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TJ Kirk
Kirk in 2021
Personal information
Born
Thomas James Kirk III

(1985-02-20) February 20, 1985 (age 39)
Pasadena, California, U.S.
Occupations
YouTube information
Also known asAmazing Atheist, Terroja Lee Kincaid, Thomas Kirk
Channel
Years active2006–present (YouTuber)
Genre(s)Social criticism
Political criticism
Criticism of religion
Black comedy
Subscribers957,000 thousand[1]
Total views438 million[1]
100,000 subscribers2010
1,000,000 subscribers2016
Last updated: 20 May 2024

Thomas James Kirk III (born February 20, 1985), previously known by the pseudonym Terroja Lee Kincaid, is an American YouTube personality and podcast host. Kirk's channel, known as the Amazing Atheist, rose to prominence through his criticism of religion. He has since expanded his focus to other political and social issues.

Kirk previously had over 1 million subscribers on his main channel and has more than 445 million views in total. From 2014 until 2017, he was one of the hosts of Drunken Peasants, a YouTube news podcast focused on current events and interviews.[2][3] In early 2018, Kirk started a new podcast, "Deep Fat Fried", with two of his prior co-hosts, which he still hosts today.

Early life

Thomas James Kirk III was born on February 20, 1985,[4] in Pasadena, California, and primarily raised in Mandeville, Louisiana.[5][failed verification] His father was Thomas James Kirk Jr. (July 1, 1946 – January 3, 2008), who operated several fraudulent higher education organizations and served three years in U.S. federal prison following a plea deal.[6] At the age of sixteen, Kirk dropped out of high school with aspirations of being an author.[7]

Career

Kirk began posting videos on YouTube in November 2006.[7] In 2007, he posted a video which included a warning about the mental instability of 18-year-old Pekka-Eric Auvinen, who would later perpetrate the Jokela school shooting.[8][9]

In October 2011, a video of Kirk engaging in a sex act with a banana was leaked on the internet imageboard 4chan. Members from the 4chan community subsequently raided his channel, posting images from the video to his channel's comment section and Facebook page. In response, Kirk released a video to his channel called "Bananagate 2011" in which he said "the things that I did, I did because I enjoy them. I wasn't ashamed of them when I was doing them in private, I see no reason to be ashamed of them now that they've been made public."[10]

In 2012, Kirk was widely criticized for incendiary comments made on Reddit before he deleted his account. In an argument about trigger warnings, Kirk repeatedly stated that one of the participants, a self-described rape victim, should be raped again.[11] Science blogger PZ Myers condemned these posts and went on to debate many of Kirk's past claims about feminism, writing that "this kind of thing has always been part of his YouTube schtick."[12] After the incident, Kirk apologized to the Reddit user in a private message and later made a public apology.[11] Kirk addressed the issue further in a 2014 YouTube video entitled "Rape, Feminism, and The Amazing Atheist", in which he again apologized for the incident and explained the context in which it happened: his remarks were meant to be satirical commentary on trigger warnings.[13]

In 2013, Kirk was a guest on a CNN panel, where he discussed the rise of atheism in America with Christian theologian William Lane Craig.[14]

Kirk has made two appearances on The Joe Rogan Experience, one in January 2016 and another in March 2017.[15] Kirk interviewed Milo Yiannopoulos for a Drunken Peasants podcast in 2016. In 2017 Breitbart, CPAC and Simon & Schuster severed their ties with Yiannopoulos based on comments from the episode where Yiannopoulos spoke positively of sexual relationships between boys and adult men.[16][17] Kirk left Drunken Peasants at the end of 2017 with co-hosts Scotty Kirk and Paul Parkey Jr. and together they started their own podcast in early 2018, known as Deep Fat Fried.[citation needed]

In 2018, Kirk was criticized for a controversial tweet in which he claimed that Alicia Vikander's breasts were too small for her to play the video game character Lara Croft in the 2018 film Tomb Raider, and for later posting a video to his YouTube channel on the subject called "Lara Croft's b00bz - The Issue Of The Century".[18][19][20]

