AskHistorians

I think this is a good and careful assessment, and I'm not pushing back out of disrespect, but I still don't agree that what Brietbart and Bannon or Colbert are doing is Gonzo. A core component of gonzo is the acknowledgement of the intentional dissolution between self and subject in their truth seeking. Gonzo is about dissolving breaking through the concept of objectivity by injecting yourself into the story in real time, intentionally, and not after the fact. And at its core, Gonzo is an approach to truth-seeking ; its an answer to the failed conundrum of post-modernism, a chaser to that shit after taste of "this can't really be all there is, can it?"

With Colbert, there is no dissolution of self or subject: Colbert is a character. They aren't doing Gonzo, because they don't believe themselves to be the character they play on TV. Its an act, a bit, even if its one that helps get at and elucidate what truth might be. When a Colbert is doing is what they are doing, while they are working to get at truth, they are not throwing their whole selves into the the thing to see how the thing changes them, then recording the results. Its a dummy, a prop, their character they throw in, and they see how what impressions the world makes on the prop, and this is the result. Sasha Baren Cohen is another good example of someone using this approach to trying to understand what truth is, but its fundamentally not Gonzo because its always happening to someone else: the character. Gonzo is when you do the same thing, but not as a character.

Brietbart and Bannon. That's an entirely separate can of worms because they, as much as they would pretend otherwise, they are fundamentally postmodernists because they truly do not believe in any kind of objective truth. Truth for these shits is whatever they need it to be, whenever they need it to be that way. And while in many ways their approach is maybe closer to Thompson, they aren't truth seeking, and so it can't be Gonzo. Brietbart and Bannon have a truth they intend to steer you towards and work to craft an experience and narrative to convince you of the truth they had already decided was true.

Gonzo is fundamentally about individual experience and what truth comes out from the impressions that experience makes on an individual. But it can't be fraudulent. Gonzo is only gonzo if the author is truly willing to be changed by their environment.

And if I can't convince you that Bourdain is closer to gonzo, maybe this article can.