The comedy pimple known as The Fat Jew may have finally popped this weekend.

The Fat Jew has been stealing jokes, and getting paid to do it, for years. Everyone in comedy knew it. This weekend, people finally noticed.

UPDATE 8/17/15: Since the publication of this article, the backlash against the Fat Jew has continued to swell on Twitter. More importantly, Ostrovsky has now lost his pilot development deal with Comedy Central, according to Splitsider, after comedians blasted the network for working with him. We will continue to update this if he speaks out or more corporate partners move away.

If you're a casual consumer of jokes online, you may be aware of a character by the name of @FATJEW (on Twitter) or TheFatJewish (on Instagram). He (real name Josh Ostrovsky) steals jokes. This is not an accusation. It is a statement of fact, like saying water is wet or diamonds are hard. He does not make jokes. No one ever says, "The Fat Jew steals a lot of jokes, but he does write some good ones, too." He only steals jokes. Like this one, which he got called out on:

This is from an article about Fat Jew and another joke-stealer Fuck Jerry, but we're not talking about him today, because honestly, fuck that guy. (via A.V. Club)

At his absolute best, Fat Jew reposts other people's content with attribution. (Something he only started doing regularly after criticism of him—like with the above post—went public.) Understand that when he does this, only a miniscule, possibly non-existent fraction of the people who see his post will remember the name in the photo, let alone visit the actual content creator's profile. He started adding the attributions only after previous rounds of being called out by comedians, as well as outlets like the A.V. Club, Street Carnage, Playboy, and the Washington Post.

Did you find the attribution yet? Notice how artfully the original writer's profile picture and Twitter handle have been cropped out of the actual image. That's pro. 
(via thefatjewish, but really via @midgetspar)

This would be less infuriating if he was not being paid thousands of dollars (and getting signed to CAA, getting a modeling contract, and signing a book deal) for each of the few actual original posts he makes. That's right, he occasionally does something himself, like this piece of genius:

 

In honor of my love for carbs, I had a custom @BurgerKing chicken fry belly ring made and then got my navel pierced so that I could wear it. SPRING BREAK!!!!! #burgerkingpaidmetodothis #chickenfries #springbreak2015

A photo posted by thefatjewish (@thefatjewish) on Mar 24, 2015 at 2:00pm PDT

Even though he's been slapped on the wrist once or twice (like that time he was briefly booted off Instagram until he chained himself outside their offices and literally annoyed his way back in), it's also brought him a lot of fame and attention.

When he's caught out, Fat Jew will respond with "sorry, it was on another site," or "sorry, my interns did it" because this guy is so busy not making his own jokes that he now has interns to do it for him (never does he say "I have informed my interns that this is a bad thing"). Most of all, he and his defenders refer to him (and his ilk) as an "aggregator" like the Huffington Post, which ignores the fact that even the Huffington Post has to credit its writers. Unrelated, but just as damning, he is also friends with Justin Bieber.

 

Justin Bieber (@justinbieber, EVER HEARD OF HIM) called me and asked me to make a video for his Instagram to promote his new song called "What do you mean?" so I got on the hood of a convertible soaking wet and writhed around like a hot chick in an '80's music video. Also, now that he posted it, my social media comments are filled with 14 year old Brazilian Beliebers saying weird things to me, WHICH IS ALL I'VE EVER WANTED

A photo posted by thefatjewish (@thefatjewish) on Aug 7, 2015 at 11:24am PDT

This weekend, however, comedian and Someecards contributor Maura Quint (@behindyourback) finally called him out in a way that gained traction.

She also created a spreadsheet with hundreds of Twitter accounts of comedians whom you'd be better off following than thefatjewish. Some, but not all, of these are also accounts that have been pilfered to drive Fat Jew's success. This is perhaps the only time I've ever heard of a Google Doc going viral. 

Since then, Patton Oswalt has joined the fray, Fat Jew's Wikipedia page has been edited to reflect his plagiarism troubles, and publications like The Hollywood Reporter have amended articles to include recent problems like his stealing of Davon Magwood's lion joke.

Even graphic novelist and sci-fi legend Neil Gaiman answered the call.

I just imagined The Fat Jew telling everyone on Battlestar Galactica he was a Cylon just to look cool. That's a nerd joke, and not worth aggregating. (via Starcasm)

Will this finally be the nail in Fat Jew's coffin, or will brands continue to flock to him so they can reach the hordes of undiscerning fans who don't care that they're eating rehashed jokes from struggling, unpaid writers? That part is up to YOU, dear reader! If you follow the Fat Jew, consider un-doing that and following all the great people on Maura's spreadsheet.