Episode #398
Emily Wilson is a comedian and actress based in New York City who performs stand-up, characters and funny songs. Wilson hosts a weekly comedy showcase in the East Village called Tuesdays at the Red Room. But you may have seen her before and not realized it — Wilson competed on The X Factor in 2011, when she was only 15 — and that experience is mined for her one-woman show “FIXED,” which she is taking to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 2022. Before that, though, Wilson sat down with me to talk about what happened after The X Factor and how it’s formed her as a person and as a performer.
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Your show, FIXED, talks about your experience performing on The X Factor when you were 15. So last things first: How was your Sweet 16?
I didn’t have a Sweet 16. But going to everybody else’s sucked, if that’s a proper answer. I had a Bat Mitzvah. When you’re Jewish, you get one or the other, so I went with the 13-year-old Sweet 16.
OK. I knew about the Bat and Bar Mitzvah, but I didn’t realize it was an either/or situation.
I feel like it’s implied of like, are you gonna make your parents throw you another big thing three years later? Your Christian friends take care of the high school party, while the Jews get the middle school party. That’s the push and pull.
Well, I asked that question because I wanted to know what the next year was like for you after you were on national television?
Yeah, it was definitely shitty. Definitely sucked. I remember Yeah. I mean, obviously, the spoiler of me not succeeding is not a spoiler, because clearly you’ve never heard of me from The X Factor until seeing this show. So yes, I got voted off and that next year was bad. I went back to high school and I had to catch up on all the schoolwork I missed from being out in California, and kind of just dove headfirst into school, and like I’m gonna get good grades. That’s how I’m gonna make my place in this world. And I’m gonna focus on that. I got a job at the pharmacy in my town and for a while, Austin, who was my best friend that I went on the show with — Austin and I were like the town’s celebrities. And so everywhere I go, like Starbucks or the mall or anywhere, people would point and stare and say, ‘That’s them. They were on the show,’ which when you’re no longer on anymore and you’re 16, doesn’t feel as good as when they know you’re about to go on it and they’re pointing at you. So that was definitely brutal. But yeah, I basically kind of stopped singing and went back into school and kind of tried to forget about the whole thing as much as I could.
Did you have an identity crisis? Or no?
I had a gradual one, I would say because the following summer after that, 2013 — so not the next summer, but the one after — I did NYU’s recorded music summer program. You could be like the performer, the producer, or the manager, and I went into it saying, I’m going to be a music manager. I’m not meant to be in front of the camera or on the microphone. I’m going to manage bands or artists. And that was awful. I felt like I was just teasing myself by being in the world of it and not really getting to do what I, in my heart of hearts, wanted. And so I slowly tested the waters of, can I still do music? Can I be around it? And then I wound up applying to NYU for communications. But yeah, I would say I didn’t have a single moment of like a breakdown. It was just this slow process of ignoring certain pains and trying new things and trying my way around it but, I don’ know. Sixteen is a very weird age for your dreams to get shattered, and have to figure out how to move on from it. So I’ve kind of stretched out the process of: What will I do next? If that makes any sense.
But there was never a point where it broke you to the point where you were ready to say goodbye to show business completely. You didn’t take that job at the pharmacy and go, ‘You know what? I’m going to kind of go into medicine now.’ The following summer, you were still like, ‘No, no, I’m gonna be part of the music business. But maybe I’ll be a manager.’ You still wanted to be part of it even after experiencing the harsh glow of show business and reality television.
I definitely did. I think I felt very unsure but, yeah, no other drastically different field was calling my name in terms of like doctor, science, politics, like none of that felt like my calling card. I think I just felt confused. The show made me so certain that I was not meant to be any kind of performer or creator of any kind of entertainment. I think I just felt like well, I want to be in and around it, but honestly, a lot of my thought process feels blacked out in my head of how I actually navigated decision-making in that time.
How long did that decision-making blackout last for you?
Yeah, you know, it’s funny because a lot of writing this show. Going back to the footage and going back to in the show, there’s diary entries, as you saw, and some of the lines in those diaries are real, real lines from my actual diaries from the time. And so to write this show, I went back to a lot of that. And so many things were brought back that I think I had truly just blocked out of like, that was such a separate time in my head for me, and I had moved on mentally, and so I couldn’t remember certain things. And going back to the diaries and going back to the footage. I was like, Oh! Geez. Totally remember that. But I don’t have much documentation of how I felt afterward. And I would say that that six-month period after — because they brought us back for the finale. And we came back out for the finale of the show. The top 12 came back and did another performance there.
Talk about InTENsity.
