Jordan Stephens has branded Piers Morgan’s interview and subsequent argument with TikToker Harrison Sullivan “borderline pointless”, saying he was ‘rage-baited’ and should have been prepared
Jordan Stephens has weighed in on the fallout from Louis Theroux’s Netflix Manosphere documentary, which saw Piers Morgan get into a slanging match with one of the subjects – HSTikkyTokky. The content creator, who is accused of being homophobic and misogynistic, mocked Piers Morgan’s wife and his marriage.
But Jordan, famed for being one half of Rizzle Kicks, who has addressed the “borderline pointless” interview in a six-minute Instagram video, believes Piers Morgan’s interviewing technique was ‘mediocre’, and didn’t ask the real questions. He also commented that Piers should have been “prepared” to be “rage-baited”, as that is what “nihilistic” HSTikkyTokky – real name Harrison Sullivan – does best.
Speaking on the social platform, Jordan said: “Let’s just talk about TikkTokky quick, just because obviously that clip of him cooking Piers Morgan has gone viral. I was taken aback by the mediocrity of Piers Morgan’s approach to this guy. Him even interviewing HS is borderline pointless.
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“It is also doing the exact same thing as he does. There’s no point in interviewing HS, he’s in the documentary. He was just doing it so people watch his show.”
He continued: “HS came prepared, obviously, to rage-bait him, and Piers fell for it entirely. It was actually bizarre to me. I’m definitely not a fan of Piers Morgan but for somebody who has spent so much time interviewing people, for his one angle to be trying to apply a moral logic to homophobia. HS claims he’s not homophobic – but a moral application to the idea he would disown his son if he was gay, just pushing a moral idea thinking that that was gonna move somebody who’s quite clearly nihilistic and enjoys, revels even, in getting a rise out of people.”
Jordan said that from a “journalistic perspective”, it was pointless to question Sullivan’s views on homophobia, adding: “For me personally, if I was going to platform somebody like HS in the knowledge that all he’s really gonna do from this experience is to try and find a way of mocking me and showing me up.
“It was an opportunity to actually understand the mentality that goes towards a stance such as ‘If my son was gay I’d disown him’. There were more interesting questions to ask him other than ‘Don’t you think this, or don’t you understand this homophobic.'”
Jordan added that 23-year-old Sullivan is not a father, so doesn’t understand what it means to abandon a son, “other than, of course, his own experience of abandonment”, after having no contact with his own dad. He proposed: “He could also ask him if he thinks that homosexuality occurs naturally in life, which of course it does, but it’d be interesting to see whether he believes that people are born gay – does he believe that? If people are born gay? Is that a good or bad thing? It would be like ‘sexual fluidity is prevalent across the entire animal Kingdom, doesn’t that reiterate the idea that, of course, homophobia is the thing that’s not natural rather than homosexuality’.
“Like these are interesting questions that you can pose to this person to give them the opportunity to explain their worldview rather than trying to apply purely a moral lens. The reason why people like HS get attention is because he’s edgy and he says things that you’re not supposed to say and that’s really exciting because we’re coming off of the back of a world where people are challenging ideas and thoughts and beliefs and asking for people to generally be more sensitive.”
Jordan added that he knows people may call him “woke” or say that his “open-mindedness is some form of weakness”, when he sees it in a different way. He added: “I feel that people’s incapacity for change is quite worrying, people’s inability to just listen to other people when they’re asking for something and challenge that without it being demeaning or rude – I think it’s bizarre.”
Jordan noted: “Trying to platform somebody who is literally known for rage-baiting and then getting rage-baited is absolutely wild and he should have been prepared.” He said: “And actually in the context of the Manosphere, being that level of nihilistic has some kind of credibility to it on the basis of the fact, at the very least, he’s not pretending he’s something that he’s not. He just wants to earn money, he doesn’t care how, there’s no consistency, everything is a contradiction, all he cares about is money.”
He added that people like Sullivan “thrive off attention”, so that his questionable world views will “disintegrate” over time. Speaking about Sullivan’s relationship with his “mummy”, he added that he “has this kind of submissive relationship”, saying essentially that his views simply come from immaturity and will change in the future.
However, he believes the Louis Theroux doc had a “gaping hole” regarding the damage this narrative can cause to youngsters. He added: “One of the gaping holes in the whole documentary was the reality that no one was confronting the fact that big tech will actively push people like HS into the algorithms of young boys without them even looking for it. That’s arguably the biggest issue in all of this.
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