- Come one, come all and
welcome back to Jarvis Johnson! (gentle chimes)
GOLD. (man cheers)
It's the premium channel, that is free, it is free but
only the most premium of viewer finds their way here, so
welcome, your premium. So Ellen has been in the news
lately due to a lot of stories coming out about workplace
misconduct from her and her staff, all that
being counter to her sunny disposition that she puts on screen. These allegations ranged from
sexual harassment of employees from one of the producers to the fact that lower level employees couldn't look Ellen in the
eyes, which is weirdly specific, I don't know why anybody
would lie about that. But while there was speculation
about whether or not Ellen would even return for the
18th season of her show, especially after the
end of her last season, which was in quarantine obviously, and Ellen's producer was hanging out outside of her house like a serial killer, but fear not Ellen's back, baby. And she's got some things to address because there are some
very serious allegations that have been levied
against her organization of which she's the boss and the name. It is "The Ellen Show" after all. I know it was a long shot, but
I was hoping that Eric Andre would be replacing Ellen, a man can dream. Will she address all of the
allegations against her? Or will she issue some sort
of Shane Dawson escapology where she glazes over the details and doesn't take
accountability for anything, despite the fact that that's
what she says she's gonna do? Who's to say, I haven't seen it yet, this is a bit of a live reaction, so except for it's recorded
for you, my premium viewers. - Oh, boy, welcome to season 18 of "The Ellen DeGeneres Show".
- Oh, boy, is right. What a great start, also
what's with all the plants, does she think that plants
will photosynthesize all the controversy away?
(audience claps and cheers) I have to assume that clapping
is entirely the staff, who's like, please don't fire
us (laughs) or just fake. Oh, the like to dislike ratio's fantastic, we got 20,000 likes, 28,000
dislikes, so that's cool. They're also very nonspecific
in the description, "At the start of her new season, Ellen discussed the changes at the show." And it's number nine on
trending and we all know the trending tab has the
best content on YouTube. At least once, one time we
trended and we were the best but I prefer being an
underrated genius with you guys, my little golden babies.
(gentle chimes) - If you're watching because
you love me, thank you, if you're watching because
you don't love me, welcome. (audience laughs) - This was addressed
directly to me, (sighs) I will say that I think
that Ellen has done a lot for the LGBTQ+ community,
especially with her sit-com and telling her story
to the masses at a time where it was very unpopular to do so, I think she deserves a
lot of credit for that. I think she's very talented,
I think she's very funny, I thought her standup special that she put out a few years
back, well, it was quite good. And for a while, I think
I've been a fan of Ellen, to be honest, I was just
letting her do her own thing. Doesn't really matter though because the allegations are pretty serious and they should be taken seriously. But I'm gonna give you
the benefit of the doubt if you've got a good apology, Ellen, if you talked about a plan that you've got to make changes in your organization, maybe, I don't know, address the fact that there are famously
all these Hollywood stories about how awful it is to work for Ellen, I've heard them and I just moved to LA. - How was everybody's summer? Good, yeah? Mine was great.
(audience laughs) - Okay, so the first thing
that's rubbing me the wrong way is that she's joking a
lot up top to, I guess, gain our goodwill and
that's all well and good. But there's very serious stuff
that she needs to address, so I don't know if starting with jokes before she's addressing
that stuff is respectful of the alleged victims of bad things within her organization. If I were someone who was wronged by Ellen and I feel very emotionally hurt, I wouldn't like to see her up top being like, what's up, guys, ha ha, crazy summer, right?
(audience laughs) I just don't know if that's
how I would start things off. I also have to mention this
annoying trend that I noticed when these initial Ellen
allegations were coming out and it was that all these big celebrities were talking about how cool Ellen is and how they've always been
treated well in the show. No shit, we're not talking
about you, Ashton Kutcher, sorry, we're talking about what
must be over 100 employees, at least, in this organization. Course she's nice to the
celebrities that come on her show where there's like a financial
and business incentive for them having a positive
relationship with her and the influence that they have. Obviously she's gonna be nice to them, what we're talking about is the PA that goes and gets her coffee, who allegedly isn't allowed
to look her in the eyes. I worked in enough corporate
environments to see people who are well-liked externally, exhibit really toxic and bad
behavior behind the scenes and harm their employees
across the organization, despite continuing to be
well-liked externally. So it just doesn't hit for me 'cause I know you can
be two faced in that way because you put on a show, you're putting on a show
right now, obviously. So what you are like behind the scenes, it has no bearing on that whatsoever. - I am so happy to be back in the studio, there are a lota things
I wanna talk about. I've been looking forward to addressing it all directly.
