Original subtitles

WWW.MY-SUBS.CO

LAST WEEK TONIGHT WITH JOHN OLIVER

Welcome to "Last Week Tonight!"

I'm John Oliver. Thank you so much for joining us.

It has been a busy week, from Trump announcing plans

to ruin your Thanksgiving at least one more time,

to Nancy Pelosi announcing

that she'll step down from her leadership role in the House,

to Paris revealing its Olympic mascots,

which look less like they're advertising a worldwide sporting event

and more like a gynecologist spent too much on marketing.

But we're gonna start with the ongoing chaos at Twitter.

It has now been three weeks since it was taken over by Elon Musk,

a man who answers the question,

"What if Willy Wonka benefitted from apartheid?"

And it is worth going back to the very start of his takeover,

because from day one, it was a total mess.

Elon Musk posted this video of him arriving at Twitter's HQ.

"Let that sink in," he told us.

Two days later, he announced, "Comedy is now legal on Twitter".

Okay, then. Although, if comedy is now legal,

we probably need to reconvene the Comedy Supreme Court

to set a precedent about that particular violation of comedy law right there.

But many of the worst people on Twitter seemed to take Elon's arrival

as a sign that the brakes were now off,

with one analysis finding the use of a racial slur

spiking nearly 500% in the 12 hours after his deal was finalized.

Which is pretty shocking, even for a website

where a regular trending topic is sometimes just "the Jews".

That happens constantly. You'll log in and see 30,000 people

Tweeting about "the Jews" on a Tuesday afternoon,

and you do not want to click to find out why.

Now, Elon initially tried to set expectations low, Tweeting,

"Please note that Twitter will do lots of dumb things in coming months",

something that he then elaborated on like this.

Obviously, the intent is not to do dumb things.

We're not aspirationally dumb. We're aspirationally, not dumb.

Okay, but if you have to say

"we're not dumb" in three slightly different ways in a row,

that doesn't really inspire confidence.

It's like someone going, "I'm sober. I'm not drunk. I'm good to drive."

By the end of those three statements,

I'm not handing you the keys to anything.

Twitter has always been a place where you should be "aspirationally dumb".

Honestly, if it ends up becoming somewhere that you can't Tweet

"The Babadook throat game probably crazy"

and get a quarter million likes,

I don't want anything to do with it anymore.

But whether aspirational or inadvertent,

Musk has indeed done some very dumb things.

Last week, a new program went live

where the site charged $8 a month for blue checkmarks,

a feature that used to verify whether notable people or companies

were actually who they said they were.

So, for instance, when Amtrak posted the actual Tweet, "trains",

you knew an expert was weighing in.

And selling that verification for $8 had predictable results.

I want to show you a few of the fake accounts that have popped up.

A fake account for Nintendo, the video game company,

showed Mario there, their iconic figure,

giving the finger.

We have blurred it because it's offensive, I guess.

Yeah, I guess it is! Mario giving the finger?

Apparently unacceptable. But, 500% increase in racism?

"A-what-a-ya gonna do-a?"

That doesn't count, by the way. That one's allowed. I checked.

But it wasn't just Nintendo.

A fake verified Pepsi account Tweeted, "Coke is better",

a fake American Girl account Tweeted, "Felicity owned slaves",

which kind of makes you wonder

what "Felicity Discovers a Secret" was really about.

And a fake verified Tesla account Tweeted,

"We will be offering 10 000 vehicles to support the Ukrainian military.

Our cars are the most advanced explosive devices on the market."

So, clearly, things are changing on Twitter right now.

The site no longer seems to be adding explanations to trending topics,

a feature that helped add greater context and combated misinformation.

Which is why "RIPJimmyFallon" trended on Tuesday with no further information,

prompting Fallon himself to post, "Elon, can you fix this?"

to which Musk responded, "Fix what?"

which, yeah, stopped clock twice a day, is a very funny response.

But all of this is taking a real toll.

Major advertisers have paused or pulled their advertising revenue,

including "General Mills, GM, United Airlines, and Pfizer".

