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Posted (edited)

first off, there’s no goat or king of comedy currently reigning. shane gillis would be the closest thing to that ever since bill burr (who hasn’t out out a special in years) decided to sellout. and speaking of not doing specials, i would say that (aside from how politicized most comedy is these days) that the comedy podcast has played a huge part in ruining the industry. instead of tour vs elite comedian working on material constantly and then releasing a special every couple of years, now you can just see and listen to them ever single day, to the point where you couldn’t possibly consume all of their available content. wrap it all up with yeh fact that the most influential man in comedy is an unfunny “comedian” with a gang even shittier comedians constantly circling him, and man- comedy does not seem to be in a good place.

Edited by Derka
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Posted

my youtube algorithm, which is pretty varied, gives me no shortage of “comedy is collapsing”, and “comedian a has lost all of his/her fans”, and “this comic hates this comic” videos.

 

 

 

Posted

Rory Scovel’s special from last year was my favorite in a long time. Going to see him in January and can’t wait to see his new stuff. Jeselnik is still great as well but his specials take a long time to write. A lot of these guys just want clicks and hope to go viral for being fake edgy. 

Posted (edited)

It's Jeselnik in a kind of Aragorn way -- no one thinks there is a king, including the king (other than a bunch of meatheads in Austin).  He doesn't appear to give enough of a shit to cash in on his talent the way he could.  I both am disappointed and respect and admire it.  

Edited by A-Tex Devil
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Posted (edited)

I don't care that much because I don't even have time to care about the things I care about more than the state of comedy, but I'll add that the youtube algorithm shit (as always) adds another layer of shittification onto it. 

Example - I think that Jordan Jensen is funny. I think that Cumtown is probably the funniest podcast that there has ever been. I've watched some Jordan Jensen stuff and of course I've seen Stavros Halkias stuff, and so I assume that is why I started seeing a bunch of videos and whatever on the various feeds about how there was some sort of woke blowup between Stav and Jordan or Stavros stands up to the Austin scene in an awkward interview or whatever it was - like 4 or 5 different things I saw about this to the point where I found the episode of Stavvy's new podcast with Jensen and listened to it to see what the fucking deal was and it's nothing. She had some half baked bit or just story even about something trans related and Stavros was giving her shit for having Austin-brain (Rogan/Killtony) cause she's about to go make those rounds and was also giving her shit for using the wrong language and etc. Which, in the context of a comedy podcast is nothing.  But there are a million videos with the big graphic and "oh what is this drama inside here" that are just doing the youtube algorithm thing and I assume this is a whole meta industry.

Edited by Celery Man
Posted (edited)
53 minutes ago, Jerry Callo said:

I think Shane Gills is relatively funny, but he isn't close to a king of comedy.  

exactly. that’s how bad it is. he’s put out two really funny specials and has a succesful tv show and podcast, which makes him (from what i can tell) the top dog right now. whereas my entire life there’s been one (or more) of eddie murphy, chris rock, george carlin, louis ck, bill burr, dave chappelle, katt williams, etc, who were so much bigger than shane. even dane cook and kevin hart were on a different level. im struggling to name who the last guy was. probably louis or chappelle. 

Edited by Derka
Posted

Joe Rogan being the arbiter of comedy "killed" comedy. A painfully unfunny ninja turtle looking motherfucker being the gatekeeper along with his painfully unfunny friends is asscheeks. It's not a coincidence that the funniest comics are the ones that haven't sworn any fealty to him over the years.

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Posted
31 minutes ago, Derka said:

exactly. that’s how bad it is. he’s put out two really funny specials and has a succesful tv show and podcast, which makes him (from what i can tell) the top dog right now. whereas my entire life there’s been one (or more) of eddie murphy, chris rock, george carlin, louis ck, bill burr, dave chappelle, katt williams, etc, who were so much bigger than shane. even dane cook and kevin hart were on a different level. im struggling to name who the last guy was. probably louis or chappelle. 

Chappelle of old is still the goat for me, but when he started punching down instead of up his comedy turned boring and shitty, at least in my opinion. 

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Posted
1 hour ago, Derka said:

my youtube algorithm, which is pretty varied, gives me no shortage of “comedy is collapsing”, and “comedian a has lost all of his/her fans”, and “this comic hates this comic” videos.