- Oh, man, after I heard all the
horrific shit I did allegedly, I was super looking forward
to talking about it. Definitely had to wait
though until my show to say anything, for the ratings. I didn't release a public
statement about this or address it outside of the show because if I address it on the show, more people will watch the
show and I'll make more money. But I can wait, I can wait, I can wait til I could get monetized by apologizing. So (laughs) excited to be here. - And unfortunately,
talking directly to people has been illegal for six months, so I have a virtual audience here instead. - Why does this remind me
of "Neon Genesis Evangelion" with every foreign leader
projected into Gendo's office? Sorry, I'm a nerd, hi. (laughs) Also, and I get to this as a joke, but contact isn't illegal, it's just dangerous and
we need to be mindful, so I think you could've made a joke that didn't punch down to
wearing a mask, you know? I don't know, I don't feel like that joke was punching in the right
direction, maybe it's just me. - All right, let's get to it. - (laughs) Let's jump into my apology. - As you may have heard, this
summer there were allegations of a toxic work environment at our show and then there was an investigation. - An internal investigation. I mean, I've got to imagine that Ellen, who is one of the most
powerful people in Hollywood, had some friends investigating
her, so, alright. - I learned that things happened here that never should have happened,
I take that very seriously. - I learned, so it sounds
like she's already distancing herself from the controversy, like, I had no idea that
this stuff was happening. You can look me in the eyes, that's wild, don't look me in the eyes. - And I wanna say, I am so sorry to the people who were affected. I know that I am in a position
of privilege and power and I realize that with
that comes responsibility. - Yip, Uncle Ben said it best. - And I take responsibility
for what happens at my show. - Can I quickly, I know
this is very random and borderline inappropriate, the fact that all of
Ellen's YouTube videos have ellentube written on them, really annoys the hell out of me, it's 2020, the joke is
dead, (laughs) sorry. - This is "The Ellen DeGeneres Show", I am Ellen DeGeneres.
- Okay, cool, we got that. (laughs) Glad we got that sorted. - My name is there, my name is there. - Now, just fun fact, my
name is Ellen DeGeneres, this is "The Ellen DeGeneres Show" and not only am I rich and
famous but I'm also a narcissist. Look, my name is over there
and over there and over there and actually it's tattooed
inside your eyelids, so when you close your eyes
tonight, it's Ellen Tube time. - My name is on underwear.
(audience laughs) - There's too many jokes without her addressing these
allegations, I'm sorry. - We have had a lot of conversations
over the last few weeks about the show, our workplace and what we want for the future. We have made the necessary
changes and today, we are starting a new chapter.
