What did Shane Gillis say? All about the comedian amid Aussie joke backlash

American stand-up comedian and podcaster Shane Gillis found himself in hot water after making jokes about Australia. He claimed Australians "create nothing" and that the country had "zero exports." The clip where Gillis makes the claim was shared on social media as a promo for his new stand-up special Beautiful Dogs which is available on Netflix. The teaser was released by Netflix's comedy branch Netflix Is A Joke on Instagram and X on September 5, 2023.

Shane's casual diss soon went viral and the Australians began dragging the comedian online for his comments. The original premise behind the joke was supposedly a compliment. According to Sky News, Gillis reportedly wanted to say that Australia came "number two" after the US in his list of top countries.

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Shane Gillis's backhanded claims spark outrage online

As mentioned earlier, Netflix Is A Joke released a segment of Shane Gillis's special Beautiful Dogs on Tuesday. Gillis is a sketch comedy writer, stand-up comedian, and radio personality from Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania. He also co-hosts a podcast called Matt and Shane's Secret Podcast with his friend Matt McCusker.

In the aforementioned teaser, Shane started talking about Australians by calling them second to the US in terms of the best countries in the world. He said:

"Australia’s good, Australia might be number two, that’s a good country dude."

He then followed it with an underhanded dig and said:

"It’s just a whole country doing nothing. That’s what I like about them. They’re just down there – zero exports, creating nothing. The only export I’ve seen out of Australia is just that YouTube video of that guy punching that kangaroo in the face. Australia gave us that."

Needless to say, when they saw it, Australians were upset about the remarks and bombarded the comment section of the @netflixisajoke post. Netizens listed a bunch of exports that Australia provides to counter Shane Gillis's quips.

People also said that Australia has contributed to significant scientific advances that have revolutionized the world's technology. According to the National Museum of Australia, CSIRO invented and patented a wireless local access network (WLAN), which is Wi-Fi.

Shane Gillis's "doing nothing" remark was mocked by netizens who listed Australia's innovations and discoveries over the years. They listed the inventions as, "the black box flight recorder, hearing aids, the polymer banknote, the HPV vaccine, and the ultrasound scanner."

Some people took a jab at Gillis's number-one ranked country The United States of America, one fan said,

"All America exports is obesity, lies, and p*dophiles."

While another derailed the US saying:

"Pretty bold from someone who lives in a country without free ambulance usage, free hospital coverage, four weeks of sick leave, and, of course, the fact that we can send out children to school without fearing that they will be mass-murdered. So thankful to be “second place” to that hole of a country."

Some said that it was "insane" that people found Gillis funny and others noted that some of his jokes were awful.

However, there were some who did like the comedian's special and praised him saying that they loved the new special and his other comedy acts.

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Shane Gillis was previously canceled for racism

Shane was fired from Saturday Night Live (SNL) only five days after his appearance was announced in 2019. As per Vox, Lorne Michaels let him go because of a clip where he is using racial slurs and derogatory comments about Asians. The video was from his podcast Matt and Shane's Secret Podcast in 2018.

Shane Gillis has since bounced back both in reputation and career with his own special "Shane Gillis Live in Austin" which has 14 million views on YouTube.

The comedian performed nine sold-out shows in 2022 across Brisbane, Sydney, Adelaide, Perth and Melbourne, Australia.

However, as of writing this article, the comedian was yet to make any comments about the backlash he was receiving.