Patton Oswalt

Submission 30,152

About

Patton Oswalt is an American comedian, writer and actor known for his role as Spence Olchin in the TV sitcom series The King of Queens as well as his stand-up commentaries on a range of topics including pop culture, religion and American excess.

Online History

Oswalt registered for his website domain pattonoswalt.com^[2] in early March 2003, followed by the first series of blog posts about his Comedians of Comedy tour in September 2004. The website is regularly updated with Oswalt's commentaries and announcements for upcoming shows and tour schedule.

Standup Comedy

Several video clips of Patton Oswalt's standup comedy routines have been extensively shared online.^[3] On February 15th, 2007, YouTuber PaullsDeadMissHim uploaded a clip of Oswalt's commentary on a TV commercial for Stella D'oro Breakfast Treats. On July 17th, 2007, Sub Pop Records uploaded a clip of Oswalt's bit on the KFC Famous Bowl via YouTube, where it received more than 1.7 million views in about six years.

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On Twitter

On May 1st, 2010, Oswalt joined Twitter under the handle @pattonoswalt^[5], where he gained nearly 1.25 million followers in three years. The comedian maintains an active presence on the microblogging service and has since incorporated it into his routines in his stand-up comedy performances.

Webby Awards Host

Oswalt has been also involved with The Webby Awards as the two-year consecutive host of the ceremony in 2012 and 2013. In May 2012, Funny Or Die released a promotional comedy sketch video double-starring the comedian as the host of a VHS-era investigative documentary program tracing the origin of FIRST-ing on message boards, as well as the main subject "Donny 'Diamond' Ruiz" who claims to be the first person to comment "FIRST" on the Internet.

Highlights

ETEWAF

On December 27th, 2010, Oswalt's essay “Wake Up, Geek Culture. Time to Die” was published by the Wired.^[11] In the article, Patton brought up several interesting points on the converging path of popular culture and Internet, such as the emerging parallel between the Japanese Otakus and the American nerds and the growing trend of recycling pop culture relics to satiate our appetite for nostalgia, or as he calls it, Etewaf: Everything That Ever Was--Available Forever.

Five Seconds Films

In July 2011, Oswalt appeared in two short comedy sketches for 5 Second Films.

2013 Boston Marathon Bombings

On April 15th, 2013, Oswalt posted a Facebook status update^[8] detailing his initial reaction to the Boston Marathon Bombings that took place earlier that same day. Praising those who ran towards the detonation site to help others and reassuring that the good will always outnumber those who stand in the darkness, Oswalt's message was met by positive responses from his fans and followers on Facebook. Within the first 24 hours of posting, the status update received at least 298,000 likes and 224,000 shares.

The Star Wars Filibuster

In April 2013, Oswalt guest-starred in an episode of the NBC TV sitcom series Parks and Recreation as a filibustering citizen who pitches his multiverse script for the upcoming Star Wars film in a non-stop, nine-minute-long improvised speech. The clip, which was uploaded via YouTube as a sneak preview on April 17th, has received more than 2.3 million views in the first five days.

Two-Part Tweet Prank

On August 17th, 2013, Patton Oswalt posted a series of tweets^[5] seemingly ranting out against anti-conservative agendas, though each message was intentionally cut off mid-sentence to convey conflicting messages, depending on which portion was read first. While Oswalt's tweets prompted little provocations from political conservatives on Twitter, the comedian's prank was positively received by his fans, with each of his tweet picking up anywhere from at least 100 to almost 800 retweets (shown below, three pairs of tweets per row).