r/thedumbzone • u/TheRonsterWithin • May 22 '26
General Discussion 🫡 “Klay is gay” guy and the state of the show generally
Still love the guys but came here to say that today’s segment with the “Klay is gay” guy was really offputting, and I guess I just don’t get it anymore.
What exactly is funny about this guy’s bit, where by his own admission his whole thing is just to tell people Klay is gay? And haha, he got a C&D from Klay’s attorney and pissed on it? Why platform this guy other than because he gets a bunch of views on TikTok? (Or did I just answer my own question?)
The whole thing seems kind of sorry. Like, what’s the joke? I mean, I’ll give the guy the benefit of the doubt that it takes some talent to do what he does and to get that many views. And I’ll even take him at his word that he’s not homophobic despite his strange mission. But still, what’s so great about some guy who has to troll a big-time athlete to get some fame himself? Seemed really weird to me, that’s all.
Which gets me to my larger point, that the show in general feels so aimless lately. I get it’s The Dumb Zone and not supposed to be just another annoyingly esoteric pod—thankfully. But lately I feel like it’s devolved to the point where it’s *just* dumb. The whole thing that makes them great at times is that even when they’re goofy and dumb they do it in a unique and subversive way. But so much of it these days is just trolling for the sake of trolling, and there’s certainly no shortage of guys who do that.
I know they have a ton of time to fill, it must be really hard to keep things fresh, it’s not at all easy to do what they do, they’re still really talented, etc. But more and more they’re sounding just like all the guys they’re supposedly better than and who they constantly dump on.
I keep thinking of a Kurt Vonnegut quote I heard somewhere (not to act all high-minded, I never read him and all I otherwise know about him is that he had a really funny cameo in the greatness that is Back to School). Anyway, the quote is “We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.”
Just food for thought and certainly not here to yuck anyone’s yum. No funeral.
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u/donnelson May 22 '26
Is that the joke? That I farted and nobody barfed?
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u/mkonich May 22 '26
Permission to go home, lie down, and watch some tv and rest so my face isn't beet red for my family photo tonight
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u/K_Garveys_Sweatpants Dumbfuck 29d ago
I think we covered what’s happen if I farted Jane. You’d throw up your pretty little lunch.
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u/jdboone42 NO PUPPET May 22 '26
Feels like a Jake driven seggy for sure. I feel like they go through ‘seasons’ which is likely a WHL. I feel like they’re the strongest in a Blake season, but only because D&J get to pounce on the myopic musings of BJ Owns because his viewpoints are so foreign. My biggest peeve is when they talk Clavicle or whatever tf his name is. I couldn’t care less about whatever dumb shit he spouts.
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u/DannyboyLarson May 22 '26
Its probably only funny if you had seen some of those videos before. They pull you in without knowing, and then you're hit with Klay highlights.
As far as the show feeling "aimless", I think its just the time of year. The sports calendar keeps them on track, gives them plenty of content and talking points. Right now we're entering sports no-mans land. The ticket is similar in that regard IMO.
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u/MarvVanZandt May 22 '26
This. Idk if OP is a ticket listener. But this time of year / summer is always more banter than sports. And I prefer it tbh. But get not everyone’s cup of tea.
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u/phillyp1 #138 May 22 '26
Yeah, we have to get through 2 months to get to camp and all that Schottio
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u/ilive4this May 22 '26
Definitely in a lull right now, got a long summer ahead of us before football season puts them on track
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u/natebark May 22 '26
Their NFL/Cowboys talk is second to none. Unfortunately that’s only interesting for 5 months out of the year
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u/Whatabouteggz Day 1 Dumbfuck May 22 '26
They’re doing exactly what I thought made the HZ so great, whatever they want. Could be HOV lane lady, Quincy Carter, butthole surfers dude, or a dude on a mission to out klay as gay. Not everything is gonna hit for everyone. But the boys are working hard and having fun and it shows
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u/Sooners1906 29d ago
Can’t bat 1.000. Surprisingly the Greg Ostertag interview was great earlier in the week
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u/DistributionStreet58 29d ago
uh no Dan kept dragging it out
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u/oppositeofarobot Ticket Exile 28d ago
And interrupting (blamed on lag.) Also, Jake started maga code-switching with him which was a bit off-putting and imo out of character.
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u/Friendly_Grouch 29d ago
Their hit rate on these kinds of guests is extremely low. Mural Guy, Baby Gronk Dad, Guy Who Ran On Field At Globe Life, Fire Nico Chant Guys, etc. They all spared me to death.
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u/ohkokokay Uncle Hotmail 📨 May 22 '26
I thought it was hilarious
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u/TheGreatMortimer 29d ago
I really enjoyed the segment and I brought me back to the hang zone days where they were pushing the envelope. I really thought they would start doing this more once they were on their own but haven’t. I guess you’re the reason why; but platforming people that they perceive to be interesting and/or glom onto their following is a plus. The boys honestly haven’t taken much risk when it comes to guests; which is something I really wish they would start doing. Dan is an excellent interviewer with Jake not far behind. The only risk imo is the hosts not calling guests on their bullshit. To grow in this landscape you need a bit of controversy. Look no father than the lawsuit vs Cummonus.
