homesick š
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u/Rustmutt 12d ago
I rented an airbnb in Portland and I thought the bins sketch was an exaggeration. Not really.
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u/windmillninja 12d ago
I've known a couple people from Portland who both say the show is incredibly accurate.
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u/schnitzel247 13d ago
I imagine many people who live in Portland dislike the show for any number of reasons. Itās like how many Montanans despise the show Yellowstone. Whether itās because they disagree with how Portland is depicted or theyāre upset with the influx of āoutsidersā who moved to Portland because of the showā¦I can understand whyād theyād be upset!
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u/ghostlymorningdew 12d ago
He had a reputation amongst the service industry folks for being a huge asshole when he was in town filming. Carrie seemed chill tho
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u/Boring_Week_9884 13d ago
I think the people of Portland love him so much they want to āfuck this guyā
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u/idunnorn 12d ago
ppl in Portland dont like the show
"I watched a few episodes. I didnt get it" <-- heard this too many times in Portland
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u/Bigboy1138 12d ago
What about Carrie Brownstein?
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u/Admirable-Trade-8454 11d ago
she came to my store and was really rude to me
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u/theriveryeti 8d ago
Do tell.
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u/Admirable-Trade-8454 5d ago
not a big deal. I didnt know her name, so i asked if she was from that show.
she was like, "uh yeah." With that bit of attitude on it.
Then she ignored me the rest of the time I was waiting on her and talked to her friend.
We all have bad days
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u/MsBenovanStanchiano 12d ago edited 12d ago
I get what happened. These are car drivers who won't fold their mirrors in.
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u/Fenway1913 12d ago
People see different things when they watch the show, Ā some progressive people are deeply offended,I saw a Fox news personality describing someone he thought was super left leaning by saying " are you kidding me ? , they're a Portlandia character " ! Ā ,by which he meant in a very negative sense . Ā I've heard Fred and Carrie both mention that it was never their intention to roast woke culture, and you have to remember the show began in 2011, early in Obama's first term . There was no same sex marriage then and the progressive Lgbtq movement hadn't spread across America anything like today. It was still looked at very much , as a" left coast " thing .Ā
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u/Radicalpartyboy 11d ago
Progressive people offended by Portlandia? Nahh. Source: I was not offended, nor do I know anybody who was.
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u/bengibbardstoothpain 12d ago
This shirt may have been made around this time.
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u/Firm_Equivalent_4597 12d ago
Holy crap that whole article reads like a gossip magazine hit piece. Half the sources quoted are social media comments lmao. Peak cancel culture times, glad it didnāt have any negative effect on his career
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u/bengibbardstoothpain 12d ago
He himself has admitted to having sex addictions, so the behavior absolutely checks out. Did it rise to the level of a crime? No ā he was just a skeezy dude and a horn dog.
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u/Firm_Equivalent_4597 12d ago
To me it sounds like male slut shaming. Heās just sex positive. We should all strive for equally when it comes to empowerment.
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u/dinnerthief 9d ago
Half the comments are essentially slut shaming, like a group of dudes talking about a woman like that would be sickening
She gets around. Dates lots of guys, probably has diseases get yourself checked bro
He may well be an asshole but that part threw me off
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u/The_Metal_Pigeon 10d ago
Damn. Well... That's unfortunate and sad. Dude is funny on the show though.
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u/Common_Chameleon 10d ago
I have mixed feelings on this shirt. I grew up in Portland and I remember when the show aired, I think most people were just excited that there was a show being filmed here, about our city. Some of the bits were hilarious, and some didnāt really land, but it was a fairly accurate representation of the city in the 2010s. In general I have a positive opinion of the show.
Fred Armisen himself though? Everyone Iāve known who has interacted with him says that heās kind of a dick lol
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u/threeye8finger 8d ago
Hit or miss with the show's bits, for sure. Some I still quote, and I regularly sing "The Dream of the 90's" when I hear the 90's referenced.Ā
Fred was a sweetheart to my sister and my wife at an event that they catered at Kevin Bacon's house, so that's the only thing towards his character I have to go off of.
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u/DetailHistorical9532 9d ago
I met him at Clusterfest in Sanfran back in 2019. My R.E.M. Tribute band performed during Adam Scott and Scott Auckerman's set. Fred was so very kind to us.
