Thatâs a sure sign the ego gas gone out of control.
BRENDA POWER
2 Johnnies are squealing now, but itâs too late
Ah lads, would you all leave the 2 Johnnies alone? Such a fuss, as they might say themselves, over such a little thing. The comedians/presenters from Tipperary have been suspended, letâs hope briefly, from their RTE 2fm drivetime show, for what? Reading out a few bumper stickers on their podcast (one million listeners a month and counting) that were sent in by other people, thatâs all. Fair enough, they were a little bit sexist (eg, âwomen are like tyres; no good unless theyâre squealingâ), but other people sent them in and they simply read them out.
Itâs all a massive overreaction, theyâre being piled on by the self-righteous Twitter snowflakes, when all they did was pass on some cheeky slogans that other people found amusing (like, âsheâs not a princess, sheâs a slutâ). I mean, if listeners had sent in trans jokes, for example, or racist jokes, or gay jokes or fat jokes, theyâd have read them out too. Of course they would. Have a sense of humour, for Godâs sake.
Well, actually, we all know they would NOT have read out a trans joke, a gay joke, or a black joke. They wouldnât have been dumb enough to repeat Jimmy Carrâs joke about gypsies being exterminated in the Holocaust, even though that was second-hand humour too. In a contrite apology last Thursday, the 2 Johnnies agreed the posts were offensive and should never have been published. âThis is not,â they said, âwho we are nor what we stand for.â (Ah lads, it totally is, go easy on yourselves, sure thatâs why youâve got such a following. Two johnnies? Har har.) âWe aim to do better in the future,â they added. âWe are not perfect and we are learning all the time.â Bless.
Isnât it funny, though, how the very last lesson theyâve learnt, the wisdom that was slowest to dawn on them, the insight that escaped them until after theyâd landed a primetime slot on RTE, was that itâs not OK to make jokes about hurting women? Isnât it interesting that the one gag you can still expect to get away with, even as a presenter on a licence fee-funded national broadcaster, is one about women being sluts? And how is it possible that, after the events of the past two months, the lesson about not making crude jokes which reduce women to the sum of their body parts and their sexual functions was still a work in progress for these grown men?
If Benny Hill emerged from cold storage and started cracking jokes about making a womanâs âcheeks clap and wiggleâ â another of the 2 Johnniesâ quips â we might just excuse him for having dozed through #MeToo, #YesAllWomen, the protests and rallies against anti-women violence, the high-profile murders of women, the Belfast rape trial and the revulsion at the corrosive laddishness exposed in those young sportsmenâs texts. But how did the 2 Johnnies, supposedly the voices of a generation of young, savvy, largely rural millennials, miss all that? Did they really miss all that?
I had a look back through the Twitter feeds of some of those men now defending the 2 Johnnies as victims of a mindless cancellation culture and insisting their stock-in-trade is just banter. Back in January, though, after the death of Ashling Murphy and during the surge of discussion, remorse and raised awareness that followed, they were wringing their hands with the rest of us about what could be done to make women feel safe. I wonder what stopped the 2 Johnnies risking that sort of banter, about sluts, female genitalia and making women squeal, back then?
They may have done us a favour, the 2 Johnnies, by exposing the evanescence of all that ostentatious male hand-wringing, all that self-congratulation about not making women feel uneasy as they walk home or take a bus at night, all that emoting about sharing womenâs pain and fear: all of it undone by a culture, and clearly a broadcasting mindset, that defends as âbanterâ nothing more elevated than sniggering sexual innuendo. Comedy is tragedy plus time and, when the joke is on women, the time is warp speed.
New garda statistics, published last week, showed that most violent attacks on women take place in their homes by present or former partners. Youâll just have to forgive us, all you hilarious men, if weâre less than tickled by jokes about making women squeal.
â˘Few online fads have taken off like Wordle, where players have six chances to guess one five-letter word. There was consternation recently when The New York Times bought the game. It remains free on the newspaperâs website but there is a moral price: the NYT has purged the game of all terms it considers offensive.
The curious thing is that some are proper English words, with historical and etymological origins, and others date back to Shakespearean times. Even stranger, some of the words that survived are downright rude. For example, among the prohibited words are slave, wench, whore, bitch, pussy and lynch, but the genuinely nasty cs gets by, as does fs â zero given, clearly, about that Anglo-Saxon expletive.
Wench is a term of endearment in The Tempest , used by Prospero in addressing his daughter, and comes originally from the 12th-century English word wenchel , meaning child. It has perhaps come to mean a lusty sort of woman, and at least conveys more female agency than the offensive sluts, which the NYT has also banned.
While they denote especially offensive practices, how can slave and lynch be banned? And how is a newspaper to report on the history of racial atrocities in the US, or indeed the plight of modern victims of sex trafficking, without using the word slave? The only saving grace of the NYTâs extremely woke initiative is that, in removing a handful of words, it has made the daily puzzle a fraction easier.
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If thereâs anyone Iâd like to see the mob turn on,its that horrible cunt
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Me. Dinner in Kathmandu kitchen in malahide last night. A sign of my age possibly but a table at 7.30pm is far too late for me at this stage. Not sure if it was the greatest of cuisine. Generic buttery sauces and I have had regular opportunities for introspection on the throne this morning beginning at about 6am. The saving grace is no kids.
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The father in law said to me recently, I love Indian food but it doesnât agree with my stomach. I said sure thatâs part of it.
Send that onto Lauren once she wakes up 
I had a mild Persian type takeaway last night after a couple of pints. I then had a bizarre inception type experience where I dreamt that I had a dream that I had soiled myself. I woke back up into my first dream, thinking , oh thankfully that was only a dream, before realising slowly I was still dreaming (I was still thinking Iâd filled my trousers whilst out and about), before waking properly, and quietly sliding out to the toilet fearful I had actually filled my pyjamas.
