Episode #418
It’s the end of 2022, which means it’s time once again for my annual year-end check-in with Jason Zinoman, critic at-large for The New York Times. Jason and I talk about the top trends we saw in comedy this year, the best up-and-comers in stand-up, the craziest ways comedy intersected with politics. And after all that, could we determine a Most Valuable Performer for the year? It’s our Comedy MVPs of 2022 episode.
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This transcript has been edited and condensed only slightly for your convenience.
Welcome to the 8th annual Comedy MVPs podcast. Joining me once again, the illustrious now Guild-worthy, Jason Zinoman, critic at-large for The New York Times. Welcome, Jason.
Great to be here, eight years. We’re so old, Sean. We’re grizzled veterans.
But are we as grizzled as the comedians we’re about to talk about?
Some of them! You know, like a lot of critics, probably you. I don’t want to assume, but I have mixed feelings about these year-end things. I’ve realized they have a real important purpose, because people pay attention to them and they read them. That matters. It gives exposure in a way that other things don’t. So I always try to get a lot of young up-and-comers in here, because I feel like, what’s the point? To the extent that you can’t grade art, right? It’s not sports, you know, but I think —
It’s not sports?! We’re announcing the MVP!
I know, I know. I hate to break the fourth wall and point out this ridiculous exercise for what it is, but it has been eight years. People can handle the truth. It’s a charade. The whole thing’s a charade.
I like that you did point out that you’ve learned to embrace it and make it your own because your Best Comedy of 2022 column in The New York Times (GIFT LINK!), is structured around as many different superlatives as you can conjure up, which does give space for people who otherwise wouldn’t make a top 10 list, for example.
That’s intentional. That’s intentional. I was worried that they were going to make me do a top 10. I didn’t do a Top 10, but I do feel like, to not be a coward, I try to do best special. Looking back at this year, what really stood out for you? If I was to say, ‘2022 comedy: What happened? Explain it to someone in the future, Sean.’ What would you say?
OK. Two things stuck out to me in terms of performance. The first is noticing just how much comedians loved having live audiences back. The number of specials that dealt with crowd work, or that dealt with — you could just see it on some of these comedians faces, their joy in being able to interact with a crowd. You know, the top special on most everybody’s list this year was Jerrod Carmichael’s Rothaniel. And that one — I don’t know that it was even intentional, the call-and-response that comes with the audience, but then you saw that in a number of other specials that came out in the year. Or comedians, like Patton Oswalt, you wouldn’t think of him as a crowd work guy but he devoted a solid 10-15 minutes for just dicking around with people in the front row. Obviously they were just so overjoyed to have people in front of them.
This is a fantastic point. And I don’t think anyone’s actually like put those together did that like this is because of the pandemic but I think you’re right, it is. And it wasn’t just Patton Oswalt. You have people who always did crowd work stuff, like
Right, like Sam Morril.
Andrew Schulz did a lot of crowd work. I went to see James Acaster, who is the critical darling for his last one. His show now, it’s called (Hecklers Welcome). The premise of it was people can heckle him all they want. And he embraced it. I gotta be honest, I think you’re right. I found looking back at what I wrote this year, I wrote a lot about audience and lack of audience — you know, Norm Macdonald, Bo Burnham, I wrote a piece on that. I wrote about Daniel Kitson, which talked about his trying to think about the audience in a more intimate, humane person-by-person way. You had, obviously, all the kind of people who are complaining about the cancel culture brigade, thinking about audience and hemming them in. I understand why yeah, I think people miss being in the room with other people. They realize that that’s part of what’s special about live comedy. I think reinventing the relationship is a great thing. That said, I’m a little ambivalent, we get a good sign that we’re normalizing crowd work in stand-up specials. You and I are old enough to remember, I remember there was an episode of Louie in which he dramatized a debate among comedians about crowd work. And in the way that he often did that show, he gave the best argument to the side he didn’t agree with, right? He was the anti-crowd work guy, but it was seen as kind of bold that he was giving the best argument to people who do crowd work well, right? And I think it’s interesting to look at as a historical marker that like we’ve come so far that now, it doesn’t seem so bold to stand up for crowd work. It’s everywhere. It’s on social media, constantly is crowd-work clips. People who don’t understand, crowd work is a lot easier than it looks and it can be a bit of a cheap track. There’s good and bad, but what do you think about it?