Which is probably a smart move for them,

considering we're about 5 seconds away from a fake Pfizer account Tweeting,

"The rumors are true, we chipped ya, baby!"

or a fake General Mills account Tweeting out,

"Cheerios are just cock rings for mice!"

As for working inside Twitter, that sounds like an absolute nightmare.

Musk has gotten rid of more than half the staff,

at times seemingly targeting any workers who'd criticized him.

And at one point,

"engineers were asked to print out their recent code contributions",

so that they could be evaluated.

Which is not only not how you traditionally evaluate code,

it's also a security risk,

which is presumably why engineers were then quickly told

to shred their print-outs.

And while some argue there's a method to this madness,

others aren't so sure.

You don't fire half the people that work in a company unless,

you know, you have a plan, Ben.

I think.

Yeah, I mean, I don't know.

This guy signed some paperwork eight months ago

that, it became very clear he didn't really want to sign.

And then later on spent seven months trying to renege on it.

If he has a plan I would like to see it, as it is not a publicly available one.

Right. It sure seems like Elon Musk doesn't have a plan.

He even seems to be crowdsourcing advice,

with desperate Tweets like, "What should Twitter do next?"

That is, when he's not spending his time sharing memes

like this picture of a rock with the text,

"Was magma before it was cool", which he captioned, "This rocks".

This is what he spent $44 billion to do.

To Tweet this rock joke.

I think we might actually need to make comedy illegal again.

And the mass departures at Twitter could cause him real problems,

not only have multiple labor lawsuits already been filed,

Twitter's also been operating under consent decree from the FTC,

requiring special oversight after allegations of user data misuse,

but several key people responsible for that oversight are now gone.

While Elon's online persona throughout all of this has been the "fun troll",

during an appearance at a conference on Monday,

you got the sense that the fun may have worn off for him.

I'm really working the absolute most amount that I can work,

from morning 'til night, seven days a week.

So, this is not something I'd recommend, frankly.

Yeah.

I don't know what else to say.

Holy shit.

That man is, in every possible sense, in a very dark place.

The entire vibe of that video is "Wizard of Oz suicide note".

And look, who knows what's going to happen from here.

Elon certainly doesn't seem to.

He's decimated his staff and degraded his product.

And sure, he could try and sell what's left of Twitter.

Or it could continue functioning worse than before

as his free-for-all digital clown town.

But while the potential collapse of this site has been sad

for the workers and for those who have relied on it,

there is undeniably something a little satisfying

about a guy who was so desperate to be perceived

as cool and funny on the internet

that he paid $44 billion to make it happen,

only to discover that he still somehow couldn't afford it.

Let that one sink in.

And now, this!

And Now:

People on TV Have Some Thoughts on Thanksgiving Foods.

All the sides. Everything else involved in Thanksgiving.

The football, the friends, the family, and everything. Turkey? Nah.

No. I love all the other leftovers. Just not the turkey.

It just smells really bad to me.

Turkey tastes like dirt. Ham tastes like salted dirt.

- I don't like sweet potatoes. - How dare you?

That's a strange thing.

Green bean casserole.

I've heard recently that's a white people thing.

I was gonna say that, but I didn't want to be offensive.

I'm a green bean casserole type myself.

Nobody eats all the green bean casserole when I make it.

I don't like the green beans.

The only thing my kid will eat is the biscuits.

- He hates Thanksgiving food. - Weird.

What is going on at your house?

I try. I make really good green bean casserole, too.

Apparently not.

Moving on. Our main story tonight concerns the World Cup.

It's like the Super Bowl, except the rest of the world gives a fuck.

The World Cup is a big deal,

a country even qualifying for it is a cause for huge celebration.

Just watch this Australian reporter lose his mind

when his nation beat Peru on penalties to make it to the tournament.

We're through! We're through! Yeah!

How good is this?

God! How good is this? Yes!

How are you feeling? What are you feeling?

He's got my scarf! He got me scarf! That's me mum's!

There is nothing not to love about that,

from that reporter holding out his microphone,

to amplify people's joy-shrieking,

to the guy kissing the camera, to someone stealing his scarf,

which, sadly, he never got back.

And the reason I know that is, I have it now.