(audience claps and cheers) - Are these changes documented other than that one producer being fired? 'Cause I have a hard time imagining that in a organization that
allowed for this to happen, was completely ignorant to it
and then finds out about it and is like, oh, well,
let's just stop doing that. We've now turned the page
and we're all different now, all right, enjoy season 18. But this is a thing that
everybody likes to do, you see it in apologies
all over the place, where people are like, I'm
turning over a new chapter. I've had a whole, I guess,
roughly 45 minutes to reflect and to grow as a person
and that was enough for me and now I've changed, just in time, conveniently for our premiere. So don't you guys worry, I
had a few weeks in the summer to become a better person and
solve all of our problems, so you guys have nothing to worry about. - Also articles in the
press and on social media that said that I am not
who I appear to be on TV because I became known
as the be kind lady. I started saying be kind to one another after a young man, named Tyler
Clementi, took his own life after being bullied for being gay. - What's bothering me is
that there's a lot of appeals to emotion to her audience and she's giving all this information that is secondary to the allegations. And what that does is it
endears her audience to her and she's reminding us
of all of her good deeds, to brush under the table the fact that you can still do good
deeds and cause harm to people. There's no question of whether
or not Ellen is the person that she is on TV, she's not,
we're all putting up a facade and it includes real
parts of our personality but it's also a performance. So it seems disingenuous
to me to tell her audience, who are her fans, you guys
know me, you've seen me in this one dimensional view
on a television program, so, you know I'm not
capable of this bad stuff. It's borderline manipulative to me and it's also troubling
to me how she's presenting the be kind lady origin story. For example, there's a joke
in Ellen's stand-up on Netflix where she talks about how it's frustrating to be the kind lady. And I think, it's been a
year since I watched it, but she's driving and she cut somebody off or something like that and
she's like, I can't do that 'cause I'm the be kind lady. And nowhere in that standup special, does she mention why she
became the be kind lady, right, because her goal there
is to make you laugh with that information and it's something that you already know. But here, because her goal
is to be sympathized with, she's including this information that makes her seem like an
even better, kinder person. It doesn't matter, the
good that you've done because if you've harmed people that's what we need you to address. It's not like, don't worry,
you can still like me, I'm a good person, I may
have hurt people over here, it's like, set aside your ego
for a second and apologize to the victims and take
their accusations seriously and spend less time reminding the audience that you're a good person. - Being known as the be kind lady is a tricky position to be in. - Guys, it is so hard to be known by literally everyone on the planet. Ugh, man, (sighs) it's like
when I walk into a place and everyone knows me and they love me 'cause they think of me as this lady, who's really nice and kind, and they wanna be my friend
and they wanna talk to me. It's tricky, I agree that it's tricky but that's not the point here, you don't need to get the
audience on your side, they're already fucking calling in to "The Ellen Show" to be in
the virtual studio audience. There's so much image
massaging happening here, so much image control,
damage control happening, it's like, just talk about the bad stuff. And I'm gonna take it more seriously if you're not joking about it. I just feel like this is a
misuse of humor as a tool and it's not a misuse to
Ellen because it allows her to serve all of her end
goals for this apology, which is to brush everything
aside and say, don't worry, it's still me, I'm the
happy go lucky dancing lady. And that is disingenuous to
me, that's all I can say. - If anybody's thinking
of changing their title or giving yourself a nickname, do not go with the be kind lady. - Okay, so this is the premise
of one of her standup jokes from a few years back, so
now she's doing standup. - The truth is, I am that
person that you see on TV. I am also a lot of other things. - That's true. - Sometimes I get sad, I
get mad, I get anxious, I get frustrated, I get impatient and I am working on all of that. - All true and I think
it is valuable to address that the parasocial
relationship is a facade. The parasocial relationship
being the relationship that I have with the
audience watching this video, is one of you thinking you know me, despite only seeing one side of me and me not knowing who you are. And so Ellen discussing that she's a three dimensional
person here is valid. - I am a work in progress
and I'm especially working on the impatience thing
and it's not going well because it's not happening fast enough, I will tell you that.