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I think you and I both noticed Kyle Kinane put out a clip this past week where he’s like the algorithm is demanding I do crowd work but I hate crowd work. You said something else just now about another way that comedians are interacting with the audience that I also saw as a trend or a continuation of a trend, which is the notion that these famous wealthy comedians who are complaining about cancel culture, about the woke virus, the Elon Musk comedians of the world, as it were.
The MVP. The cheap MVP.
Actually, it’s the new hack. Go back 30 some years to when Andy Kindler published the hack handbook of comedy. It was all about the fact that hack isn’t just talking about airplane. Hack is about pandering to the audience because it’s the cheapest kind of response or laughter you can get, and that’s what this stuff is to me now. I don’t know. You know, you and I are both Generation X. And it seems like a lot of these comedians that are falling into this trap are also Generation X. I don’t know what that says about us as a demographic.
The Hack’s Handbook by Andy Kindler, circa 1991, in National Lampoon
Someone should bring back Kindler’s Hack Handbook or I don’t know, if that’s that exact thing. The thing that I think someone should do. They should have a site, and I don’t how to do it. But I think about this all the time. When things become hack. It’s not like exact, but if you see enough comedy, you start and you see like the same premise enough you’re like, OK, if I was someone who cared about being original, I wouldn’t use that anymore, right? And it’s different in 2022 than was in 2012, right? So for instance, by the way, let me just say another example I thought of was interactive specials, where they allowed the audience to choose where to go next. Another example of people playing with audiences.
But Elon Musk is I think, the comedy MVP, and a great example,
Wait, are you serious? Or sarcastic?
I am. I’m saying he’s a great judge of what is hack. He’s very interested in comedy. He steals a lot of jokes. And when he made that joke, ‘My pronouns are Prosecute/Fauci.’ Let’s put aside the politics and look at the comedy. That was like, OK, like there’s as good a sign as ever, as no one should ever make that premise ever again, and be taken seriously as a funny person.
The second one, a lot of these hack things in 2022 are about like trans issues, right? Like, I identify now as a gym sock or whatever. Any joke. Just forget about the politics for a second. I mean, it’s just, I don’t care. I know you live in New York. You think you’re surrounded by liberals? Whatever. A million people have done that premise. And so when Sebastian Maniscalco, who until now, I was under the impression wanted to present himself as deserving a political comedian who appeals to everybody, builds this whole premise over a thing he invented. A thing he has said is not true.
He probably got it from listening to Joe Rogan’s podcast.
He probably got it from there. But we don’t know that, but we know that it’s not true. We know he decided to make up a story about a kid who identified as a lion and ridiculed this fake thing. It’s just so telling. And it’s particularly telling is, it’s not Joe Rogan doing it. It’s the guy who I would have said would do whatever he could to not be involved in the polarizing culture wars. I do think it’s interesting to look at, you’re right I would say that some of that cancel culture stuff was hack years ago, but I do think like some of the those specific examples of it like the trans jokes, the pronouns joke — those are as far as I’m concerned. Like, if I see or hear you doing that in a special, you’re not serious about doing anything big.
I like the idea of a site that tells you when a joke has jumped the shark. And then you’ve already answered it yourself by saying it’s whenever Elon Musk has put it on Twitter, that’s it. The joke is done. The format is done. The joke is done.
I mean, there’s room for disagreement, but not when it comes to Elon Musk. Like when Elon Musk does that joke, it’s done. You can make a case — and I’ve written about this — a bit like parenting, dating, they’re so universal, that you can’t say they’re off the table. But when Elon Musk does it, yeah, stop.
But you know, you bring up Sebastian and that’s why like I talked about us as Generation X and like, noticing that it’s always these guys and it’s not necessarily all white guys either, but it is predominantly guys of our generation. You didn’t think of them as having these viewpoints. But they’ve planted a stake in the ground and decided that for five or 10 minutes of their hour special, they’re going to make this argument.
I think we’re becoming hack complaining about them because I think we did it last year and the year before.