Sure, it used to be your mum's, but now it's all mine.

The World Cup got underway today.

And we have talked before about the organization behind it, FIFA.

A cartel-like group of scumbags and assorted criminals

who occasionally put on soccer matches.

FIFA has always been terrible. Which is what makes it a little hard

to hear FIFA's current president claim that their event isn't just about sport,

it's a net positive for humanity.

This FIFA World Cup, a tournament of peace and unity,

will be the one that brings the world together after some difficult times.

We should never underestimate the unifying power

that something so unique has.

That is some pretty grandiose talk coming from the star

of "What the Fuck Are Those Eyebrows, Charlie Brown?"

But the truth is a lot more complicated than that.

Which is not to say that I am not excited about the World Cup.

Because I am.

It only happens every four years, and I look forward to it

the way people with leap-year birthdays look forward to leap years:

with an enthusiasm somewhere between "understandable"

and honestly "kind of pathetic".

This World Cup is being hosted, for the very first time,

in the Middle East, by the small nation of Qatar,

which is going all-out to turn it into a major branding event,

even signing a multi-million-dollar agreement with David Beckham

to be an ambassador for the country,

which presumably includes getting him to make more videos like this.

I think everyone knows how much I love food,

and the food culture is very exciting in Qatar.

This is what I love. I love to go to spice markets.

I love to go to fish markets.

I love Murakami.

Everybody knows how much I love a taco.

What I love is also, we are now in this amazing place

using the traditional spices.

I love riding. I love a bike community.

I love being in the middle of nowhere

and talking and eating.

This is perfection for me.

Okay. So, by my count, David Beckham loves the following:

food, food culture, spice markets, fish markets,

Murakami, a taco, bike culture, and, of course,

being in the middle of nowhere, eating and talking.

They really should've just kept taking him places,

to see what they could get him to say he loves for money.

"I love public bathrooms. The aromas, the atmosphere, I just love 'em.

Everyone knows how much I love tombstones and grieving families.

I love proctologist offices. I just love proctologist culture.

This is perfection for me."

The point is, the next month is Qatar's big moment on the world stage.

They're hosting an event expected to attract over a million spectators,

in person, to a country just the size of Connecticut.

But as you may have heard, underneath the fun, pageantry,

and David Beckham doing bad Anthony Bourdain cosplay

is a much darker story,

small signs of which have leaked out this week,

like in this moment from a Danish reporter.

How would you describe working conditions for journalists in Qatar?

I can show you what the situation is like by turning the camera 'round.

We are live on Danish television.

And as you can see, they are stopping us filming.

You invited the whole world to come here.

Why can't we film? It's a public place.

You can break the camera. You want to break the camera?

Okay, you can break the camera.

You are threatening us by smashing the camera.

Just a reminder. He was asked,

"How would you describe working conditions for journalists in Qatar?"

And just seconds later, a bunch of golf cart goons

showed up to answer that question for him.

Although, credit to this guy for being so excited to appear on Danish TV

that he gave the camera a little wave,

before presumably smashing the shit out of it.

But harassing journalists is the tip of the iceberg here,

one that includes a host of human rights violations.

Given all of that, tonight, let's talk about the Qatar World Cup.

And let's start by going back to the moment, back in 2010,

when the winner of the bid to host this tournament

was announced by the former head of FIFA, Sepp Blatter.

The winner to organize

the two-22 FIFA World Cup

is Qatar!

As a general rule, I try not to make fun

of old men who don't speak English as a first language,

but, due to evil, Sepp Blatter is an exception,

and him saying "two-22" like a vampire telling the time

will just always be funny to me.

But that moment truly stunned people, because, for reasons that, it turns out,

FIFA were fully aware of, Qatar was a fundamentally unsound choice

for a summer soccer tournament.

FIFA conducted its own objective analysis of the various bids,

which found that Qatar was an unsuitable place to host the World Cup

and a dangerous place to host the World Cup.

That the summer temperatures would be a hazard

to the health of the players and the fans,

that Doha simply didn't have space

for the kind of stadium infrastructure that was going to be required.

They would have to build nine new stadiums,

and there wasn't enough room for them in Doha.

