Question: Why did Keith Chegwin cross the road?
Answer? Probably to avoid several comedians whose gags he has tweeted to his Twitter followers, allegedly passing them off as his own.
Joke theft is currently a hot topic on the comedy circuit; the most recent furore surrounds Keith Chegwin, accused by Ed Byrne and other comedians of repeating their jokes without crediting the true authors.
The one-line comedians are suffering the most. Tim Vine, Gary Delaney and the wonderful Milton Jones all write clever, witty one-liners that are easily lifted. Some of their jokes appear on forums where members have been invited to post ‘their’ best jokes, which, of course, aren’t 'theirs' at all. As a writer/promoter myself, I immediately post a comment crediting the joke back.
There’s nothing much anyone can do about joke stealing, except personally challenge the offender, which of course is what is happening to Keith Chegwin. He’s been canny though; tweeting to his adoring followers that all he wants to do is make people happy but he is being 'bullied'.
Accordingly his followers are now up in arms defending their ‘Cheggers’, and referring to his adversaries as ‘twats’. In truth these ‘twats’ are likely to be many of the comedians who provide much of the material Keith Chegwin’s followers enjoy reading in his tweets.
Chegwin’s followers are telling Chegwin to ‘block them’ – but in truth wouldn’t that be biting the hand that feeds them?
If Keith Chegwin wishes to avoid being ‘bullied’ perhaps he should study the Twitter etiquette that dictates you should re-tweet a hilarious comment, rather than cutting and pasting it and passing it off as your own.
Then his claims to want to “make people happy” might just carry a bit more weight.
©Jan Jack 2010
22 July 2010
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