“Game of Thrones” star Jack Gleeson, who is better known as the villain King Joffrey, has had an epic rant against celebrity culture... and it’s captivating! The 21-year-old Irish actor proved that he is completely separated from the fictional antagonist character during a 30-minute speech titled “I Hate Celebrity Culture” at The Oxford Union.

He was a guest at the Oxford event in late November, but it’s only on Thursday that the video of his essay speech was uploaded and immediately became viral online.

Although Gleeson’s thorough analysis of the celebrity culture was not perhaps revolutionary, it was nevertheless spot-on. He considered the culture of celebrity worship to be both “cannibalistic” and dehumanising.

He probed the theories of why the society reveres celebrities, also explaining why he opted to remain a private person instead of banking on his fame.

“Celebrity is seen by a huge amount of people and certainly myself for a while as the pinnacle of society, of success. It is revered almost religiously, both the institution and its quickly growing member base,” Gleeson said, adding that celebrities constantly stick out their faces at the public on ads, shows, and on print media.

“But this reverence and invasion is often welcomed and indeed fostered by a great percentage of the public. I started to wonder why that was and whether there was any harm in that reverence. They’re just people, after all.”

He continued, “What’s ironic is that you see celebrity endorsing things like musical tampons, and appearing in advertisements for lavender scented teeth whiteners or something, wielding goods whose sell-by dates will ironically probably outlast theirs.”

His self-deprecating speech was met with praises by the online community. As many have commented, it’s refreshing to see a celebrity who is so grounded that he actually appeared embarrassed with his fame.

And for one of the most hated characters on television, he managed to show that he is extremely likeable in real life.

In November, Gleeson has expressed his desire to quite showbiz, saying that the lifestyle that comes with being a celebrity wasn’t something that he desired.

“It was always a recreation beforehand, but when I started doing Game of Thrones perhaps the reality was made too real for me,” he told the Irish Independent. “The lifestyle that comes with being an actor in a celebrity TV show isn’t something I gravitate towards.”