Fortunately I hadnât.
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Living, not existing!
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Dessie Farrell
Whereâs @choco when you need him?
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Itâd be something something Galway hurling something
1 million listeners a month? That just canât be true.
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Agreed. Surely not.
Must be based on 250,000 listens per week as opposed to 1m individual listeners
The 2 Johnnies on 2FM was never going to last long
Una Mullally
RTĂâs 2FM faced yet another controversy last week when new recruits The 2 Johnnies â a successful podcast that 2FM brought in to fill a three-hour daytime slot in its programming â was admonished publicly, politically and professionally within and outside RTĂ. A video clip of their podcast recording, featuring the presenters reading out sexist car sticker slogans, also featured a promotion for their 2FM show. The presenters were then taken off air, just three days into their new gig. What a mess. But what did 2FM expect?
The excuse around context is valid in some ways. The presenters werenât themselves inventing sexist slogans. They were repeating existing slogans. But thatâs an excuse, not a justification. The presentersâ defence â that they were reading out slogans listeners had sent in and then labelling them âtoo farâ or âscandalousâ, and that this somehow provides a valid context for laughing, even in faux shock, about equating women to tyres and using the slur of âslutâ â is disingenuous. Itâs not as if they had decided to do some kind of campaign against sexist car stickers (which would be a rather odd and boring endeavour). They were reading them out for the purpose of hand-over-the-mouth âI shouldnât be laughing at thisâ sad edginess, titillation, and to inhabit the kind of flat terrain that plagues Irish talk radio more generally, and presumably also the very tired reason 2FM hitched their wagon to them: the idea that everything can be slotted into two categories, âgasâ or âbanterâ.
Bigger picture
The 2 Johnnies podcast is not to my taste, and thatâs fine. Thereâs no point raging against something popular just because youâre not the audience. Each to their own. But for 2FM, there is a bigger picture being missed. The 2 Johnniesâ brand of banter is already successful. They have their own outlet with their podcast and live shows, and a large fan base.
So the question for 2FM is: what are the pair doing on the station? For me, the âshockâ surrounding the incident is not that this is the flavour and brand of The 2 Johnniesâ humour â which theyâre entitled to have, no matter how silly or offensive anyone whoâs not interested in this finds it â but that they would continue to have their podcast after securing a very high-profile presence on RTĂ. Surely 2FMâs exclusivity to The 2 Johnnies brand would have been a smart prerequisite? Otherwise, a podcast known for basic, low-brow banter is effectively out of the stationâs control, while its content is now simultaneously tied to the station, given that they are also broadcasting under the 2FM brand.
The situation reveals an odd commissioning tactic. Why is it that 2FM didnât look to their own talent, develop their own ideas, nurture something that feels elevated rather than in the gutter, for daytime programming? Why was there no concern, in this age of scrutiny, that this situation was inevitable? In fact, if anything, the likelihood of a controversy emerging was well signposted. The 2 Johnnies began their week on 2FM with a sort of âI canât believe weâve been let in hereâ giddiness.
When their 2FM show was announced, it felt as though even the new RTĂ presenters themselves realised it was a bit of a curveball destined to smack someone in the face. At the time, The 2 Johnnies said, âItâs uncharted waters for us, but we look forward to trying not to crash every day. Weâre going to try stuff, it wonât always run smooth, but you wonât want to miss it.â Not exactly the words of people who were ready for the level of scrutiny and editorial oversight needed for joining RTĂâs ranks.
Dan Healy, the head of 2FM, clearly knew it too. Healy was quoted as saying âwe are chasing a younger audienceâ and âwe have The 2 Johnnies coming, which is really exciting and it sounds a bit odd really, but they are bringing an Irishness to the stationâ. What a strange thing to say. First of all, the idea that the head of a station would admit to âchasing a younger audienceâ really puts the rudderlessness of 2FM centre stage. Where are the ideas? Where is the strategy? You donât chase audiences that arenât yours, you grow ones that connect with you through producing quality and compelling programming.
Labelling new recruits as âoddâ was ultimately accurate. But it raises the question: if the head of the station already knew this was an incongruous match-up, then why hire them? And then the remark about âIrishnessâ. What does that mean? Iâd love for Healy to explain that. Are other presenters not making Irish radio? Or having Irish conversations? Itâs a bizarre thing to say.
Ultimately, this embarrassing incident is not the fault of The 2 Johnnies. Theyâre doing what theyâre doing. The fault lies with Healy and 2FM management. The broadcaster and DJ Jenny Greene was taken out of this slot to make room for The 2 Johnnies. 2FM recently found itself in another controversy, when they cut loose the popular broadcaster Louise McSharry, who was making excellent programming that was actually of a standard, and growing her audience. What on earth is going on in the upper echelons of the station that theyâre in this phase of ridiculous, avoidable, rolling controversies?
Weâre they planning on continuing the Podder or were they to be exclusive to 2FM
Sounds like theyâre better out of it
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Una should be given the gig
Itâs the â afternoon zoo with Unaâ
Looking for compelling programming on 2fm is a bit odd
Podcast x 2 (One is on Patreon) and the 2fm gig
and right there we have mulallys reason for the entire article. una also being economical with the truth about mcsharry growing her audience
" Louise McSharry, who recently announced her departure from the station, recorded 104,000 listeners on Saturday mornings, with 72,000 tuning in on Sunday mornings.
In last yearâs figures, she had an audience of 113,000 on Saturdays and 97,000 on Sundays."
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