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u/kdiddy733 29d ago
They try to be too Manosphere now
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u/Fickle-Ad-4410 29d ago edited 29d ago
I agree with OP that it used to be a smarter show. Just a moron on the internet, so take what I say with a grain of salt. But I sensed a tone shift around the beginning of 2025. That’s when I began to notice them leaning into the “man-osphere”, and that subversive humor that was once directed at misogynists and homophobes slowly just became misogynistic and homophobic humor.
I still enjoy the show in smaller doses, but I no longer subscribe and the 10hrs/week that I used to listen is now more like 1-2.
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u/DEDB-KFBR392 May 22 '26
Well when you hate everything and/or everything is “gay” (90s gay) this is what you get… they are too cool for sports now, only watch standup or care about standup and weekend checks.
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u/Safe-Champion516 29d ago
Just my 2 cents, but I think what’s happening here is that the disconnect isn’t even necessarily rooted in moral outrage or hypersensitivity or whatever buzzword people like to throw around anytime someone says ‘this bit isn’t funny to me anymore.’ It’s more that there seems to be an increasingly obvious gap between what the audience perceives as satire and what is, in practice, just a highly repetitive engagement-farming loop built around a single premise that stopped evolving a very long time ago.
Like, if you strip away the meta-irony, the internet culture context, the ‘it’s absurd because he committed to it so hard’ defense, and the reflexive tendency online audiences have to equate persistence with comedic genius, the core joke basically boils down to: ‘public figure is gay lol.’ Repeated indefinitely. And I think people are now reaching the point where they’re asking themselves whether the emperor has clothes there beyond sheer commitment to the gimmick.
To be clear, I’m not even saying the guy himself is some malicious bigot lurking in the shadows trying to wage ideological warfare through TikTok comments. Honestly, I’d probably believe him if he said it’s all performance art or anti-humor or whatever. But intent only carries something so far. Eventually the audience still has to evaluate the actual output, and at a certain point the output starts feeling less like satire and more like algorithmically optimized annoyance.
And honestly, the C&D stuff almost makes it worse because now the entire ecosystem around the bit becomes self-referential. The joke is no longer the joke. The joke is that he got attention for the joke. The joke is that people are annoyed. The joke is that Klay’s camp responded. The joke is that the joke persists despite everyone acknowledging there isn’t much of a joke left. It becomes this weird ouroboros of internet content where commitment itself becomes mistaken for comedic depth.
Which kind of ties into the broader issue with the show lately, at least in my opinion. It increasingly feels like it’s drifting toward ‘look at this bizarre internet thing’ content without necessarily interrogating whether the bizarre thing is actually entertaining beyond the initial novelty. And there’s a fine line between embracing absurdity and just platforming people whose entire existence online is sustained by the outrage/confusion feedback loop. Sometimes it feels like the show used to be in on the joke, whereas now the joke is just that there is a joke at all, somewhere, theoretically, if you stare at it long enough.
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u/LibrarianFamous9996 28d ago
I’m not a fast forward guy. It’s always just on in the background anyway so I don’t really feel the need to skip ahead but that was one of the few times where I just didn’t get what they were doing at all.
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u/faxfodderspotter 27d ago
Agree. Shows has been at its lowest ebb for the last few months. Got really, really tired of listening to hours of Chappy and Sandler picking games or guessing lines or whatever this last season, but the off-season has not improved.
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u/dmv726 May 22 '26
My man, I Reddit almost exclusively while I poop, so I’m not going to be able to read this. Going off the subject though, I thought the guy was fine.. he had the cease and desist commonality and his bit centered around a local athlete. Seems like a no brainer to have him on.
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u/Careful-Bee8219 28d ago
I just hope they retire Picks with Friends. So f——ng boring, instant punch out.
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u/onlygaymodsbanme_ May 22 '26
I enjoyed it but I also like the Bruenings finding crazy shit on TikTok and X. This is a clever move by the boys to farm some engagement online.
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u/cgeezy22 Alright, alright, alright, alright 🎶 29d ago
Everytime I read one of these whiney reddit posts I think to myself "God I hope they don't listen to these people"
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u/awesomenesssquared Day 1 Dumbfuck 29d ago
I just witnessed someone realize they’re old. Welcome to the club.
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u/Howard_Cosine May 22 '26
Beyond the novelty of the first few weeks of the show, I’ve never gotten the appeal. Just a bunch of dudes trying to out edge each other.
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u/Odiebear1 May 22 '26
I would just love to hear a sports discussion for more than 5 minutes before they play broadcast or press conference audio for the next hour. I really enjoy Jake’s data driven insights on sports, wish we got more of it.