Well, OK, well, here’s something I didn’t do last year, but I only did this year. Was I asked about it. Like when I had Jeff Dunham on my podcast, I put it straight to him. It’s maybe more pronounced as a ventriloquist. The idea is, you as a comedian decide what words come out of your mouth. If you want to say that people are trying to tell you what you can and can’t say onstage, you’re still ultimately deciding what’s important to talk about, right? You’re deciding what what you’re going to take up time in your hour special. This is a new complaint, right? If you’re taking five to 10 minutes to talk about cancel culture, that’s five to 10 minutes you could have been talking about anything else. You’ve decided that this is a hill you want to die on.
But this is true of us right now. We could be talking about Sara Schaefer’s show I just saw. But we agree on this. I think that like there is also like, room for talking about language. I’m bored with it. I think that we should try to model
OK, so I know you just said your comedy MVP is Elon Musk. I would counter respectfully. TIME magazine, their Man of the Year, or Person of the Year, is a comedian. A comedian who’s the president of Ukraine. Not to be confused with Man of the Year, the 2006 film starring the late great Robin Williams, as a comedian talk show host who inadvertently runs for, becomes President of the United States. So what it be fair to argue that Volodymyr Zelenskyy, if he’s the person of the year for the entire world, that he also might be the most valuable person in comedy?
One could make a case, for sure. I’ve never seen any of his comedy. But yeah, I think he obviously is in terms of like world historical value, you can make the case, but I’m not even sure I would say Elon Musk. For me, like, I look at people who’ve made real breakthroughs who are significant, like Kate Berlant, who’s somebody who, you know, I think both of us have known about for a while. This year, she had this show downtown that everyone was talking about. It was the hottest thing in New York.
And it’s coming back over the winter.
And she had a FX special which I think was you know, although I didn’t get the attention it probably deserved. was a great example of what she did. And you know, I know a lot of people who are like, baffled by her and don’t like her. I know a lot of people who love her. Certainly she has a devoted comedy fan base. But this was the year she became someone you had to have an opinion about.
Oh definitely. She’s a great pick because she also put out a fabulous sketch comedy special with John Early on Peacock, the streaming platform that you’re not watching. She’s in the Amazon Prime Video adaptation of A League of Their Own. And she was in one of the most talked-about movies of the year, Don’t Worry Darling.
It’s a crazy year.
So she was all over the place as was Nick Kroll, who was also in Don’t Worry Darling.
That’s true. That’s true. So Carmichael, you’re right I put him as best special. A lot of people would. Would you?
I’m putting the final touches on my list and no, I don’t know who you would put higher. Although, you know, part of me feels like it’s that people will chastise us as critics and go, oh, you’re just doing the Hannah Gadsby thing again in voting for the important piece of work instead of the funniest hour. I don’t know what the funniest hour would be. Earthquake might be out there but his wasn’t even an hour. It was like 36 minutes.
That’s what I put on my list, was Earthquake as the funniest one. I embrace all those Hannah Gadsby critiques. I feel like it’s a sign that comedy critics are getting treated the same as film critics. I’ll say something. Here’s one that no one’s gonna say. I wouldn’t put in the paper but I’ll say in the podcast, because I was talking to a source a few months ago. A big industry person, OK? Not someone you would even know but like is like a person who’s involved in the business of comedy. And I can’t say who it is.
Not Robbie Praw.
No. Not Robbie Praw. But they because of this, they like hired a firm that figures out what are the most popular specials across platforms.
Now I’m intrigued and jealous.
I know. I don’t even know this because I was pretty naive about this stuff. So this person had like a top 10 of what the top 10 most popular. Granted this can be completely, even the person recognizes it’s not exact. It’s flawed. All the usual things. That said, number one, OK, what would you think the number one most watched special was? Now granted that was a couple of month ago. What do you think the most watched special was up to that point?
Hmmm. Chappelle’s lecture?
No. Not even in the top 10.
I mean, Jeff Dunham wants me to believe it’s him.
He was the number nine or something. He was in that top 10 But you’re never gonna guess because I was shocked. Shocked. But it’s revealing about our blind spots. Number one is Katt Williams World War III. Now, this tells me a couple things. One, I saw Katt Williams over the pandemic. He was the first arena show I saw and he destroyed, Oh my god. The man is like an incredible arena performer. Talk about a crowd psyched to be back in our lives.