 

well see there's your first problem

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Posted

I think Louis and Chappelle are still the reigning kings. At least in terms of being living legends that other comedians fawn over who were also wildly commercially successful. Maybe Burr. Gillis has yet to get to the level of any of them yet. Chris Rock still kind of works I think but he is way past his prime now. Same with someone like Seinfeld (who probably never had the stand-up crown to begin with).

Kevin Hart sells the shit out of some tickets but as a comedian he's never been rated as one of the GOATs.

So many of them are dead or die early. 

Posted

I think Nate Bartgatze is the top of the list currently. He has pretty broad appeal and hasn't stepped into the political muck. His clean style can't be easy to pull off but he does it pretty good. Not the top of my list just saying in general. Gillis sells out arenas so is up there for sure. I personally don't see Burr being harmed too bad long term but who knows these days. I'll still watch him even though I'm disappointed inthe Saudi show. 

I agree that Rogan and his circle sucks for the comedy in general based on his popularity. But I don't blame the podcast medium in general. There's a lot of good comedy podcasts out there, it just sucks that this country overwhelmingly got drawn to Rogan and his douche-sphere. That speaks more to the audience than the genre though imo [insert CR rant].

Posted (edited)

I was REaLLY hoping the club Shay stuff was going to catapult Katt back to the top (if you believe in the black ball stuff), because for my money there has never been a funnier 60+ minutes than Pimp Chronicles or whatever that special was called with his green suit. That’s like Eddie Murphy/Richard Pryor level to my tastes and sensibilities.

Nate is funny, but Gillis is way funnier. Bill Burr is as hilarious but haven’t seen him throw a fast ball in years (and I saw him on Broadway this year in Glengarry).  There is a Mexican guy that’s quite funny from Dallas. My lack of being able to recall his name probably speaks about his popularity.

I know its unpopular and probably in the same realm as “sold out” and polarizing as Gillis, but I’ll drop whatever I’m doing for a new Druski video.

Edited by Vegas64
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Posted
2 hours ago, Derka said:

my youtube algorithm, which is pretty varied, gives me no shortage of “comedy is collapsing”, and “comedian a has lost all of his/her fans”, and “this comic hates this comic” videos.

 

 

 

Lots of Rogan in that feed.  I'm just saying...

Posted
38 minutes ago, Brian Fantana said:

Chappelle of old is still the goat for me, but when he started punching down instead of up his comedy turned boring and shitty, at least in my opinion. 

Comedy that punches down is always shitty.  That's why so many people are mad at Rogan and his bros.

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Posted
5 minutes ago, Vegas64 said:

There is a Mexican guy that’s quite funny from Dallas. My lack of being able to recall his name probably speaks about his popularity.

Ralph Barbosa.

6 minutes ago, Vegas64 said:

I know its unpopular and probably in the same realm as “sold out” and polarizing as Gillis, but I’ll drop whatever I’m doing for a new Druski video.

I used to think he was a buffoon and couldn't understand how he got so big and cast in all of these national TV commercial spots.

His sketches are genuinely good, though. He definitely has a good mind for comedy. 

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Posted
3 minutes ago, Chewbacca said:

Comedy that punches down is always shitty.  That's why so many people are mad at Rogan and his bros.

Even worse in my opinion is when they try to discuss serious topics. Just complete and absolute morons on that stuff. They fall for every lie, every conspiracy theory, and talk about them with legitimacy. I've seen clips of someone off screen having to correct Rogan by pointing out that he's discussing a hoax or something and sometimes he keeps going. And that's only verified hoaxes, he still falls for all the bullshit lies and conspiracy theories that are out there and treat them with legitimacy, but so does half the fucking country, hence, his popularity.

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Posted
8 minutes ago, hayden_horn said:

it really is. bill burr and all them can get fucked though. he was top of my list, I thought drop dead years was hilarious. but never again my dude. hope that saudi money was worth it. 

He liked to pretend he was different, but he's not.  He's the same as the rest of them.

Posted
35 minutes ago, Vegas64 said:

I’ll drop whatever I’m doing for a new Druski video.

druski is fucking hilarious. he’s so talented man. i know a lot of people think he just does dumb, cheap laughs, but there’s honestly layers there, and the way he commits to each bit is so good. love Druski. his nascar bit recently had me dying.

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Posted
25 minutes ago, hayden_horn said:

it really is. bill burr and all them can get fucked though. he was top of my list, I thought drop dead years was hilarious. but never again my dude. hope that saudi money was worth it. 

I can't express how disappointing that shit is. He should know better, he probably does know better, which makes it worse.