So, they would have to kind of create a whole new city.

Yeah, Qatar wasn't just a surprising choice, it was logically inexplicable.

It'd be like if the Westminster Dog Show

awarded the "best in show" title to a tortoise.

Nothing against that tortoise, but not only should it not have won,

it should've been automatically disqualified.

The first and most obvious problem

was that Qatar is notoriously scorching hot in the summer.

That is why FIFA eventually moved the World Cup to November.

But Qatar's initial pitch pretended that heat wouldn't be an issue,

promising that they'd build air-conditioned outdoor stadiums,

while Qatari scientists pitched ideas like a massive,

remote-control artificial cloud

that they could move around to cover stadiums in shade.

Which, A, didn't exist, and B, wouldn't solve your problem anyway.

It's the multimillion-dollar equivalent

of pulling down the little car flap to keep the sun out of your eyes.

And at this point, you will not be surprised to learn

of the many accusations that Qatar won their World Cup bid through bribery,

with allegations that three of the officials who agreed to vote for Qatar,

did so in exchange for $1 million each.

And I won't say that Qatar definitely got the World Cup through bribery.

But I won't say that they didn't. And I will say that they did.

And while they deny that there was any misconduct in their bid,

the fact remained that they were gonna need to build

not just a bunch of new stadiums, but also, "a new airport,

metro system, roads, and about 100 new hotels".

They had to build so much new infrastructure, in fact,

that even the World Cup's mascot, La'eeb,

doesn't seem to be able to believe what his country has just done.

First thing I want to show you is the stadiums.

The stadiums!

Eight mind-blowing arenas,

designed by some of the best architects in the world!

This is Lusail City.

Can you believe it didn't exist 10 years ago?

Now, it's one of the cities hosting FIFA World Cup matches.

You know what, La'eeb?

I can't believe that city wasn't there 10 years ago, either,

and it's actually a bit alarming!

If you drove by an empty plot of land with a sign reading,

"Coming Soon: A T.G.I.Fridays!"

and the very next day, drove by and saw the grand opening of it,

you'd rightly have some questions about how the fuck it happened that fast.

According to one estimate, Qatar's government has spent

more than $300 billion on infrastructure projects.

And look, they can afford that. They have a lot of money,

thanks to their huge oil and natural gas reserves.

What they don't have a lot of, though, is Qataris,

because Qatari nationals only number around 380,000,

however, the country has an overall population of nearly three million.

And that is because 90% of it consists of foreigners and migrant workers.

And it's migrant workers who perform most of the manual labor there.

And those laborers are the ones who've had to build

all the new infrastructure for this tournament.

Which brings us to one of the major scandals underlying it.

Qatar recruited hundreds of thousands of workers,

mainly from India, Nepal, and Bangladesh,

through agencies in their home countries.

Just to secure a job, migrants had little choice

but to pay recruitment fees of up to $4,000 before they left the country.

And once they got to Qatar, they were already in debt

and trapped in a system known in the Middle East as kafala.

The kafala system can be a form of modern-day slavery,

and the features of it amount in some cases to forced labor.

It's true. All the new stadiums and infrastructure

were essentially built through modern-day slavery.

So, we should probably introduce a new collective noun

to refer to this group of stadiums.

A gaggle of geese, a pod of whales, an atrocity of stadiums.

The kafala system exists in some form in several countries in the Middle East.

And under it in Qatar, workers couldn't switch jobs

or leave the country without the explicit permission of their employer,

in some cases, because they might've literally had their passport taken away.

And being so fully dependent on an employer

meant that laborers had virtually no rights.

Take Anish, a laborer from Nepal,

who maintains that he was routinely underpaid,

and for doing work in truly brutal conditions.

I went to Qatar in 2019.

On the 21st of March, I started working at the Lusail Stadium.

It was very hot in Qatar.

It got up to 52 degrees Celsius the first year I was there.

I used to sweat in the exact way as if it was raining from the sky.

You know how hot 52 degrees Celsius is?

It's 125 degrees Fahrenheit.

If you build a stadium in that heat, you should get to own it.