I’ve seen him at Barclays Arena. A different tour, but yeah.
People don’t realize, because this was not even a good Katt Williams special.
Right! This was half good, half horrible.
Yeah, there was many better ones, but he’s way bigger than people realize, and certainly white people. I don’t even know if a lot of people grasp that he is an arena show act. He’s one of those guys who like yeah, came out of the pandemic early doing arena shows. One of the biggest sellers out there. He has a case in the MVP discussion, but none of the lists have him.
The numbers thing you mentioned that it might be kind of suspect or suss, as your daughters might say. This podcast goes out to your daughters who
You really do speak the language of the kids, Sean.
I don’t want this episode to be mid.
Alright. Stop before you strain yourself.
But I mean, that is one of the tricks. Also when I talked to Jeff Dunham. He talked about having access to the numbers and historically, I mean, even some of our peers following the industry have said that it’s tough for showrunners or talent to get a hold of their own numbers. And HBO doesn’t release numbers a lot. So I don’t know where your source is getting their numbers.
No, no. Precisely because of that, there are companies that are emerging to fill that niche. They want to make money. So they say, hey, I’m telling you. This is why it’s always better to release information and to be more transparent. And because people are going to find ways to do it. And then you just will have less control over that.
Dunham told me it’s the agents. His agents can figure it out. Because that’s how they make their money is knowing what the numbers are.
I don’t think this stuff is as important as other people do. But I’m interested in it. I love what I write about someone who does not that popular, I take more pride. I don’t think it means they’re good. Like that’s the thing that like the people are talking about a critique Hannah Gadsby or critique film critics for celebrating movies that are not blockbusters. That’s our job. That doesn’t mean I’m not really interested in who’s doing well. There’s how big specials are, but it’s also who’s selling tickets. That’s a huge one.
Yeah, I looked at that at the end of last year.
You do a great job of covering that. Yeah. Another big thing this year, I think is that people are selling tickets. Again. Comedy, live comedy, whatever you hear is healthy, relative to like theater, and there’s some acts that are doing you know better than — made a career over the pandemic. I mean, people like Mark Normand, Sam Morril, Shane Gillis. This year Shane Gillis became massive. And I still don’t think people understand how massive.
Tim Dillon massive?
Tim Dillon I think is the opposite. I think we talked about Tim Dillon last year. I feel like he’s fallen off a cliff. Again, I could be wrong. He’s probably still could sell out stuff. But I don’t hear most everyone I know, including big Tim Dillon fans, thought his Netflix release was terrible. And I don’t hear him in the discussion that much. Which brings me to another MVP which no one’s gonna pick and again, I bring the wild cards to the podcast: Chris Distefano.
Oh, Speshy Weshy.
Now why is Speshy Weshy maybe the most important special of the year?
Because he had to do it himself and then got it on Netflix?
He started a new business model, which is he was the first person. Netflix, until him, you would get a big paycheck or a small, relatively big paycheck, and then Netflix would have the rights forever. Because Netflix had trouble this year, their stock price dropped, etc. They started this leasing model where they have a much smaller paycheck and they have the rights for a year, two years, something like that. And you do all the marketing, you put the money down and there was a bunch of specials Tim Dillon’s among them. The average person might not notice, is a fundamentally different business model. Whitney Cummings is another one, and one that will have, may have really huge implications for the future of the Netflix special, maybe really bad ones. In the short term, it meant that Netflix was able to put out just as many specials as in years past despite spending much less money. I remember getting the email from Chris Distefano, and it was like, independently released his Netflix special. And I was like: What does that even mean? So I called up and I asked around and I was like, Oh, he’s part of, he’s on the vanguard of this new thing. And when he gets the rights back, he’ll be able to distribute it in any way he wants. That’s one thing a lot of comedians want, right? They want the right to be able to put it on YouTube, etc. So it will be interesting. I also worry this means that Netflix will take less risks on new artists. Because if you do this lease model, you need to have enough money to make special. You’re not getting enough money in the down payment. So it’s good for people who already have built an audience like Tim Dillon.
It almost sounds like a return to the original Netflix strategy
100%
before they got into the business at all, where they were just acquiring. I mean they did one for Zach Galifianakis and I guess they did one for Jeff Garlin. Then until Bill Burr, it was mostly they were just acquiring things.
