Debate has been raging on the internet over the authenticity of Karl Pilkington, the Ricky Gervais Show co-host whose idiotic ramblings are fodder for the scorn of Gervais and Steven Merchant.
Matt (aka Sasquatch) over at ASpecialThing breaks it down, and quite reasonably, I think:
No one’s saying he’s completely oblivious to the fact that people find his idiotic ramblings funny — obviously he’s smart enough to know that if the way he’s acting and talking makes a world-famous comedian laugh and want to keep talking to him, then he should keep it up. That’s not even smarts, that’s human nature: when you crave attention (as every human does to some degree) and a certain behavior results in you getting attention, you will keep up that behavior and even amplify it (kids and bad comics do this all the time, which is why they’re annoying).
Does he really believe every bit of Monkey News? No. But he believes some of it, and believed a lot of it at some point I bet — now it’s a segment they have to fill, and he understands his role is to read the stuff as if he thinks it’s real. Is that “doing a character?” If it is, then every person is doing a character at some point in his life, whenever he has to tell a white lie to spare someone’s feelings or pretend to be excited by a project at work that is, in fact, total crap. That said, some people are inconceivably gullible and believe everything they read until someone points out the inconsistencies. I think Karl could be one of those people. Above all, he WANTS to believe stupid urban myths and conspiracy theories.
Bottom line: he is self-aware and understands his place on the show, so he gives Gervais, Merchant and the audience what he knows they all want, even if it’s an exaggeration of his personality. Even if it means taking the abuse he’s given for his views without complaint.
Character or not, Pilkington is a hoot, and the Ricky Gervais Show is very, very funny.