(audience laughs) - So much of this is about
empathizing with Ellen still. Remember when she talked about how anxious she was to talk about it? Well, we're halfway through the apology and we haven't really seen
her talk about it yet. It's been a lot of talking about herself and how many times her name
is written in the studio but not much actual addressing
of the specific allegations against her, which is a
telltale sign of a bad apology. Since we started reacting to this video, it's now number eight on trending, so it's working its way up. - I was an actress, I've played
a straight woman in movies, so I'm a pretty good actress,
(audience laughs) but I don't think that I'm that good that I could come out here every day for 17 years and fool you. - I guess the problem is that
the allegations against Ellen aren't that she's lying about who she is, it's that there are many
facets to who she is, which she's already said at
the beginning of this apology. She's talked about how there's more to her than what you see on screen
and here she is saying that this is who I am. And it's like, yeah,
that's technically true but if I go to a coffee shop
and see a barista every day and get a cappuccino and
he's like, look, you come in, you get my cappuccinos
everyday, this is me, you know I'm a good husband. And I'm like, ah, no,
I actually don't know, I know nothing about
Ellen's job as a boss, I know nothing about how
she treats her employees. I only know about her
talking to celebrities and dancing and giving stuff away and humiliating her fans, for some reason. (laughs)
- This is me and my intention is to always
be the best person I can be. - The problem with saying that is that anyone could say that, right, anyone who's done any
bad thing could be like, look, I went out there and I
was the best person I could be. I do slap everybody in the face that I see but my intention's to be the best I can be and that's all I can do. And it's like, well, I don't know, when you're being the best you can be means that you're hurting people, that's when you have to take
action and start to figure out how you can change some of that behavior. And Ellen, I have less sympathy
for than your average person because she has all the
resources in the world to actually solve these problems
and address these problems. I'll just use myself as an example, if the best I can be still harms people then I need to do better, case closed. And I'm not gonna sit here
and give you a sob story about my life because I
could give you a sob story, I could make you feel sorry for me based on the things that I
have experienced in my life and none of that is
relevant if I'm harming you. We are human, we are fallible, we can be capable of bad things
and we will make mistakes but I just don't really see Ellen, who should be taking
the most responsibility given her position, actually
taking that responsibility so much as just doing damage
control about her own image. She's like, don't worry audience, I'm still the Ellen you love 'cause she's taken more issue
with the fact that Ellen isn't who you think she
is than the actual people who were harmed by her
behaviors allegedly. Also, if you've had a show for nearly 20 years and a
toxic workplace environment has developed within it, that's on you. Maybe the person you were 20 years ago is partially responsible for
the toxic workplace environment of today and that just
comes with the territory. Even if you have changed as a person, you have contributed allegedly to an environment that is not great. If it's been 20 years since
I punched a kid in the face, it's not up to me whether
or not that kid forgives me and it is still my fault, 20 years later, that past me created an
environment where I punched a kid in the face and I am sorry
to that hypothetical kid. - And if I've ever let someone down, if I've ever hurt their
feelings, I am so sorry for that. - If I've let you down or
if I've hurt your feelings, no one is like, breaking
news, Ellen, let me down, we need to issue an internal investigation about how Ellen hurt our feelings. (laughs) You know what I mean? That's not what we're talking about here. - I am a boss of 270
people, 270 people who help make this show what it is. 270 people. (claps)
(audience claps) - This applause is for,
see the thing I wonder is does she tell these
people behind closed doors that she's grateful for them
or only in public on her show? 'Cause if these are the
only times that these people are getting praised then
that's a problem, right? Now, I have no reason
to believe that it's not but it's also weirdly performative, I mean, except for all
of these allegations that she still hasn't really addressed. - This has been a horrible summer for people all around the world. People are losing their jobs, people are losing loved
ones to a pandemic, people are losing their homes and lives in raging fires that are going on, there's blatant racial
injustice all around us. I watch the news and I feel
like, where do we even begin? - Where do we begin? You could start with the
270 people you employ whose livelihoods you directly impact, that's probably a good place to start. Was that a rhetorical question? Sorry. I can't help but feel
like there's a little bit of when you're like, there
are so many problems elsewhere that remember the problems
that are associated with me? Oh, they're so small in
comparison to what's going on in the world, so stop looking at me. I said, stop looking at me,
don't make eye contact with me. - I wanna continue to help all the people that we help every day and I am committed to making this the best
season that we have ever had. - What does that even mean? Does that mean she's just
gonna give away a lot of stuff? I feel like it just means she's gonna give away a lot of stuff. Am I cynical? I don't know, we'll see if
she gives away a lot of stuff this season and then we
can come back to this point and we can see where we
landed there. (laughs) Look under your seats, everybody, (laughs) and they're like, ah, what
do you mean under my seat, I'm at home, (laughs)
how did you get in here? Oh my God, and what do you know, it's a brand new 15th anniversary edition of Utada Hikaru's album "First Love". Wow, that's cool, I guess,
thanks Ellen, so generous. It is a rough time right now, that's true, but didn't Ellen also
fire a bunch of her staff and hire freelancers so
that she could do her show in quarantine from her house? Did those people ever get an explanation? Did they ever receive any compensation? How do they feel about this? How do they feel about these claps? Yeah, (claps) 270, it used
to be 290 but you know? - I wanna start this new season by saying hello, to my friend, Twitch. (audience claps and cheers)
- Hey, Ellen. - (laughs) Sorry, that's his name, I thought she was about to
reveal that she was going live on twitch.tv/ellentube. (laughs) (audience claps and cheers)
- Hey, Ellen. - Yeah, okay, so it's been a while since I've watched Ellen's show. He's just sitting at a
table, is that all he does? Normally, there's a band
member or something there but he was just at a bare
table and there's Twitch. We love Twitch, he's just the table guy, maybe he's playing an invisible piano. ♪ Hm, do, do, do, welcome
to The Ellen Show ♪ ♪ I'm Twitch, the man
with the invisible piano ♪ (laughs) Again, I don't
watch this show regularly, is this how she always gets into a chair? (laughs) Just me being relatable. - We actually have been seeing each other and continuing our friendship.