This is a very savvy point, which is that it’s not as revolutionary as it seems. Because, for instance, most people don’t know Ali Wong’s breakthrough, she made herself, paid for it. Basically was the same model. So it is more like a return to what it was originally. That said, the idea of the Netflix special being this big deal. Part of it was like the exclusivity of it. They’d have it forever. This is the year that change. Who else do you have, Sean?
Well, for a second there before you said the words Chris Distefano, I thought you were gonna say Joe Rogan. And not because not because of Joe himself, but because those other names that you mentioned right before. Mark Normand, Shane Gillis, in terms of getting huge. This past year as Joe Rogan’s podcast has sort of retracted a bit. He’s had those guys on as like part of like a monthly panel talk. So he’s essentially like giving these guys a huge push.
Is that true? Has it retracted?
Certainly, I haven’t heard people talking about him as much in December 2022 as I had in January 2022. And I say retracted just in terms of who he’s getting as guests. It seems like he’s having a lot of repeat business. And the comedian panel is symbolic of that. I think the panel is Mark Normand, Shane Gillis and Ari Shaffir.
Well, I would say Rogan’s name it doesn’t even come up to me for 2022. Previous years he might be, but like those are examples of people, and you have to give credit where it’s due. Shane Gillis made his success through YouTube through a special. It wasn’t Joe Rogan. I mean it helped here and there, but like that was a massive (NOTE: 8.6 million views since Sept. 2021). I remember looking at the numbers and it was like, Oh, this is way bigger than anything else. This translated into ticket sales. Ari Shaffir, I don’t think it’s as big as that Shane Gillis one was, but he finally came out with that special, Jew, which also did really well (NOTE: 5.25 million views on YouTube since Nov. 2). I think this was a big year for YouTube. Netflix had a bad year. YouTube had a good one. That’s the other part of the leasing thing, is that the leasing thing is a way to compete with YouTube, because that’s a bigger threat. The thing that baffles me is why other streaming services — Peacock, Amazon, FX — aren’t seeing that Netflix is weak, and investing more and trying to compete.
It feels as though HBO has reminded themselves that they were once the dominant force in comedy. I know you noticed as did some of my other colleagues, when Marc Maron announced he filmed his forthcoming special — he just taped it a couple weeks ago here in New York City for HBO — he threw some shade at Netflix without saying Netflix, in that I’m finally on the proper platform. I keep going back to Jeff Dunham. Because when I interviewed him about how he had two specials on Netflix, but he felt even he wasn’t being served by algorithm and by the forces that be. And then just the other day, Nate Bargatze, one of the best comedians around whose star was helped shine through Netflix. He’s making his new special on Amazon Prime! What does that say for Netflix? When these critically acclaimed, popular comedians are bolting?
There’s a lot of grumbling about Netflix from all corners. I think it says that a lot of people got fed up with Netflix this year. A lot of them started looking to make deals with other places, often not finding enough. That’s the one thing, but I think there’s starting to be some examples you pointed to big ones. I think Nate Bargatze is a really significant one, but I would think I mean, Amazon has the power to certainly out pay Netflix on a Nate Bargatze. Nikki Glazer is somebody else who came out on HBO. These are people who were on Netflix went to HBO right? It’s too early to say like RIP Netflix for sure. They’re still the biggest game in town. They’re steadily putting out popular specials, many of which are really good. Like I said, Earthquake. To me, Earthquake has been a great comic for a long time, from my hometown of Washington, DC. He shot it in Washington DC. Now he’s a next level of fame completely due to Netflix. And you know, they also trusted Chappelle to let, I assume Chappelle chose that one. Credit where it’s due: like that that mattered. But increasingly, I think you’re seeing people would rather break on HBO or somewhere else. So yeah, I think be there will be more Nate Bargatze level names coming up at non-Netflix places from what I hear.
So you asked me what other names I had. And, you know, I tried to prepare for this, not just mentally, but logistically by creating a new concept a year and a half ago called Employee of the Month, because comedy doesn’t have an HR department, which we’ve all seen was terrible and terribly necessary, but announcing an employee of the month thinking, when I went back at the end of the year, I could look at these monthly winners and go oh, that’s obviously the MVP. But for 2022, I was all over the map.
