What happened to JP Sears?

The Nicole Arbor Effect is strong with this one.

Many people became familiar with JP Sears in his viral parody videos where he played a typical “crunchy” person. We all know the type. They do yoga, drive a Subaru, and make their summer plans around going to Burning Man. His videos were funny and as someone who lives on the West Coast and doesn’t quite buy into the whole “granola” based lifestyle, it was funny to lambast those sorts of people. Then the pandemic happened and JP Sears took a turn that caused quite a stir and sent some of his early fans straight to the unsubscribe button.

Left to Right

He’s described as a right-wing comedian now but that was not my experience when I saw my first J.P. Sears video. Known better as “AwakenwithJP” he got his start on YouTube poking fun at the wellness industry and people who spend far too much time doing yoga and taking various supplements and powders. His Ultra Spiritual Life series became quite popular. I found him incredibly funny but when the pandemic arrived and he took a strong anti-vaccine view, I dropped him. It also appears that I wasn’t the only one given this thread on Reddit. His drift right had been going on for a few videos. I thought it was all in good fun so I disregarded it at first but during the pandemic, it seems that his true colors have shown through.

I wasn’t the only person to notice that things with JP Sears had taken a turn. In this article the author is overt in their distaste of his new direction (warning for strong language at the link). When he arrived in conservative Spokane, mention was made of his new conservative direction and his new conservative audience. In a turn of events, what used to be a fun parody of people many of us know, it turns out that JP Sears can be problematic (a true sin of modern wokeness) and I found this medium post echoing what I had felt about JP Sears.

What Happened?

I wanted to find out what happened to JP Sears? I didn’t figure he was liberal but I didn’t understand that his politics were as they were. The joke is much less funny when it seems like the comedian is just punching down. Personally, I removed him from all my feeds but…