Tag: comedy

Missing audiences; working on words

A couple unrelated observations from the weekend, though perhaps so far apart as is the way of these things:

First: had a good conversation with a colleague from University about the importance of working through words. It’s a language game, and sometimes you need to sit down and do the work and get your reps in, as mentioned a few posts ago. And in works the same in comedy as it does in academia or in writing. This conversation was with respect to the Echanger episode, so… more to come there.

And speaking of comedy, that brings us to point the

Second: that part about honing the jokes through touring was also mentioned by Katt Williams in his interview on Club Shay Shay (at about the 48:30 mark):

and the timing is impeccable. (The above episode came out a day or so before I made the last post. I hadn’t seen it yet, but it aligns perfectly with the Jeselnik comment too.)

Gotta get the reps in.

Which leads us to our third point, about missing audiences.

Because, while I’ve been seeing bits from the interview all over social media (well, YouTube and TikTok), it’s been completely absent from Mastodon and the Fediverse.

It speaks to a massive hole in the Mastodon and the Fediverse more generally.

And the clip’s absence here is very telling.

Now, the most charitable argument one could make – perhaps – is that the Fediverse isn’t obsessed with celebrity culture, and isn’t interested with the beefs that actors and comedians may be having with one another.

Fair.

But we know there is some celebrity and/or Hollywood discussion does exist there, if not a ton.

The audiences that are talking about the clip: Gen Z and Millenials, young people and people of colour, aren’t there having that discussion. They’re in other places.

Why are they staying away from Mastodon?

I’m curious to find out…

Comedy

Went to a comedy show in town, first time in quite a few months, and while it wasn’t bad, it was the okay kind of pandering that you often get at these shows. Nothing super offensive, but more like hanging with a funny guy you knew from back in the day tell some stories.

Which is okay, but I’ve seen better

Case in point: Anthony Jeselnik.

We saw him here on like the second or third date of a tour, where he was just working out some new material, which, unbeknownst to us at the time, would end up being a Netflix special in about 18 months.

He was up there, working through the material in his notebook, testing out jokes, sometimes for the first time, and seeing how they would land. There was a lot of attention to the craft of telling jokes, of writing one, and then working on it, editing it, telling it over and over so you had it down, so when you had to do it in front of a huge crowd, on camera, every joke would hit.

This is what I’m not seeing (usually) with these local shows, even in front of a small crowd on a weekday.

It’s a good reminder too, of putting in the work, and getting in your reps.

To that end, maybe I start need to counting my reps: not just working out, but also words typed, minutes recorded, posts made, something like that.

Just to record the progress.

I’ll think about this, see how I can incorporate them.