- Yeah. ♪ Table guy ♪ No, he's just at a table, okay. So it's just Ellen's
friend who just hangs out, just sitting there at a table, on a stool, that's not good ergonomically,
Ellen gets a nice chair and Twitch has to sit on a stool. What about his lumbar support? What about Twitch's lumbar? Twitch, buddy, this stool
is not supporting you, which is a metaphor, just kidding, it's probably just that it's
a stool but come on, Twitch. Oh, he's the DJ, he has an iPad, very far away from him it seems, I'm concerned for his comfort. - We did "Game of Games" a month ago.
- Absolutely. - We're friends, you and I, we're friendly towards one another and we played games as
friends do, see I'm human. - You and I have had numerous discussions and for me, I'm just so
excited to be back here in the studio so we
can do what we do best, which is bring laughter, love and fun. - Come on, Twitch, be honest,
did Ellen put you up to this? - I love you so much, I
am so happy to announce that you're not my DJ anymore.
- Right. - You're my table guy! - Right.
- You are now, can we get a drum roll, is that possible? - You're not my DJ anymore,
but, well, this is awkward, Twitch, could you hit the drum roll sound? (drum roll rumbling)
(cymbal crashes) (Twitch laughs)
(audience laughs) - My co-executive producer.
(audience claps and cheers) - Oh, a promotion, that's
pretty cool, (laughs) DJ to executive producer, holy shit, climbing that corporate ladder. Go on with your bad self,
Twitch, we're proud of you, just like I'm proud of
you, my premium viewers. But remember, the job is open because the last guy was
fired for sexual harassment, so nice corporate advancement. - And unfortunately, I
had to take the fake DJ equipment away.
- That's okay. - You got nothing there now. - Oh, that's why he's at a table, this really does clear up a lot for me. - Pretend like you're a DJ.
- Yeah, exactly, a DJ can actually use that now. - Yeah, it was fake anyway.
- Yeah. (upbeat music)
- Hi, I'm Andy. - Oh, that's the end of
the video, that's all? So every issue was talked around and never directly addressed and then it's like, hey, the guy we fired has now been replaced by my DJ, goodbye. So in conclusion, Ellen's apology is bad, but on the bright side, it is humanizing to see that YouTubers aren't the only ones who are using these shitty tactics to apologize to their audience. Rich people are just like us. The one silver lining here, not to be confused with a gold lining because this is Jarvis Johnson! GOLD, but the one silver lining is that the comments
section doesn't seem fooled and also, they left
comments on for some reason. And no one in the comments is
like, this is a great apology, they're all like, oh, you
didn't really address anything. So good luck with the
season, Ellen will be fine, that's how this whole thing works. This'll blow over and she'll
get right back to dancing and learning how to sit
in a chair properly. And maybe, if we're lucky, we'll
see her executive producer, Twitch, get a chair with back support. I hope her alleged behavior
behind the scenes does change but we don't really have much to go on because this public apology wasn't really much of an apology. She did technically say,
I'm sorry, so good job. Thanks to you, my
beautiful premium audience, for hanging out with me today and watching a rich person wipe away their rich person tears with their money. I've been Jarvis, stay gold everybody. (upbeat music) ♪ This time, we're gonna get ♪
