Jeff Goldblum's Reddit 'AMA' is...Uhh, We Still Like Jeff Goldblum, Right?

I don’t know how I feel about Jeff Goldblum anymore. Obviously, yes, the man’s a delightfully dapper and charming personality, as well as a very talented actor. And his oddball, mannered delivery and off-kilter-yet-silky-smooth movements are a beguiling sight to behold. Yet there’s something about him that’s been annoying me recently.

Though actually in the interests of precision I should say that the annoyance doesn’t really stem from anything Goldblum has done, per se. It’s more to do with the amount of Goldblum there suddenly is. Now I know what some of you must be saying. ‘How can you have too much Goldblum?! Heretic. Commie. Burn him.’ Which, yeah, fair enough. But still. I think we may be reaching Peak Goldblum.

Kayleigh wrote a typically wonderful piece about the recent rampant meme-ification of the man. In it, she mentioned his awareness of this phenomenon, as well as his embracing of and indulging in it. And he’s certainly been doing a lot of that. Too much, I think. He’s reading out weird questions people have mailed in for him on chat shows; he’s doing interviews in ever more self-consciously kooky ways; he’s doing live readings of ‘Steamed Hams’. It feels a bit like Goldblum is leaning into the whole thing perhaps more than he should be, and now it’s losing its magic. Not in the way that something was funny when you were taking the piss out of someone without them knowing, but now they’ve joined in in a self-aware way and oh, it’s just not the same. That would be bullying, and coming from a mean place. This isn’t that. It’s just that now that Goldblum seems to be aware of what we’re looking out for when he gets interviewed, or what we want to see him do in general, and because of that there is an element of him exaggerating his unique and wonderful Goldblum-ness in order to create the next perfectly GIF-able moment or soundbite. And that’s just not as fun. It smacks of artifice, and because of that the moments are never as good as the ones that came about organically.

And, I mean: Dear god does this sound like an inconsequential complaint or what?

It’s lovely to see him finding it all charming I guess, but still: Celebrities are better when they don’t know they’re being memed. It’s like being told how amazingly you’re riding a bike while you’re riding it. Suddenly you’ll think about the mechanics of what you’re doing, of whether your legs are rotating at the right speed, whether your centre line is balanced well above the frame, and then — boom, you’re down.

Fuck it. Whatever else may be the case, Goldblum can still do a pretty fun Reddit ‘Ask Me Anything’. Here it is in full. Below is his intro, and some highlights:

Hi Reddit! I’m Jeff Goldblum…excited for this Reddit AMA! You may have seen me in Jurassic Park, Thor: Ragnarok, Independence Day, and Isle of Dogs. I hope you enjoyed the first ever Reddit Gold-Bloom, brought to you by the Wolf King and Hotel Artemis. Make sure you catch the movie in theaters this Friday, June 8! This film also includes Jodie Foster, Sterling K. Brown, Dave Bautista, Zach Quinto, Charlie Day, Brian Tyree Henry, and Sofia Boutella. Can’t wait for you all to see it. Now… Ask Me Anything! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H7Vt9i31V60

Proof: https://i.redd.it/sezuusa8y1211.jpg

More Proof: https://www.instagram.com/p/Bjmk5YenplK/

EDIT: Thank you so much, Reddit! This has been the best time I’ve ever had in my whole life, I wish I could hug all of you.

Funnily enough, the best thing about this AMA happened outside of it. I first found out Goldblum was doing it when someone in the ‘Out of the Loop’ subreddit asked: How come all of the top posts in the ‘popular’ subreddit have been given gold:

The answer?