Josh Ostrovsky: ‘The internet is like a giant weird orgy’
Instagram superstar, comic, rapper ... and plagiarist, too? Meet Josh Ostrovsky, aka the Fat Jew
Jon Ronson
Saturday 7 November 2015
The internet sensation and now memoirist Josh Ostrovsky, aka the Fat Jew, is 15 minutes late to meet me, which is annoying because he’s actually chatting with a friend right outside this coffee shop window. He’s wearing a hoodie, novelty sunglasses and a gold necklace that reads “Life” in Hebrew. He’s a big man with a shaggy afro which, when he spends time on it, can be manipulated into a kind of unicorn’s horn. Today it’s not a horn. People recognise him. Passersby look impressed. We’re in an area of Brooklyn called Dumbo, and I’m sitting inside the cafe with two of his publicists, who insist on being present throughout the interview. It is all weirdly corporate, given that Ostrovsky’s an Instagram comedian; but last March, Time magazine named him one of the “30 most influential people on the internet”.