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Posted (edited)
43 minutes ago, Chewbacca said:

Lots of Rogan in that feed.  I'm just saying...

yeah, like i said, it’s been hurling this shit at me the last few days. rogan rarely comes across my feed, and when he does it’s because someone like stavros talked about the mothership or something, but i guess this feud with marc maron has some juice because this stuff has been on my feed for 2-3 days now.

another reason for that might be due to john kiriakou, who may have recently appeared on rogan (or if he didn’t then someone recently uploaded videos of him appearing on that podcast). i’ve been watching a ton of his podcast appearances and interviews lately. pulling the curtain back on the CIA has been fascinating for me to learn about.

Edited by Derka
Posted
1 minute ago, Brian Fantana said:

I can't express how disappointing that shit is. He should know better, he probably does know better, which makes it worse.

he was the one guy we all believed would be above that shit (for $1.5m reportedly- not exactly life changing money for him). how stupid of us.

Posted
2 hours ago, A-Tex Devil said:

It's Jeselnik in a kind of Aragorn way -- no one thinks there is a king, including the king (other than a bunch of meatheads in Austin).  He doesn't appear to give enough of a shit to cash in on his talent the way he could.  I both am disappointed and respect and admire it.  

I can see this with Jeselnik and support this.

I fucking loathe Joe Rogan being held up as some kind of arbiter by people, his opinions change with whoever is sitting in front of him.

I do think the podcast thing is fucking up a lot of stuff for the reasons mentioned, but I also see why a lot of them like doing podcasts - it's regular work that doesn't require them to leave the house in a lot of cases, or if they do, it's more of a 9-to-5 thing (or more likely 9-to-noon thing) versus life on the road constantly doing clubs in different cities. For a lot of those guys who have families, they'll take it. Throw in that they probably have more control over the financial side of a podcast.

I think podcasts, and to a lesser extent, YouTube, ruin things because if you're a comedy fan, you could be consuming a lot of comedy content through your favorite comedian's podcast and through YouTube, and so the idea of taking the additional time and money to go out to the club starts to diminish. It's not like 30 years ago where you'd see the occasionally HBO special and just didn't have a lot of access to comedy outside of Blockbuster and so trips to comedy clubs were a part of your normal rotation.

 

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Posted (edited)

Burr’s response calling out the critics as sanctimonious and that they couldn’t point out SA on a map was worse imo and way more harmful than the appearance. If he had stuck to the defense that he thought it was a good thing to make an audience in a place like that laugh and to meet new people and learn about the day to day culture he’d have an easier time imo getting past this, but man he really shat on a lot of people in the process for having valid criticisms, and is a really bad look.

Edited by 'stache
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Posted

For some reason my feed got on Jeff Acuri clips and that goofy bastard cracks me up. At least on stage he comes off as a normal non asshole guy, quite a bit of good natured crowd work…  he prob has a kid locked his basement or something tho.

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Posted (edited)

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.

 

1 hour ago, ztejas said:

Ralph Barbosa.

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.  

Edited by atomheartbevo
Posted

Josh Johnson is really good in my opinion. I also like Sarah Cooper. They just have styles that I like. I have not seen near as much of Shane Gillis as others here like Derka have, but I like him too. Roy Wood Jr. would be another favorite. I have met him in-person twice and he’s as cool as he seems. Just a good guy trying to make someone’s day better with laughter.
 

I also have a friend that is a comedian back in NYC named Calise Hawkins. She has no filter on what she’ll say to the audience and it was fun to go see her in-person at the NYCC when she’d perform.

Posted

does maria bamford still perform?  I thought she was pretty funny.  remember listening to her stuff on the comedy radio station in austin about 15 years ago or whenever it was. 

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Posted
1 hour ago, futureman said:

does maria bamford still perform?  I thought she was pretty funny.  remember listening to her stuff on the comedy radio station in austin about 15 years ago or whenever it was. 

Bamford was/is incredible, once you 'get' her point of view. Patton Oswalt is from that same alt-comedy cohort, and I still enjoy his stuff.

While not "HUGE" like Gillis, Kyle Kinane always makes me laugh. I also enjoy Dusty Slay (but thought his recent hour was just 'meh').

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Posted
11 hours ago, 'stache said:

Burr’s response calling out the critics as sanctimonious and that they couldn’t point out SA on a map was worse imo and way more harmful than the appearance. If he had stuck to the defense that he thought it was a good thing to make an audience in a place like that laugh and to meet new people and learn about the day to day culture he’d have an easier time imo getting past this, but man he really shat on a lot of people in the process for having valid criticisms, and is a really bad look.