That shouldn't be Lusail Stadium. That should be Anish's Fucking Stadium,

and no one should be allowed inside it without saying that out loud.

And there's something pretty fucked up about arguing,

"It's too hot for peak athletes to be outside for 90 minutes,

but it's completely fine for people to build stadiums in that heat

for hours a day, and for months on end."

And that's not even getting into the living conditions

that workers there were subjected to.

We drove outside the city to a place the government doesn't want people to see:

the sprawling labor camps where the workers are housed.

Inside, the men were packed wall to wall, eight to a room.

The heat was stifling, the kitchen filthy,

the beds, they told us, infested with bedbugs.

22-year-old Koom lives here among 150 other men.

They share two bathrooms.

There's no shower here? There's nowhere to wash your body?

- No. - Where do you wash your body?

- The buckets. - You wash your body in the toilet?

Hard to believe, but in these camps, it's routine.

At another camp, the toilets overflowed with sewage,

and two filthy kitchens were being shared by 600 men.

That is horrifying. No one should ever have to live like that.

Just wait until La'eeb finds out about this.

Yeah.

Yeah, your tournament's built on human suffering, buddy!

And you should know, when that reporter went and talked

to the head of one of Qatar's leading sports organizations,

it didn't go well.

You go yourself and investigate it.

You will see them living in a very, you know, comfortable,

healthy environment.

- Comfortable and healthy? - Of course.

They are living in a very healthy environment.

Mr. Al-Sulaiteen, with all due respect, we have gone to the camps.

- You went yourself? - Yes. This week in Doha.

Where you have hundreds of thousands of men living in labor camps,

some of them packed into small rooms, eight men to a room

like the one we saw, 10 men sharing a toilet, no showers.

Have you been to the labor camps yourself, sir?

I'm not going to answer your questions.

- You don't want to answer that? - I don't want to answer.

And with that, we were told the interview was over.

Incredible.

Nothing says "workers live in a comfortable and healthy environment"

quite like leaving the room 30 seconds after you realize

that the person you're talking to has actually seen that environment.

And it gets worse.

A Guardian investigation found that 6,500 migrant workers

died in Qatar from 2010 to 2020.

That number accounts for all migrant worker deaths in Qatar,

not just those who worked on stadiums.

And the Qatari government's preferred count

states that there've actually only been 37 deaths

among laborers at World Cup stadiums,

and of those, that only three were "work-related".

But if that number seems suspiciously low to you,

it's because it very much is.

Their "preferred count" is conveniently limited

to the small handful of work sites

that were under the highest level of scrutiny

and exclude the hundreds of other World Cup-related projects.

What's more, autopsies weren't done on most of these workers,

with one investigation finding that nearly 70% of deaths of Indian,

Nepali, and Bangladeshi nationals

were attributed to "natural causes" or "cardiac arrest".

Which feels deliberately vague.

Because cardiac arrest just means their heart stopped,

which is literally how everybody dies.

I can tell you with full confidence that "his heart stopped"

is how both I and Kid Rock will die.

That doesn't mean that our cardiac arrest

will be caused by the same thing, though, does it?

One of our deaths will likely involve a lot of meth,

a monster truck, and a variety of illegal fireworks,

and the other death will be Kid Rock's.

And Qatar will argue that they have made some significant labor reforms.

It's something that the head of their World Cup efforts

has proudly bragged about.

If we look at the actions that the government has taken so far,

laws implemented and being applied as well,

the kafala system has been dismantled.

Both in terms of allowing for workers to change employers

and at the same time also there was the exit permit system.

They couldn't leave without permission.

That has been dismantled as well.

Those reforms sound great, and to an extent, they are.

But they also have some major asterisks on them.

Workers in Qatar have said that "they are still required

to get permission from their current employer

before they can move to a new job",

and have also experienced "retaliation from their employers"

when they try to leave.

But also, the reforms that he's bragging about there

only began to be implemented in 2018,

when much of the hard work was already done.

So, he is bragging about dismantling the kafala system

while sitting in a stadium built using it.

The only way that pat on the back could've been more hypocritical

is if he'd forced a migrant worker to do it for him in 120-degree heat.

