The Chris Gethard Show

"The Chris Gethard Show" is a television show that has aired for 7 years. It began on public access television, and then moved to Fusion Network, and is currently on TruTV. The show is known for allowing viewers/fans to call or video conference (Skype) in to interact and appear on the program.

For more information about the history of the show itself visit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Chris_Gethard_Show

The First Appearance

James appeared on the third episode of the 7th season of the show, entitled "The Official TCGS Dum-Dum". The episode featured special guests Julie Klausner and Jordan Klepper. The theme of the show was a contest in which pre-screened fans could call or Skype in to tell the story of the dumbest thing they'd ever done.

James called in about halfway through the program to tell a story about hooking up with a 30-something German man when he was 14 years old. The story was longer than most other callers, and the audience was rapt with attention waiting for what seemed like a fairly basic story to take a turn. Ultimately James revealed that the man in question was arrested several days after their encounter for having murdered and cannibalized someone, resulting in a lengthy standing ovation.

James took the "crown" and despite numerous other callers sharing their stories, he held onto his lead until the end and won the contest. It's notable that comedian Julie Klausner played a considerable role in insisting James be chosen as the winner, repeatedly stating that although his actual story may not constitute the literal dumbest thing described that night, he deserved to win by default of his amazing story.

The prize for winning was that 288 t-shirts would be printed bearing James' likeness along with the caption "Official TCGS Dum-Dum". These shirts would be sent directly to James along with 288 pre-paid USPS mailing envelopes. James was then completely responsible for choosing how to give out the shirts. It was announced that viewers should submit their own stories with the hashtag #gimmethatdumdumshirt on Instagram, in order for James to pick his favorites and send out a shirt.

The Aftermath

Hundreds upon hundreds of hashtagged stories began pouring in on Instagram immediately, despite the fact that it would be well over a week before the merchandise would arrive to James.

After show producers reiterated that James was completely and totally in control of how the shirts would be distributed, James attempted to use his position to do some good by asking people who wanted a shirt to make a small donation to one of several charities. Unfortunately this did not elicit much of a response, and only two donations were made.

Once the shirts did arrive to him, James attempted to start responding to people on Instagram but discovered that after sending out ten messages to people who were not his friends on the platform, Instagram automatically locked down his ability to send out messages for 24 hours. He switched over to Twitter and with the help of the official Chris Gethard Show twitter account, urged people to get in touch with him there.

He began mailing out t-shirts and had success for awhile until he started receiving the shirts back as undeliverable. He went to the post office where he was told by a postmaster that the prepaid envelopes provided by the show were meant to be used strictly for flat paper documents, and the contents were not to exceed 1/4" of an inch in width. Over the course of the next week nearly 50 shirts came back to him.

Thus James began a stealth operation of dropping the packages off at random public post office drop boxes, thus avoiding the closer scrutiny to their width that would come from dropping them off at an actual retail location. In addition to mailing out over 200 of the shirts, he also attended some high profile events and gave shirts out in person: notably RuPaul's Drag Con NY, and J-1 Con in Philadelphia.

Other Appearances

James made his next appearance on the show in the sixth episode of the season, entitled "Technology Will Destroy Us All". He was seated dead center in the audience. A caller into the episode named Joni was wearing her Dum-Dum shirt, and when she appeared on scree Chris Gethard pointed out that James was in the audience and prompted him to stand for a round of applause. (As a point of interest, one of the thousands of tiny slips of paper that fell from the machines during the episode originated from a tweet from Joni and against all odds landed in James' lap. He sent it to her in the mail.) At the end of the episode, guest John Oliver awarded James a boobie prize of 100 pounds of (fake) rock salt.

James' next appearance on the show was in the 11th episode of the season, entitled "The Mating Game". In this episode, guests were situated in a room beforehand and given a special zip code to enter into their Tinder profiles that would cause them to only see potential mates who were in that room. Anyone who matched was told to stand up, where they would be escorted to the set to have a "first date" on air. James did not match with anyone, and was part of a small group left behind in what was dubbed "The Lonely Hearts Lounge". During the episode, segments cut back to this room frequently where cast member Connor Ratliff was guiding them in silly games. At the end of the episode, Chris Gethard and guest Ellie Kemper rushed into the "Lounge" to declare that everyone there was being given a consolation prize of attending a screening of the film "Bridget Jones' Baby" with the two of them. During this episode James is seen on camera numerous times, laughing, dancing and playing games.

Other Interactions

James joined up with a great number of forums and social media groups to interact with other fans of the show and discuss episodes and other topics. He was welcomed with open arms, and got to meet many fans in person and make friends. He also attended the official meet-ups organized by the show later in 2017, specifically in Philadelphia and San Francisco.

Disappointment and Disassociation

James walked away from his third appearance on the show feeling disgruntled with the experience. He went onto Social Media to express why he was disappointed.

He relayed that the experience of filming "The Mating Game" left him feeling used by the production. He stated that during the pre-gathering where people were matching up on Tinder, people were having difficulty viewing the profiles of others; and that though this was experienced by many, it seemed to disproportionately affect LGBTQIA people. Of the people left in "The Lonely Hearts Lounge", a disproportionate number of them were queer. He was also upset that when these concerns came up and were addressed with the representative from Tinder, she was extremely callous and brushed them off. He said he was literally shown only two potential matches and then simply sat there unable to interact or participate for the remainder of the pre-show gathering.

Chris Gethard responded to this on Facebook. He said that everyone had worked really hard to make the episode work, and that not just gay people were having the technical problem in question. He then pointed out that out of the four couples who were spotlighted in the episode with special activities, two of them were queer, which he was "really proud of."

James countered this by pointing out that those couples were cherry picked by producers who clearly had an agenda to have one M/M and one F/F couple spotlighted. It was said in the episode that the four featured couples were "the first to match up", but in fact this was not the case. He also pointed out that the gay men couple who were featured were unable to actually match via the app, and instead simply decided to "match" in person and stand up.

James said that although he knew Chris' heart was in the right place, it was not good for an ally to be dismissive of a queer person when they say that they felt they were ignored or overlooked. He was disappointed in the way Chris responded.

At this point James chose to completely disassociate from the show. He asked production not to send him any more emails pertaining to the show, and he declined to attend the film screening he had "won". He took the remaining shirts that had not yet been given away and donated them to Philly AIDS Thrift, and he unfollowed and unjoined all social media accounts and groups relating to the show.