W. Kamau Bell (January 2022), Volodymyr Zelenskyy (February 2022), Amy Schumer (March 2022), Jerrod Carmichael (April 2022), The Kids In The Hall (May 2022), Joel Kim Booster (June 2022), Janelle James (July 2022), Alyssa Limperis (August 2022), Kate Berlant (September 2022), Sarah Sherman (October 2022), and then comedians mocking Elon Musk in November.
And then I realized a name I didn’t have on the list who might be interesting to talk about is Trevor Noah, who hosted the Grammys, he was the keynote speaker at the White House Correspondents Dinner. And then ended The Daily Show, and the very next day filmed a Netflix special, which was pretty good.
Yeah, he’s certainly. He shoes he doesn’t really need The Daily Show in a way.
Do we even need The Daily Show is what I think his departure signals.
I was not like the Trevor Noah era was this golden age, but I do think he did a lot of things well, including. I think he gets enough credit for his correspondents. Ronny Chieng, Roy Wood Jr., in particular. I wrote this in the paper, but I want Comedy Central to give them a show, one of them really. I like Jordan Klepper, but I feel like those two are really — there’s always like, you want to get some unknown quantity or some big star, but these jobs are workhorse jobs. You want people who are prolific, have an interesting point of view, you might even agree with that. I don’t always agree with everything these guys say but I don’t care. They have I think have the kind of comic minds that would flourish and more importantly, on a daily show and make it really relevant. And also I think they’re more dedicated to jokes than Trevor Noah is. They have higher standards for it than Trevor Noah. He is a charming performer, but they really are joke artists. And I think that would benefit. I want to say a couple of things about things that I saw this year that I thought were great, that will probably maybe not pop until next year. One is Sara Schaefer has a show. This show is gonna be big. In like the kind of the world of one-person shows that have something to say about comedy. Like Hannah Gadsby, but not as political as that. But spoofing a Scientology guru about her. She’s a guru telling you how to get into the comedy world.
The genesis of this came out of those podcasts she was doing?
I mean, I’m sure, and she’s been around for years. She’s been good for a long time. She’s done a lot of different things. She had a talk show, she’s had stand up you know, so she’s seen a lot of parts of the industry. She’s the perfect person for this to be like a nice vehicle. So I would say like, I saw like an early version of that. And it’s going to be all over — I think it’s going to be you know, Edinburgh, all those places next year. Martin Urbano is another one, and he’s sort of like, these younger Brooklyn comic, maybe late 20s now or something like that, but he has a kind of younger Jeselnik in his joke writing,
But also mocking the industry.
Also mocking the industry in a way that I think is is clever and interesting. I’m curious to see what comes. Have you seen this comic Isabel Hagen?
I saw her Tonight Show performance. I haven’t seen her. I know she was doing a show at Union Hall. I haven’t seen it there. The whole show.
And she’s Juilliard trained in like, incorporates music, classical music and jokes in a way that I haven’t seen. That, to me, is really I’m interested to see what she does with that.
I know you and I will love all of these things. I wonder and I worry if the general public will see it for what it is and can be. I guess that’s our job right? Is to alert the mainstream general public that this is what you should be paying attention.
As I said before, I’m interested in the general public. That’s why I say Katt Williams is actually the most popular. Ultimately, it’s not the most important thing. Like it’s what like I think is interesting, exciting and good. The reality is what’s revealed by that Katt Williams fact is we don’t really know. We’re all guessing to some degree. Like Trevor Noah, is to certain people The Daily Show is comedy. I think the talk show matters less than it did before, but trust me there are people who really care about The Daily Show. So it’s like guessing about what is popular or not is not a game that I think is — it’s fun the way the games are fun, but it’s not like a serious thing that like I can put stock in.
Right, it’s because we have become so fragmented thanks to social media, and thanks to the way things have divided from the big three networks into streaming platforms that don’t reveal their numbers. And even if you want to argue that the Nielsen numbers a generation ago were flawed, we at least had something that we agreed on. Oh, this is what everybody’s talking about. Because this is what everybody’s watching. You’re right. We don’t know. Twitter, pre-Elon, Twitter was only 10% of us, chattering amongst ourselves. We didn’t even know what the other 90% of people were actually watching and talking about.