Incredibly it's not just Qatar bragging about the progress that's been made.

FIFA has had the nerve to claim credit for it, too.

All the changes that have happened in this country

in terms of human rights and workers' rights and so on,

human rights, would not have happened,

or certainly not at the same speed without the projectors of the World Cup.

Corruption Caillou, that is one hell of a fucking claim there.

Because you cannot possibly argue FIFA deserves credit here.

FIFA's evaluation of Qatar's bid

had literally zero mentions of human rights

or demands for labor reforms.

Think of it like this: if the country

had made no changes to its kafala system in the past few years,

and instead had passed a law called

"The Doubling Down on Slave Labor Act of 2019",

you know what would have happened?

The World Cup still would have kicked off in Qatar today.

Isn't that right, La'eeb? Wink if you agree!

I fucking knew it! I knew you knew what was going on there!

When FIFA awarded Qatar the World Cup,

there was only one way those stadiums were getting built,

and there was only one group of people who were going to do it,

and they gave them the tournament anyway.

And that is not the only troubling thing

that they had to have known back then.

Let's take a moment to talk about Qatar's human rights situation.

And I recognize, every country has human rights issues,

including this one, for more on that,

see every other story this show has ever done.

But Qatar is, in some ways, next level.

Women there have very limited rights.

They need permission from their male guardians to marry,

work in many government jobs, and travel abroad until certain ages.

Also, because sex outside of marriage is illegal,

pregnant women have to present a marriage certificate

to receive prenatal care.

Which I hesitate to even tell you about,

just in case the Supreme Court is watching this show tonight

and getting any new ideas.

As for the LGBT community, sexual conduct between men

is criminalized and can result in seven years in prison.

And FIFA was not unaware of this.

Sepp Blatter even joked about it just days after Qatar

was awarded the tournament.

Because when he was asked what advice he would give to gay fans

who might want to travel to Qatar, this was his fun response.

Then I would say then that they should refrain from any sexual activities.

They say in comedy, you can either punch up, punch down,

or co-sign oppressive governments for a quick laugh

while looking like the Penguin went to Wharton,

and we all know which option he just chose there.

Get Sepp Blatter a Netflix special. It seems like he's ready.

Qatar has repeated that everyone is welcome at this World Cup,

including gay fans.

But as this gay Qatari man, who was granted asylum in the U.S.

citing the dangers he faced there, points out,

even if that is the case for the next four weeks,

it's a hell of a blind eye to turn.

It's like having

a household with children that are domestically abused.

And now, you are gonna have a fancy dinner party.

People can come in, they can bring their kids.

Their kids can jump on the table and they can do everything they want.

The children that live there

are gonna be in the basement, quiet, behaving.

And they can't jump on the table like the other kids that visited,

because they will be punished in that household for doing it.

Now you know that the children there are abused,

so how are you showing up to our home?

Exactly.

The Qatari government is engaging in some truly horrendous behavior.

And we can't just gloss over that and uncritically put it in the spotlight.

It's an authoritarian regime, not Mel fucking Gibson.

By the way, here's a fun game.

Guess how many movies he's been in this year?

You're wrong, it's seven. This truly has been the year of Mel!

And none of this, the working conditions,

the oppression of women or gay people,

was a dealbreaker for FIFA.

Qatar's authoritarian tendencies may have been a deal-sweetener,

because FIFA has long had a soft spot for autocrats.

And I'm not just saying that

because they gave the World Cup to Russia in 2018,

or went ahead with one in Argentina in 1978,

when it was run by a military dictatorship,

or even that they held the second World Cup in Mussolini's Italy in 1934.

They've said it themselves.

FIFA's former secretary general, Jerome Valcke, once said,

"I will say something which is crazy, but less democracy

is sometimes better for organizing a World Cup.

When you have a very strong head of state,

that is easier for us organizers."

And even for a quote which is prefaced by,

"I will say something which is crazy,"

that is fucking nuts.

But authoritarians are good for FIFA, and FIFA is good for authoritarians.

As this critic points out, Russia's World Cup four years ago

was preceded by a lot of controversy and criticism,

but that's not what people remember about it.