Yeah, we all did an iteration of ‘Without You’ by Chris Brown, I think? And so after that, I like sincerely don’t really remember much of what I thought I was gonna do next. I do remember applying to the summer programs wanting to be in New York, wanting to be around it. And I would say it wasn’t until college when I feel like I really gotten a clearer sense of just what I was doing again, like I think I kind of just leaned on academia and trusted, if I get good grades by going into college, I’ll figure something out. And yeah, it was once I was at NYU, where I found myself socially in the world of performing again, and then it kind of all came back.
So just as a point of clarification, timing-wise: When you were invited back for the finale, had the initial episodes aired by that point?
Yes.
That’s gotta be wild because you’re in high school. You’ve had all of your classmates and your teachers watch those initial episodes. And then you have to say, Oh, by the way, I’m going back!
Yeah, it was. I mean, the truth is, as was the truth of the audition airing, everybody in my town was just like, mesmerized by the idea that we were on TV. That was kind of like the ultimate takeaway — it was just so cool that Austin and I were going to Hollywood and being on the show. And so I think the context of it going badly and being taken away from us was not as important as the thing itself. Then again, that’s my perspective. I’m sure there was plenty of murmurings about town of like, damn, they really got eaten up on that show, huh? But for the most part, I just remember there being whispers, and everybody asking all these questions of what that was like and all that kind of stuff.
Because I didn’t have reality TV, social media or even the Internet as a kid, I already feel kind of like an old fuddy-duddy just thinking about how people want to be on reality TV no matter what the stakes are, no matter the consequences. And so even just you saying in retrospect that the people of your town were just so excited for you, even though you felt embarrassed. It’s kinda baffling?!
Yeah, totally. I remember so much of my elementary school and middle school and high school, like Tuesday and Wednesday nights, I was home at eight o’clock in my living room watching American Idol, watching The X Factor, watching America’s Got Talent. I like breathed those shows. And what was so amazing about them was you would see these everyday Americans chasing their dreams, it appeared. And some of them can make them come true. As a kid watching that, who likes to do the same thing. You’re watching and you’re thinking like, I think I can do that. I can have a shot at that. And then for your little small town, you go and oh my god! You’re in the finals? I can vote for you? That’s just like this crazy thing that I think powers over the idea of what actually what it actually felt like.
Right. Not to divulge too many details but even your father’s experience with the show seems completely removed from your reality of it.
Yeah, it was funny cuz my parents saw this show recently twice. And my dad was talking to me afterward and a lot of what he was saying to me was like, there were a lot of things he didn’t just realize at the time because, you know, it was his perspective. It was cool. I still, on my exterior, was excited and it was cool. And even for me. I mean, honestly, it took me a really long time to even understand what happened to me and how I felt about it and how it affected me. I put this experience out of my head up until like this past year. Like I always just like didn’t talk about it. I never wanted anybody to know about it. If they asked questions, I brushed it off. And I didn’t acknowledge it with myself. I remember when I was in therapy. It was like eight months in, and I said something to my therapist along the lines of like, yeah, and then blah, blah, blah because of X Factor. And she was like, ‘Sorry, what?’ I was like, oh, yeah, when I was 15. I was on this show. And she was like ‘Hang on. Back up. We need to talk about this.’ Like it was just so not something I considered part of my my psyche or anything in my life.
Not to break patient-client confidentiality, but you’re the patient. Did your therapist ever broached the notion of PTSD?
No. Well, I guess not in terms of actually, like, experiencing a physical sense of PTSD. But, I mean, I’ll be transparent with you. A lot of my issues. And I think a lot of people’s issues in pursuing any kind of anything is just this feeling of imposter syndrome. And I had this big thing starting out in comedy. I just had this overwhelming sensation of I should not be doing this — which is what a lot of people I think feel, even when they have four Netflix specials. You’ll hear on interviews people saying like really? You sure? Me? But that was like a huge connection. Well, remember when you were still your brain was still developing and the whole world told you you shouldn’t be doing anything with a microphone. And so that was naturally a connection made but not PTSD, specifically,
What helped you finally reach the point where you could talk about this and even more wanted to talk about this?