Completely, and to argue against myself for a second. And this plays into an MVP. I mean, a big thing happened this year, Chappelle’s SNL monologue talking about Kanye and anti-semitism. One thing I noticed having nothing to do with that issue, is that Chappelle’s references, still kind of rooted a lot of them are rooted in like the 90s and the 80s. Still like OJ.
Our generation has a problem we’re stuck.
But let me, I want to defend him. My first instinct is like, oh, why is he having these old references? Maybe it’s like, oh, it’s because of his age, whatever.
I see where you’re going.
Maybe it’s not. Maybe it is to build on what you just said, that he’s making references to a time when we can assume everyone understood the six things in pop culture that year. Right? Yeah, you can’t do that now. So if your job is to make jokes, you’re the kind of comedian that wants everyone to understand all the references, which is not every comedian, then choosing to make jokes that are like 20 years ago, which still young people today, they know Seinfeld they know Friends, memes. Now I’m not saying I know that’s why Chappelle is doing it. But I hear that Chris Rock is here too, because he also really pays attention to — he’s not like Dennis Miller trying to make jokes you’re not going to get — he wants you to understand his premises and his references. Everyone criticized his Oscar joke, because he’s making a GI Jane reference. Right? But it’s like, yeah, because GI Jane happened at a time when like, everyone knew what that was. Everyone how many haircuts today? Like, if you’re making a reference to a haircut on this TV show Wednesday. If you’re in a certain demographic, you’ll get it but other people won’t. It’s probably a good calculated bet to make a 90s reference. Think that more people will get it because the older people get and younger people might get in some retro way. If you make a reference to some YouTuber now, like zero people are gonna get it.
Who is Mr. Beast?
Totally. And a fraction of the younger people may? I could be 100% wrong, but it did make me think.
As you were saying that it made me realize that I’m glad that in the past year, I’ve tried to dive into the Pollstar numbers. Or the Patreon numbers. Because those are quantifiable things where you can say, in both cases, this is where people are putting their money and saying I want to spend money on this comedian. That’s saying something that you can’t say with 1000 retweets.
No, that’s that. Those stories that you did were fascinating, particularly about podcasts. There are some of them like — I was shocked by some of the you got a story where it was like the biggest Patreons…
There’s a few of these podcasts that aren’t necessarily even about comedy, but they’re run by comedians. And they’re making six figures into millions of dollars. Maybe not net but definitely gross. It reminds me of when I was first getting immersed in comedy and recognizing that there were a number of comedians who weren’t on TV, but were millionaires. Just on their road gigs. Like, oh my God, I didn’t realize you could make that much money in this business.
And you can still — I mean, I think could be wrong. But my read is that like, you’ve reached a certain saturation point with podcasts that it’s a little harder than it used to be to get big on a new podcast, and that everyone feels like they have to do it. But a lot of these podcasts are not being listened to by many people. Obviously, some of them are. I think it’s harder just like anything else. There’s so many out there. It’s harder to carve out space. I think that touring. That’s the most optimistic story you look at someone like Taylor Tomlinson. She’s a huge star. All you have to do is look at where she’s playing. He’s selling out theaters all over the place. That’s a young comedian. it’s like, where are the next big stars? Well, she’s it. She’s just beginning her career. Doesn’t have even, she’s gonna have like, a TV show and a movie and all those things. If you just look at the ticket sales that she’s pushing, and she’s doing it, I don’t think she has a podcast, but she’s all over social media. She really figured out
I see her on TikTok and Instagram.
Yeah, she wasn’t always good at it. But she’s good at it now.
Well, Jason, thankfully we started doing this podcast together eight years ago. So we’re grandfathered in, soon to be grandfathers, we’re grandfathered into the old podcast media, where everybody is listening to us and paying attention to what we say. I don’t know that we came up with a consensus of who this year’s MVP is, but we had a lot of good candidates.
So we had a lot of good candidates. It was overall would you say a good year or what?
I feel like it’s a transition year. I feel like 2023 is going to be a big year. Like you said about the things you’re already excited to see coming down the pike. I think 2022 is the year that we got back into full live performance. Netflix ramped back up to putting out one special a week. Things got back to quote unquote, normal in comedy. Of course, plenty of disadvantaged people in the world who say back to normal and comedy is not good for them. I mean, Louis CK, talk about people who are selling large venues Louis CK’s back, selling large venues once more.