What you saw in the run-up to 2018

was a lot of coverage of what was happening in Russia,

a lot of coverage of the rights abuses,

a lot of interest in that, and a lot of engagement in it.

And I think what the Qataris will have noticed was how that all vanished

as soon as the first whistle blew.

And I think everyone became captivated by the football.

The Qataris know that if they can just get to that first whistle,

then they're over the line.

It's true. Such is the power of the World Cup.

Any memories of controversy are likely to be washed away once it begins.

And incidentally, what a VIP box to be a part of there.

Quick tip for the president of FIFA, if you're gonna make arguments

about how your organization is a global force for good,

maybe try not to sit

between Mohammad bin Salman and Vladimir Putin,

because you are the filling in a real shit sandwich there.

And the thing is, that first whistle has now been blown.

Qatar played Ecuador in the opening game of the tournament earlier today.

So, what now?

Well, workers like Anish hope that some of the athletes participating

can help shine a light on all the exploitation that went into this event.

My message for Messi,

thousands of workers like me have worked on the stadium.

We did not get our salary, our benefits.

I hope that if you talk about workers like us,

maybe we will get what we are owed.

I do not have much faith, but still, I have hope.

And that hope is pretty moving,

especially given all the reasons not to have any.

And I really hope that Messi hears that message.

Though, given that he plays for Paris Saint-Germain,

a team literally owned by the state investment fund of Qatar,

I wouldn't hold your breath waiting for him to criticize them.

People generally don't openly shit on their employers,

unless of course that employer is Warner Brothers Discovery,

in which case you can happily shit away,

because apparently they're too busy canceling shows to notice.

I will say, some players, to their credit, have been speaking out.

Harry Kane and other team captains

have said that they'll wear a OneLove armband during games,

and organizations from Australia's national team to FIFPRO,

the international players' union,

have issued statements condemning Qatar's treatment of workers,

women, and gay people.

But ultimately, it's not the players who are responsible for this mess,

it's FIFA.

They put the World Cup in Qatar,

and everything that's happened since then has been a complete disgrace.

I'm not saying that you shouldn't watch this World Cup

or be excited about it.

As tough as this is to admit, I will be watching.

One of my greatest joys is sitting completely alone in my living room

and cheering on England until they're inevitably

knocked out in the quarterfinals on penalties.

But let's try and make sure a line is drawn here.

Because in a few weeks' time, the World Cup will be over.

The final whistle will be blown on December 18th

in the stadium that Anish built

in a city that didn't exist 10 years ago,

and FIFA will happily move on.

And while they will point to new human rights policies

that they've now adopted,

we'll see how truly committed to those they really are.

Especially given that one of the suitors to host the 2030 World Cup

is rumored to be Saudi Arabia, which also uses the kafala system

and has an even worse human rights record than Qatar.

There is no reason to believe that FIFA will ever do the right thing.

But I would love it if it could, for just once in its shitty history,

find a way to hold itself to the lofty ideals that it has the gall to profess.

I would love that as much as I love the World Cup itself,

and maybe, just maybe,

even as much as David Beckham loves a taco.

Because that would be perfection for me.

And now, this!

And Now

People on TV Interrogate the Important Question:

Do You Say Pecan or Pecan?

- Talk about pecan and pecan. - What do you say?

It's pecan.

- I'll trust the Southerner on this one. - It's pecan. You say pecan?

- You don't like pecan pie? - I don't like pecan pie.

- It's pecan. - It's a pecan.

- I love the Publix pecan Danish. - I'm glad you say pecan.

- I do, too. - It's not a pecan?

- We have toasted pecans here. - Toasted pecans.

- Pecan or pecan? - It's pecan.

- I say pecans. - Pecan.

Okay, fine.

- You're also going to add one ounce - It's pecan!

- One ounce of simple syrup. - Pecan!

- You say pecan? - I say pecan.

- Of course. - I don't know what to say.

- Pecan or pecan? - It's a pecan.

Who wants to eat something called a pecan?

- Pecan or pecan? - It's not a urinary device.

- Are they pecans or pecans? - They're both delicious. I don't care.