There’s so many factors, I feel that went into it, but I would I would say the main thing is, by the time I decided to do it, I was like four-and-a-half years into stand-up. And I think you know that it takes eight to 10 years to really find a solid voice — stand-up is so unique in the sense of like, it takes years before you even are sure of what your voice is and what your perspective is. But I think the combination of being that far in and having done it and having a sense of my sense of humor, and then it was actually coming out of COVID, summer 2021, shows really becoming more of an indoor constant thing. And I was thinking of new material and new jokes, honestly trying to think of what I found funny anymore. I so specifically remember, an afternoon I was at my boyfriend’s house. His little brother, who was 15 at the time, asked me about it. He was like, what was that? When you were on that show? And I was like, Yeah, I’ll just tell you. What do you want to know? And I started telling him and we started pulling up the clips. And it was my boyfriend who was like, Em. This is your material. You have to tell, this is crazy! I mean, he knew about it, but it was in that moment where I think we were literally working on a joke of mine. And he was like, this is it! This is what we have to talk about. And I was sincerely, it really sounds stupid. But I was like, I don’t know. I mean, it’s so crazy. What would I truly, what would I even say? And then a week later I wrote this 10-minute set about the audition process, which was sloppy in itself, but like I tried it at my weekly show, and the reaction of the room in combination with how vulnerable and real I felt? It was like oh, this is something I’ve got to attempt. There’s a show here and there’s a story here and I hope I can fit it into an hour-type thing. And so I think it was the combination of just the time doing stand-up, the odds of my boyfriend’s little brother bringing it up, as I’m trying to think of something new to write about. It was just those mixing of things. I was like, Oh yeah, maybe this is and then seeing that first reaction. I was so scared to tell what happened and then just seeing how raw and awesome it felt.
Ausem. Heheh.
Yeah. Awesome. Yes. Felt like this is my revisiting of it. And this is my retelling of it.
Of course, going back to those old clips. There was nothing, at least at the time you were making those clips, with Austin — there was nothing funny, nothing ironic about it at the time. When you were 14-15, you both were determined, or maybe you were determined and Austin was along for the ride. But you were determined to be a singing sensation.
Sounds so funny. Yeah.
When did that idea flip for you? Were you decided I could be detached and ironic and funny, not just about this experience, but as a comedian at heart who also can sing?
First of all, growing up I was an SNL-head and I was always trying to make all my friends laugh and I was always performing for them. Like when we would get drunk at parties or like in someone’s basement at sleepovers, I was trying to do bits and make people laugh and I think I always had, and I would always make music videos and try and make some funny stuff. So I feel like I always had that bone in me, but honestly like the inner child inside of me, my favorite thing in a world is singing. Still to this day, like I’m always still singing around my apartment and I love it. And so after the show, me and and the people I was on the show with, we immediately started making fun of ourselves even while we were still on it, because we saw how ridiculous so much of it was while we were on the show and it felt so ridiculous. And so the irony of looking at the show for what it was came while I was still on it. It almost felt fun that we were like this rebellious group like making fun of the moves the show was making while we were still on it. And then after it was over, and it felt like that was just so out of reach. I mean, the first thing I was trying to do, consciously or subconsciously was make fun of myself before anybody else could. And so I feel like the experience became a joke to me immediately. And then in terms of like, comedy, actually pursuing it. I don’t think I ever thought of it. You know, I grew up in a very, I would say my house was very like academic in a way of grades in school. At least I don’t know if that was a mix of my parents putting that on me and me thinking that for myself that. I just never even knew you could do comedy as like a pursuit, if that makes sense. And even when I was doing X Factor and singing a lot of it like my dad even said to me after he saw the show, he was like, yeah, when you and Austin were making those videos, I thought you were just like goofing around having a good time. It was like, No, we were seriously trying to become famous singers. And so I think in college I found myself around comedy people a lot, and that’s when I found UCB. I saw that that path was there. And that was when I kind of went after that. And then it wasn’t until later. You know, seeing what Bo Burnham and going to these open mics where people had guitars. I was like, Oh my God, you could combine the two! I didn’t know you can do all this and so that’s way later it became clear to me that I could do the art form of musical comedy. But I would say the point of irony came to me immediately. Like this is so embarrassing that I did this, especially for me since I was like a laughing point of our storyline.
So take me back to 2011. Was it rampant throughout your high school and throughout your town that the kids of your age were all going on YouTube and creating your own channels, or was that just a subset?
It was like, it was me and Austin and then there were these two girls at my school who had this like pretty big channel where they didn’t sing, but they would like make videos. People would just make music videos of them lip-syncing or like vlogs of them talking like super fast and put them online. So we had two friends who were like big on YouTube for that. And then like one of their friends and we were like the YouTube kids, but nobody else did that. No one even I don’t think, knew we were doing it. It was just the thing we did in our free time and we had like YouTuber friends. Like in America. We lived in this YouTube community, which was not part of our social life at school, at all.
