It's not really about my feelings about Gervais the person so much as the Gervais podcast. I thought it was pretty funny but not worth paying for. But if Pilkington's really a dope, it's not nearly as interesting to me than if he's invented this character (which I'd suspected and hoped all along). Not so much for the moral reasons Tom cites, but because I enjoy and admire when a comedian or broadcaster puts the time and craft into creating a funny/unusual radio persona. It's one of the things I love about Comedy Bang Bang or Superego -- when, say, somebody like Nick Kroll creates a funny and original character, I like it more than just listening to some weirdo. If it's just someone putting a mic in front of a buffoon, like Howard Stern with the wack pack, I enjoy that too on occasion, but not nearly as much. I think of it as more disposable and I certainly don't find it as funny.
Put another way, I enjoy documentary or "reality-based" radio like WTF or The Dusty Show, but I approach it in a very different way than I do something featuring an improv character, and I rarely laugh at it (Maron's monologues aside, which are funny, but I'm really listening to WTF for the emotional honesty).