Personal life

Kirk identifies as bisexual.[21]

References

  1. ^ a b "About Amazing Atheist". YouTube.
  2. ^ Rogan, Joe (March 15, 2017). "Joe Rogan and T.J. Kirk on Milo Yiannopoulos". The Joe Rogan Experience. Retrieved 17 March 2017 – via YouTube.
  3. ^ Taylor, Jeff (March 17, 2017). "Joe Rogan, TJ Kirk discuss how their podcasts led to Milo Yiannopoulos' downfall". LGBTQ Nation. Retrieved 18 March 2017.
  4. ^ "Thomas James Kirk, Born 02/20/1985 in California | CaliforniaBirthIndex.org". californiabirthindex.org. Retrieved 2024-07-21.
  5. ^ TJ, Kirk [@amazingatheist] (November 9, 2016). "I have lived there. I was born there, in fact. But I don't need to live there to simply go look at the numbers" (Tweet). Retrieved March 17, 2017 – via Twitter.
  6. ^ Associated Press (September 25, 1996). Minister indicted on fraud charges involving church-run university. Dallas Morning News[dead link]
  7. ^ a b Cody Weber (2011). "Amazing - Special Edition". Amazing Atheist. Archived from the original on 2017-04-08. Retrieved 29 March 2017. [dead link]
  8. ^ Singel, Ryan (November 8, 2007). "YouTuber Warned of Finnish Gunman in June, But No One Listened". Wired. Retrieved 17 March 2017.
  9. ^ Kremp, Matthias (10 November 2007). "Schulmassaker in Finnland: Warnung vor Amoklufer schon im Juni" [Warning of gunmen as early as June]. Spiegel Online (in German). Retrieved 17 March 2017.
  10. ^ Eördögh, Fruzsina (2011-11-01). "Banana slip doesn't hurt Amazing Atheist's appeal on YouTube". The Daily Dot. Retrieved 2022-07-06.
  11. ^ a b Eördögh, Fruzsina (2012-02-09). "The Amazing Atheist quits Reddit after rape comments". The Daily Dot. Retrieved 2017-03-26.
  12. ^ Myers, PZ (2012-02-08). "The not-so-Amazing Atheist self-immolates". Pharyngula. Free Thought Blogs. Retrieved 2017-03-26.
  13. ^ Kirk, TJ (2014-07-29). "Rape, Feminism, and The Amazing Atheist". YouTube. Retrieved 2017-03-27.
  14. ^ "CNN Newsroom Transcript". CNN. 2013-02-11. Retrieved 2018-08-13.
  15. ^ Rogan, Joe (March 15, 2017). "Joe Rogan Experience #932 - TJ Kirk". The Joe Rogan Experience. Retrieved March 17, 2017.
  16. ^ Pakman, David (February 22, 2017). "Milo Yiannopoulos Caught Defending Pedophilia, Career Implodes". The Huffington Post. Retrieved March 17, 2017.
  17. ^ Hensley, Nicole (February 20, 2017). "Video shared ahead of CPAC shows Milo Yiannopoulos appearing to speak fondly of relationships between men and 'young boys'". New York Daily News. Retrieved March 17, 2017.
  18. ^ Kooser, Amanda (March 5, 2018). "'Tomb Raider' star Alicia Vikander's bust size under fire". CNET. Retrieved 2021-10-14.
  19. ^ Schager, Nick (March 15, 2018). "Alicia Vikander is body-shamed over 'Tomb Raider' — and the internet is fighting back". Yahoo Entertainment. Retrieved 2021-10-14.
  20. ^ Parker, Ryan; Kilkenny, Katie (2018-03-14). "'Tomb Raider': Fans Slam Criticism of Alicia Vikander's Body". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved 2021-10-14.
  21. ^ Wong, Brittany (2020-02-25). "Men Are Tweeting #BisexualMenExist. Here's Why That Matters". HuffPost. Retrieved 2023-11-28.
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