I know that among my comedian friends, the ones who were younger were definitely into vlogging, but now cut to 2022, and it’s TikTok. And everybody is expressing their opinions on everything. It might have started out with lip syncing and dance moves. But now it’s just everybody broadcasting their lives 24/7.
Part of me thinks if you were like 15 now with TikTok. I can’t tell if it’s better or worse because part of me thinks since it’s such the norm of life now is like everybody’s lives are online. It takes away some of the brutality of harsh comments because everybody’s experiencing that, for the most part, like all teenagers are now on. They’re putting their lives online communicating on there. Whereas for us, it was like the beginning of the wild wild west’s Internet of just like, strangers on YouTube. There was MySpace, and I remember being told, don’t go on there. It’s creepy. It was so much more of a dark area that I don’t know, I would think that the base level of the internet now would make it less vulnerable to put yourself online. But then again, I don’t know, being 15, and going on the internet is just like a wild experience for any kind of young brain that I don’t know.
How long did it take you to change your YouTube experience after the show?
We got rid of our channel immediately after, and we stopped doing it. Yeah, we stopped doing it. And that was it. I think we were like Austin made a solo channel. I considered it and then we were just like, No, it just kind of stopped there.
When did you start making content for the masses again?
In college, I started putting dumb videos on Instagram for my friends. And then when I started doing comedy, I would put little videos on Instagram. Yeah, slowly but surely just throwing out like dumb little jokes or character videos. Like 2017, 2018, stupid videos, Vine-esq type things. Actually senior year of high school, I tried to make funny Vines. And I would put those out, but in terms of like a serious pursuit of like, I am putting this online for people to see and and propel me forward in a sense? College, it was college.
Describe your approach today to social media. Because I follow you on IG, and when you go on Instagram, particularly. I feel like most people don’t even check the main feed anymore. They’re just watching stories. At least that’s my own anecdotal experience based on what people follow of my stuff. They follow the stories but not the photos. Not what Instagram was designed for initially. But when I watched yours, I’d only bring this up because when I watched your stories you have such a different approach to your stories. It seems like we’re like you’re not in your mid 20s You’re an old soul, trying to trying to make everyone else feel comfortable about going through their day as you go through your day. Where does that come from?
Yeah, I would say that’s actually the best description I’ve ever heard of what I try to do on on my Instagram stories. I think it comes from a little bit of a nihilism with social media, because I feel like you know, through my adolescence and college years. Algorithms and what social media is has, like changed so much. Like when I first went on Instagram, it was an app for your friends. I was in high school and you’re posting pictures with horrendous filters of just what you’re doing. And then now it’s like a marketplace and it’s becoming the new Facebook and it’s just like, you know, you can’t trust your feed. Like you said, everything in feed is like what is this? Every other thing is an ad. Something I’m actually interested in I won’t see until three days later and I’m like, Oh when did they post this? It’s so not personal anymore? And stories, I think Instagram pushes stories to like, be more like TikTok. But for me, it’s just like, I don’t know if you’re gonna see this. This is disappearing in 24 hours and it’s become I think just a place for me to share. If something pops into my head or if I have a thought and I think it’s silly. I just like throw it on there. To me it feels like a throwing shit at the wall for the sake of, hey guys what’s going on? I think it’s literally like that ‘Hey guys!’ thing that I do on my show a lot. YouTube videos where I’m like, ‘Hey, guys, it’s Emily. Like, this is what I’m doing.’ Like, I think it’s like the 2022, me at 26 version of that. Here’s a quick thing I thought about or like hey, have a great day. This app is garbage and everything on here sucks and, and I think I have two modes. I think I have that. And then the stuff I put on feed is curated like if you visit my page, you can get a sense of what I do. But yeah, stories are very much like my, I appreciate the old soul thing. I think it’s just me just sharing how I feel for a moment and yeah, trying to make somebody feel like there’s human beings on there feeling a certain way.
How has your view of fame changed over the past decade?
