Online comedy all 2020.
Tell anyone you're a comedian, and you can easily predict the next sentence out of their mouth:"So tell me a joke." My go-to response,"Oh, I normally get paid for that," has earned me my fair share of dirty looks.
But thatIt's something you expect when you decide to pursue a comedy career. You'll do endless open mics, get stage time at hundreds of bar shows, write dozens of sketches, fire off countless tweets into the void — all for zero dollars, hoping someone will notice just how uniquely hilarious you are and give you a paying gig: a sketch on Comedy Central's digital platform, a place in a TV writer's room, an HBO stand up special?"One time I had a small benign tumor removed from my neck and on the train ride home, I realized I could make the 6 o'clock open mic. So I did," Diego Lopez, a standup comic based in NYC, tells me. It's the grind. Now, comedy club open mics have disappeared — and maybe not just temporarily. As venues are forced to close permanently and the economy enters a recession, live shows are likely canceled for longer than we anticipate, even thenot making any money, are faced with a conundrum: quietly ride out these improbable times and hope for the best when they can get back on stage again, or find a new way to get back to that grind. Savvy comics are using this time to re-imagine their careers digitally, and the next few months and years will drastically re-shape an industry that was already in a state of flux.Previous generations of comics had few paths to stardom. Getting your foot in the proverbial door meant moving to the right city and knowing the right people.Improv and sketch houses like Second City, The PIT and, most famously, UCB, became meccas. Getting picked for the house team could make your career — just ask Donald Glover, Aubrey Plaza or Sasheer Zamata, to name a few big names who got started this way. The stages at those currently-defunct theaters were the entire platforms of many, and one of the only proven ways to move up in the comedy world. But competition was tough, classes weren't cheap , and climbing the ladder came with sacrifices.Despite being the main reason for their success, those performers did not reap any of the immediate financial benefits of being on those stages. In the unlikely instance that you were picked for a house team, after paying for months if not years of classes, you'd continue to pay: for coaches, directors, sometimes even props. Comics were putting money into a pipe dream machine that had no guarantee of giving them anything in return, except a depressing glimpse of how the industry at large tends to work. With the exception of those very few who become household names, comics have always been by and large shafted when it comes to getting compensated for their art.1598455800.0 In recent years though, especially as whispers about UCB pyramid schemes grow louder, comedians have taken to social media to exhibit their comedic aptitude, choosing to bypass the standard paths to comedy success in favor of taking their own routes."I've had nights where I've rushed from a mic in Greenpoint to a seven minute spot in Bushwick to a five minute spot in another part of Brooklyn, losing money on Ubers along the way, for what was ultimately 15 minutes of stage time total," Jenny Gorelick, a standup comic and comedy show producer, recalls."As a comedy producer, whenever possible, I try to pay comedians, and in some cases, it has been at a loss to myself."
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