Do you say pecan or pecan? Praline or praline?

I say thanks so much. One of our good friends, Mel B

Moving on.

Before we go, this is our final show of the year,

and frankly, it has been a turbulent one,

from Britain having its shortest and weirdest-serving prime minister ever,

to Roe v. Wade being overturned, to Russia's war in Ukraine,

which, lest we forget, began back in February,

with the haunting sound of air-raid sirens,

and was covered on CNN with this jarring moment.

Air Raid Sirens Riding Out in Ukraine's Capital.

And a little bit of chicken fried, cold beer on a Friday night.

A pair of jeans that fit just right and the radio up.

Get five boneless wings for $1 with any handcrafted burger.

Only at Applebee's.

Yeah. The point is, it's been a very weird year.

Thankfully, though, we did manage to have some fun.

We produced a Subway-sandwich Korean drama,

we sent a polar bear to bet on an ice melting contest in Alaska,

we blackmailed Congress with information that we still have,

and Nick Offerman blew up a trash can to make a point about elections.

But perhaps our weirdest moment

came when we discussed AI image generators.

Because you may remember, we learned that people

had made a surprisingly large number of AI-generated images of me,

with this generator alone featuring around 500 of them.

We then stumbled on a whole sequence of images

that involved me falling in love with a cabbage and marrying it,

something that we then re-created in person,

with Steve Buscemi presiding as the wedding officiant.

Yeah, I married a cabbage this year, and it was a beautiful day.

I have a quick update. Because recently we checked that generator,

to see if more images had been made of me,

and it turns out that they very much had.

A search for my name on there currently returns over 15,000 results.

And let me be very clear: this has to stop.

This shit is getting out of hand.

Some users were apparently continuing to speculate on my romantic exploits,

with images like

"John Oliver has tired of cabbage, is now dating a carrot,"

while others have moved on, like with this one starting with the prompt,

"two raccoons conducting an interview of John Oliver",

which produced this result.

And kudos for going with my point of view in that situation.

But one new sequence of images in particular caught our eye,

because it seemed to be setting a new story in motion.

It begins with this prompt:

"John Oliver unicycling towards a very steep mountainous hill".

Which prompted this almost serene set of images.

However, there is a development, because the next image is,

"While unicycling up a very steep mountainous hill,

John Oliver realizes he can't even unicycle,

doesn't ever want to, and not only is he afraid of heights,

he literally has a crippling fear of unicycles.

As he tumbles down the hill in agony, he says his trademark catchphrase,

'Why do unicycles exist!?'"

Which, to be fair, is a thing that I do say all the time!

There are then a few images of me, post-unicycle-accident,

in the hospital, until finally, they typed in the prompt,

"After recovering from his unicycle accident,

John Oliver returns to his show where he does one of those wild

'John Oliver has HBO money' stunts,

like I guess he ties together 100 unicycles in pairs of two

because 'that's what nature intended' or something,

and then there are like 50 clowns on stage

riding the dangerous John Oliver bi-unicycles

and then John is like 'that's our show, see you next week.'"

And picture in your mind right now what a spectacular image

would be generated by a description like that.

Do you have that image in your mind?

Good. Because this is the image the AI produced.

Very cleverly,

focusing on the "see you next week" part of that prompt.

Look how happy I look there!

And it is such a shame.

The concept of chaotic clowns wobbling around dangerously on unicycles

felt like a pretty decent metaphor for the year that we all went through.

It's messy, idiotic, a little bit scary,

and it feels like someone didn't fully think it all through.

And it's frustrating not being able to see that image for ourselves.

Is something that someone might say,

if they didn't have access to HBO production budgets.

So, with that said, to close out our season, here it is!

The physical manifestation of the last year!

Look at all these fucking clowns!

Look at them!

Look at this utter atrocity!

Thank you so much for watching our show this year!

We really appreciate it!

Thanks to our staff Stop honking!

Thanks to our staff for working so hard.

We will be back next year. I don't like this at all!

We'll be back next February. Please stay safe until then.

Say it with me: why do unicycles exist?

Classic phrase! See you next year, good night!