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8d ago
[removed] ā view removed comment
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u/lavatec 8d ago
This is the first Iāve ever heard anything about Carrie, and Iāve been an SK fan for over 20 years. Where did you hear that?
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u/Wahjahbvious 8d ago
Her rep seemed to take a pretty good hit from the way Janet Weiss was pushed out of the band.
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u/lavatec 8d ago
I think the only people that really know what happened between Corin, Carrie, and Janet are the three of them. Fans take on this weird para social relationship with celebrities who we know nothing about.
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12d ago
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u/Saw-It-Again- 12d ago
Can you elaborate on this?
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u/prochoicesistermish 11d ago
Take it with a grain of salt because itās Scientologist Elizabeth Moss, but his ex wife said something like that his greatest impression was pretending to be a normal person and says that it was awful and traumatic being married to him.
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u/Siddmartha6 11d ago
Was waiting for this comment. I read an article about it and was disturbed and shocked.
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u/Cajones_Cacaphony_RT 10d ago
The church of Scientology basically forces you to get divorced if your spouse doesn't join. That being said, they both seem to be insufferable in their personal lives.
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u/Conscious-Party-8769 10d ago
post-Portlandia years he has been called a top tier egomaniac. i don't think it's anything abnormal with famous comedians, but since he prides himself on being a "down to earth" sorta guy, people are surprised at how high maintenance he is.
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u/tbirdpug 11d ago
This is what I think. He admitted to treating a lot of women pretty badly on, I think it was a Howard Stern interview.Ā
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u/otis_elevators 10d ago
Yeah this show is good but Fred is pretty god damn annoying in every other setting.
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u/fablicful 11d ago
I've been a Portlander for over a decade now. I actually never watched Portlandia until after I moved here. Portlandia IS a documentary lmaoooo. It is sooooo damn accurate lmao
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u/MrJohnnyDangerously 10d ago
I would like to hear from a native Portlandian, because this kind of gatekeeping seems like it's from a transplant from NJ or Ohio.
When I moved to Williamsburg Brooklyn in the late 90s the people that complained the loudest about gentrification and authentic Brooklyn were all recent transplants from somewhere else.
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u/Polytruce 9d ago edited 9d ago
Portland resident here, going on 30 years. This show (and by extension Fred) didn't CAUSE the current problems with Portland, but it certainly drew plenty of people here that then contributed to problems that portland was already struggling with. It wasn't an overnight demographic shift, but a lot of the home grown Portland culture got supplanted by people drawn in from this show, and their ideas of how to fix the problems tend to be doubling down on the policies and habits that got us into this mess.
Portland lost something special right around this time, and it went from an affordable gem with tons of culture, to today where it's incredibly unaffordable, there are no jobs, infrastructure is crumbling, crime is becoming a serious issue, and blight is consuming any area that didn't get severe gentrification in the Portlandia era. It's still got some charm, but by and large is not a very nice place to live if you aren't extremely rich.
I'm sure somebody's gonna be real bothered about what I have to say but it's just the reality. The suburbs and the city have wildly different views on how the city is doing and love to spew hate at one another for slightly disagreeing.
Edit: I found an ancient comment from years ago that better explains how I and a lot of people feel (and the comment was before covid too, so things have only continued to get worse from there), so I'll just leave it here: https://www.reddit.com/r/askportland/s/KSDpGeiRYk
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u/UffDa-4ever 9d ago
Lived through this shift. I miss my little house in Foster Powell and the Portland I had from 2000-2018. But I felt like I could see the writing on the wall and wanted a more affordable place to live where I could raise my kids comfortably and still be blue collar. I love Minneapolis where we settled down and it breaks my heart that Iām starting to see the same thing happen here.
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u/thefinalwipe 9d ago
That same time Denver exploded, Austin exploded. Social media was exploding and more people shared how cool these other places are that are much more affordable than California or Seattle or NYC/Boston.
Iām sure the show definitely put more eye balls on the city but there was host of other things going on as well that contributed to the influx.
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u/Important_Ant2938 8d ago
I move to Portland in 2001 and recall lots of articles about the massive influx of folks at the time. Portlandia didnāt premiere until a decade later. Iām sure a lot of folks moved here after seeing it, but the demographic shift was in full swing well before it was on.
