Josh Ostrovsky is 30 and, like most his age, kinda gets the internet but, even better, actually knows how to play it. He has more then 5.6 million followers on his Instagram account, @TheFatJew and is about to launch into the most random entertainment career. For example, in July, this dude signed a modelling contract with One Management Agency. Grrrr:

He recently launched the wine brand White Girl Rosé and will publish his first book, Money Pizza Respect later this year.

But who the hell is this dude and what does he do that deserves such a massive following?

After his new found fame saw him signing deals and stacking up on them dollar bills, most out there think he’s just a dick. Maura Quint took to Facebook and Twitter in an effort to squish the number of his followers:

For those of you who don’t know, this guy, The Fat Jew is someone whose entire career is simply stealing jokes from tumblr, twitter, etc. He is making a living off of the hard work of other people. The people he steals from are struggling writers, comedians, etc. They would love to be able to profit from THEIR OWN WORK, but can’t because this complete waste of a person is monetizing their words before they even have a chance to.

It’s actually quite ridiculous. All you have to do is Google the words that he tweets/posts and you will be sure to find the original post. Check this out:

TheDailyBeast explains it best:

And here’s the part where we pause to say, so what, what’s the big deal with stealing silly memes and jokes online? Very many people online don’t seem to care, including the millions who delight in the feed of accounts like Ostrovsky’s, who divest jokes of authorship, effectively replacing the admirable act of creation with one of mere aggregation. To make matters worse, the majority of the jokes he posts screenshots of, dutifully cropping out the original user’s name to obscure its origins, are, in fact, hacky, lowest common denominator “reliability” premises: I love pizza and alcohol and so on. But no one, as the old saying goes, ever went broke underestimating the taste of the general public. That’s in large part why he’s been so successful.

So what’s the point? As the dozens of fawning profiles of Ostrovsky over the past couple years have pointed out, including a recent one in the Financial Times and one last September in The New York Times, there is considerable celebrity, not to mention financial reward, to be gained by building a career off of plagiarism. As the FT writes, an Instagram user like Ostrovsky can command thousands of dollars for the mere mention of a corporate brand in a post, and easily make several hundred thousand dollars doing so over the course of a year. Buzzfeed reported on the phenomenon of so-called parody accounts, another scattering hive of joke plagiarism, raking in big money as well last year. The jokes themselves might not be what you’d call gold, but that doesn’t mean you can’t spin them into it.

Neither of those profiles, incidentally, use the words “plagiarism” or “theft,” which, in large part, is what has irked so much of the online comedy community about Ostrovksy’s success. Yes, of course, there is a certain amount of jealousy at play, but it’s not hard to see why so many aspiring comedians, or those who went about building a career the hard way, would see a man rising to fame and riches off the back of other people’s work as a slap in the face. What’s the point of toiling away every day trying to carve out your own career when someone taking every shortcut imaginable is rocketing to the top? And what’s worse, others who may not be as scrupulous look at the example set by the likes of the Fat Jew and have erected a wholesale joke-laundering apparatus on Twitter and Instagram in order to make their own quick buck off the sponsorship opportunities.

Personally, I think he is a genius – he might be stealing others’ work, but it’s his persona at the end of the day that makes him such a success. It’s that whole idea of establishing his personal brand which to some is either completely obnoxious, or beautifully intoxicating.

[source: thedailybeast and gawker]