Are you all talking about Bill Burr the Star Wars actor?
Anyways, with the above said about YouTube and podcasts fucking things up, I've got two young kids, I'm not doing much in the way of going out to clubs or concerts, so I consume the hell out of a lot of YT stuff. I can talk about how YT is fucking things up, but at the same time, I can use it to find people I've never heard of before, and it's giving a lot of comedians and clubs an outlet (and a way to make a living) that they didn't have before. And a lot of comedians don't hold back on YT whereas they might for a filmed special on Comedy Central or Netflix (but not Anthony Jeselik).
And comedy does adapt - I love the premise of Don't Tell Comedy - Don't Tell Comedy: Secret Comedy Shows across the U.S. for instance, where you are buying tickets and you have no idea what comedian you are going to get or where it's going to be. We plan on doing this at one of the Austin dates.
We had friends who went to one of their shows, and saw Maddie Wiener, and she is somebody they would never have paid money to see before that, had never heard of her, but now they'll go see her anytime she's nearby. Hell, I wouldn't have, but they were telling me about her and looked up one of her DTC clips, and holy fucking shit she got dark at the end. She's not going to be on Joe Rogan or Netflix any time soon because reasons, but of course she has a fucking podcast, but whatever.
Would have been fun to show up at a Don't Tell Comedy special and he was there
With that said.....YouTube also surfaces a lot of absolute shit that has a fuckton of views and likes and I have absolutely no idea why, and I have to dislike this stuff to keep it off my algorithm. Like the white guy who is a Navy vet and is constantly talking about being around Black people (I think his wife is Black). It keeps surfacing it because I've watched a lot of comedy and military shows, but he's so repetitive. I feel like he did two concerts and everything on YT is just chopped up bits from those concerts.
Or Leanne Morgan. It keeps surfacing her stuff. I know she has her audience who loves her, but if I'm going to take a middle-aged blonde Morgan, I'd rather taken Karen Morgan because I find her easy on the eyes and ears and in my wheelhouse (but she keeps it really tame).
It's funny with YouTube though, sometimes this feels like "country music is dying" to me because I fucking loathe 98% of country music and country singers from the last 20 years, so I'll go out on YouTube and catch the hall-of-famers doing concerts 30-40 years ago. Same with comedy, I can go find Richard Pryor or Foster Brooks or Don Rickles or whoever.