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u/abunchofcows 8d ago
Yep, and the poster youāre replying to is exactly fitting that time frame of moving in as a part of that influx that they then complain about, haha
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u/MrJohnnyDangerously 8d ago
This is what I was curious about. I was part of the 2nd wave gentrification of Williamsburg in the late 90s (yes, I was part of the problem, moved to Manhattan within a year) and for the 20 years the people that griped the most about "I miss real Brooklyn" were all people that had moved there from outside the NY area within the last 5 years.
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u/abunchofcows 6d ago
Haha, yeah I hear ya. I feel like no matter where weāve moved prices have escalated dramatically after moving in, so Iām sure weāre part of the problem just as much
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u/MrJohnnyDangerously 6d ago
I know I was part of the problem. First Brooklyn, then the Lower East Side.
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u/squirrelinthetoilet 8d ago
I too lived in Wburg in the late 90ās and then moved to Portland the year before Portlandia came out. The main effect of Portlandia was making Portland self aware of all its quirks (this happened to Wburg after multiple NYTimes articles about the āhipstersā there and books like The Hipsterās Handbook). About two years after Portlandia came out, the housing market crashes (see The Big Short) and it was very cheap to live there so I donāt think you can blame the show for rising costs.
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u/MrJohnnyDangerously 8d ago
Grand St between Driggs & Roebling
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u/squirrelinthetoilet 8d ago
S1st btw Roebling and Havemeyer. We probably bumped into each other at Larry Lawrence.
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u/MrJohnnyDangerously 8d ago
Damn, we really were neighbors. PlanEat Thai, the Warsaw, Cokeys...
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u/squirrelinthetoilet 8d ago
Indie shows at The Warsaw with old Polish ladies making pirogies at the bar is a core memory.
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u/darthbator 8d ago
I'm from LA. During the pandemic every single person I know who has kids moved to Portland. It was like an organized multi family exodus.
I really don't like it there. It amazingly feels like a phonier place then Los Angeles but the nature around the city is beautiful.
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u/Peteblack1 11d ago
I remember asking my old boss (who lived in Portland for 10 years) what he thought about it. His response was, āIām not offendedā
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u/SnekFarmer 10d ago
I agree, but only because as a drummer this guys standup is completely insufferable.
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9d ago
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u/cepukon 8d ago
What did Fred Armisen do at the strip club?
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8d ago
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u/darthbator 8d ago
It's funny that it was a stripper. Apparently strip clubs are like part of Portland culture? There's tons of them and every time I'm in town someone always pays lip service to "Portland strip club culture". Is that a leftover from the 80's and 90's or like? What's the deal?
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u/greggreggreg1gregg 9d ago
Not from Portland and have never been there. But I think Portlandia is hilarious
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u/Between-usernames 8d ago
So do they mean, "fuck this asshole," or "I want to fuck this dude? " Guessing it's the former.Ā
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u/Frankensteins_Moron5 8d ago
I liked Portlandia before I visited Portland a few months ago. Then I visited Portland, loved it, and still love Portlandia.
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u/PoopFart7 8d ago
this shirt was made by a short lived screamo band named i heard your laugh. made around 2023 I want to say?
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u/thats-gold-jerry 8d ago
I think itās interesting how every relatively interesting city thinks theyāre somehow immune to gentrification. Cities follow a patterns and cycles. And I love Portland, to be clear.
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u/TheVintageCult 11d ago
People in town don't like him esp because he's a weird rude skank who loves the smell of his own farts and the sleater kinney chick just acts like his pick me. The show also doesn't really show the dark side of portland that has always existed. It's fent now but back then it was meth - they just didn't show methy portland.
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u/Icy_Pea9553 10d ago
Why the hell would they show "the dark side of Portland" on a lighthearted sketch show? hahahah, you're acting like a hipster character from the show.
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u/ChefAsstastic 12d ago
Because he's a misogynist.
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u/Firm_Equivalent_4597 12d ago
I see you commented this several times. Is this a bit? Heās obviously a feminist
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u/WoodpeckerGingivitis 13d ago
Shell art is OVER. Fred Armisen is OVER