I think he’s gonna have trouble selling tickets. I already think there’s some evidence of it, but you know, that’s the thing you know, it’s like it always comes back to gravity. The farther you get from mainstream media success, like the farther you get from having a show on a network that a lot of people see, that’s being written about, the harder it gets. And like it’s you can, yeah, you can get a YouTube special, make something. But eventually, the new thing comes up and crowds you out. Right? That’s just the way this works. And so there’s some people who, if their mainstream success is big enough, they can have a whole career they can spend like decades you could be like Vanilla Ice, just one brief moment. I think there’s a whole generation of people who just don’t have don’t even know Louis CK. Who isn’t that passionate. I already feel it. He doesn’t inspire the same kind of passion that he did a few years ago. You see it with someone like David Letterman. You know, he’s important to people that matter. But there’s a now it’s been a couple of years. You’re off TV.
You’re not in the zeitgeist.
You’re not in the zeitgeist. I think about the mainstream, a million critiques of mainstream media and Netflix, but certainly what I’ve seen in the media is that for all its flaws, it is better at co opting than anybody else. Look at like Tim Dillon. He’s on Netflix now. He’s on this lease thing? No one cares. Eventually they make their way in. Louis came out with that movie. Yeah, he’s still touring. But I think he’s not interested also in that level of fame that he had before, he doesn’t need it. It doesn’t really matter. What matters more is like people like Taylor Tomlinson, who are on the rise who are about to establish they’re about to have their mainstream moment. When she has her like, movie coming out, where she’s the star of a feature. And then that’s when like alright, how much can you capitalize and exploit that moment?
So, I guess it’s time for me to finally cancel our discussions on cancel culture, so in 2023, we can only talk about all of the great things that are happening in comedy.
I don’t want to cancel but doesn’t it bore you? I really find that like, it depresses me a bit how much of the media is focused on it. But really, we are guilty of this like we ask too much. I’m so tired. Look, The Daily Beast does a lot of good work. It’s clear that they want to ask every comedian about cancel culture and then put it in the headline, to get some clicks, and it’s just tiresome. I mean, it’s not that I’m not interested at all in it, but I just find it cynical.
That’s why I look forward to and I implore all of the comedians out there, stop talking about it in your own specials.
Yeah, I mean, someone like Sebastian forces you to have to talk about it. Which is weird to me that — he’s worth talking about because he doesn’t need to. He has a big audience. That’s not his core audience. So you have to assume there always was an element of nostalgia, deep nostalgia in his work. So that plays into that, you know, part of again, and it’s not crazy. It’s like sometimes like it’s a it’s a source of interesting material to be like, Oh, I’m having trouble adjusting to this new thing or this new thing is ridiculous, which it’s sometimes it is, right? It does make you think like, oh, he’s choosing to do this. This tells me where he’s coming from doesn’t mean he can’t do it. I’m sure there’s plenty of people who love it. It could be funny. But to me, like it tells me where he’s coming from, and it’s pretty hack. But I still love him Sebastian by the way. I think Sebastian is like the best act out comedian out there.
I agree. I just I feel cynically that they’ve all made this cynical, calculated show business move to go: This is what’s gonna get me more money.
See, it doesn’t make sense to me. He already has the money. He’s already selling tickets. He doesn’t need it. He’s got there without doing that. That’s that’s what makes me think he actually does care and deeply believe that this trans stuff has gone too far. Right? So that tells me something about him.
2022 came in like a lamb and came out identifying as a lion.
Nice! Nice wrap-up call back! Well done.
Well, those are my improv skills. Jason Zinoman, thank you once more. It’s always a delight and a pleasure. And even though you have such elevated status now at the Times, you’re willing
Oh, you can’t say that when you also work there
I’m a lowly freelancer. I’m not a Guild member.
I was a freelancer for 20 years!
Thank you for kibitzing with the peasants. I appreciate it and look forward to a bountiful and beautiful 2023.
It’s always great talking to you, Sean. Happy Holidays and talk to you next year.
From The Comic's Comic 
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