Oh man, I think it’s so tricky because I mean, naturally, I’m still in a sense, pursuing it by doing comedy. Very much the sense of entertainment. success and fame are not mutually exclusive, in a way, at least when you’re performing and in front of the camera on a stage. I think I went through a phase when I started comedy where there was very much that same kind of reach that I had as a kid of just like, look at me, look at me, look at me, and I’m posting these things. And I want everybody to just look at what I’m doing all the time. And I would just put stuff on Instagram all the time just for the sake of doing it and for the sake of people watching me. And I was doing open mics all the time and just like, I think I there was an inner child in me who felt like well, if I couldn’t do it that way, I’ll do it this way. I cringe now even at like the 22-year-old version of me who was like, just trying to be online and be looked at and go viral and blow up. Honestly and it’s so almost embarrassing for me to say that it was this recent, but I think COVID a lot of that edge away for me. I mean, for a lot of people, you can’t do the thing you wanted to do. We can’t get on stage. I mean there was TikTok and there was the internet. But there was this time spent with yourself and I think it really made me have to question, what am I doing this for? What do I want out of it? And, you know, having listened to a lot of interviews and my boyfriend’s also in comedy. And he’s having a successful moment right now. And through him I’m seeing like, what does it look like to actually have your 9-to-5 be in comedy and when you realize that it’s like, you still have to work, and you still have to make meaningful things and if this is gonna be the thing you spend all your time doing you better like it. I guess just realizing that 1) fame is so disgusting and once you get A-list fame, goodbye to so many things that you actually do like, like privacy and wanting to live your life the way you want to. And 2) no matter what you still have to wake up and make coffee and like spend your day doing something and so you should like what you’re doing and I think for me, it really made me realize, OK, what do I want out of comedy? Why am I doing this? What do I really like? And I think so much of it for me is like the joke writing process, the thrill of telling a joke and people laughing and the thrill of making people feel good. And I think when I came to terms with that, it became so much more clear that a better use of my time, so much of writing the show was spent in my apartment with Sam Blumenfeld, who’s my co writer and director, creating the jokes and making the footage and the joy of that, I realized is so much more. There’s so much more longevity to the joy of the actual creation of a product that means something to you versus the drug side of it. Because I think anybody even if you’re well meaning in show business. Fame is such a drug and you can so easily get caught up in that. And I think when you get a sense of it and a sense of how awful it can be. It makes you question the side of it that you’re really doing it for, and I think COVID and taking away a lot of exposure really helped me to get in touch with that more and what that really means for me and what I really want to be saying and doing.
You are in the orbit of the Please Don’t Destroy guys. And they got hired in the pandemic after making videos, they got hired to make videos for SNL. How has watching them go viral? How was watching them go through that process influenced your own path?
It’s been like tremendously helpful to get the bird’s eye view on their whole experience. Because you just see, first of all, you see what it looks like, you know, one month we’re locked up in our apartment. Two months later everywhere John and I go we’re getting stopped for a picture. Oh my God, like how just how rapidly that can happen. And then 2), I don’t know anybody who works as often and as hard as they do like, especially with SNL and all the other things that they’re working on. They work like truly 12-to-14 hour days. And it just shows you that like when your dreams come true. It’s hard. You still have to be doing the work and so you better like what you’re doing because it will become your all-the-time job and I’ve seen that with them and God bless them. They are so hardworking, and they do love it and you hang out with them. You see that they’re they’re still doing bits and jokes all the time, even in the most stressful moments. But they’re the most perfect people for that because that’s always what they wanted. That’s what they want to do. And it’s shown me like, figure out exactly what you want to do. Because if you get it and if you get permission to do it on the larger scale. That’s what you’re going to be doing all the time. So it better not be just for people to look at you and just for — I mean naturally doing comedy or doing any kind of performing. There’s an inner part of you that wants people to look at you and you want people’s attention, but it better be the thing you really want. Because if God is, if everything is looking out for you and everything works out and you get that chance, that’s what you’re gonna be doing all the time. So that’s been a huge lesson I’ve learned from them of like, you want it great, here you go. You have to do it all the time. And guess what? All these extra people now know who you are and are expecting this from you. So that’s something I don’t think I would have learned unless I had saw it firsthand through their experience.
So the title of your show is FIXED. Which implies that you were broken? And that you are no longer broken?
Yeah, first of all, I was looking for a name that had an x in it to use The X Factor x. That’s the main thing I should say. So I was looking for a word that had an X in it. I was also looking for a one-word title. And FIXED is meant to have this double meaning of like, I’m fixed in the sense of like, I’m not fixed, as in like, I’m perfect now. One of the last lines in my show is: I’m sure one day I’ll look back and I’ll hate this show too. And the idea is like, I am just now able to deal with things like this and look at my past self and come to terms with that. And then the double meaning is, the show was fixed and it was always going to be out of my control. And what I thought was a dream. They wrote my story and it was never in my hands. And so it’s meant to have that like double meaning while having the X Factor logo in there.
Well, Emily Wilson, thank you so much for sitting down with me. I look forward to seeing how your show FIXED has evolved, and very much look forward to seeing what your journey looks like after Edinburgh.
Thank you. Thanks so much for bringing me on and seeing the show. And yeah, thanks for talking to me about it.
It’s my pleasure.
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