This. Just say you did it for the money. He has a wife and children. 99% of his fans would understand. 
 

I don’t know what the premise of this thread is. Couldn’t this be in the Shane Gillis thread?
 

Comedians are doing better than ever due to podcasts. It’s a platform where they can promote their live shows and specials, and make money on ad reads and Patreon subs. It’s also a collaborative space where comedians of wildly different styles and backgrounds can come together. 
 

I like Kill Tony. I think he’s tied to Rogan in name and business partnerships only. Rogan’s appearances on the show have been some of the most boring panel guest spots in the show’s history. Joe usually does a bunch of shrooms before the show, and then breathes heavily into the microphone for 2 hours.

I don’t understand the mass appeal of the Joe Rogan experience. It’s maybe 10 minutes of Joe asking his guests about their lives, and then a 3 hour monologue about aliens. 
 

I’d agree Nate is at the top now. Network TV isn’t giving any other comedian Christmas Special right now. That said, he also thoroughly bombed at the Emmys. Award shows are an awesome amount of work, and I don’t think Nate was completely prepared + the Hollywood bubble has no fucking idea who he is + making fun of people really isn’t his thing. You need a Seth Meyers type to host this things. 

Posted
7 hours ago, billfromlaketravis said:

I don’t understand the mass appeal of the Joe Rogan experience. It’s maybe 10 minutes of Joe asking his guests about their lives, and then a 3 hour monologue about aliens

that doesn’t sound appealing?

Posted

Going to see Nate on Saturday......at 3:00 got damn pm in a 20,000 seat arena!  Dude is making serious bank.   I don't know if he's considered the current King among the general public but I'm pretty sure he's considered the current King among all fellow comedians.

23 hours ago, nolongerU2horn said:

Nate Bargatze just sitting over here cashing checks

 

Posted

If I am bored, I go am back and forth watching Jeselnick or Mulaney specials. I could watch Thoughts and Prayers and The Comeback kid over and over again. And both are at the top of their games now. Both seem to be the comic’s comic too. Not sure why they aren’t more celebrated. 

Posted
9 hours ago, billfromlaketravis said:

I don’t know what the premise of this thread is.

did you perhaps read the title before clicking on it?

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Posted
59 minutes ago, Zwylde said:

I'm pretty sure he's considered the current King among all fellow comedians.

i’ve honestly never heard another comedian ever talk about him. i don’t feel like he’s even in any of the same circles as most other notable comedians.

Posted
21 hours ago, Derka said:

he was the one guy we all believed would be above that shit (for $1.5m reportedly- not exactly life changing money for him). how stupid of us.

I'm not nearly as knowledgeable about the current comedy scene as you, but guys like Burr and Jeselnik (and previously Ron White) used to be my favorites.  Burr can go fuck himself, what a fucking sellout.  He didn't need $1.5m, are you kidding?  I got pushback on a different thread for saying the same but I encourage everyone to let him and his management know he fucked up big time.  I don't need any more sarcastic laughs in my life, asswipe.

Posted
3 hours ago, UncleSonny said:

According to Whitney Cummings,

 

I used to have a theory that a great comedian has to have near genius level IQ.

I still hold that point of view.  She is fucking horrible.

Posted
29 minutes ago, jimmyjazz said:

I used to have a theory that a great comedian has to have near genius level IQ.

I still hold that point of view.  She is fucking horrible.

yeah, the funniest people are truly sharp. i don’t think most people realize just how rare it is for someone to be truly funny; the kind of person who just has you cracking up every day that you’re with them, no matter the circumstances. i went to HS with like 20 d-1 athletes, a few pros, couple super bowl winners, etc. i think i knew two truly funny people from my HS. being born 6’5” with a 40 inch vertical is a lot more common than being born razor sharp and truly funny. it feels to me like most of the comics i can name today are “good” at writing/performing standup, but that only a few of them are actually, truly funny.

Posted

 

4 minutes ago, Derka said:

yeah, the funniest people are truly sharp. i don’t think most people realize just how rare it is for someone to be truly funny; the kind of person who just has you cracking up every day that you’re with them, no matter the circumstances. i went to HS with like 20 d-1 athletes, a few pros, couple super bowl winners, etc. i think i knew two truly funny people from my HS. being born 6’5” with a 40 inch vertical is a lot more common than being born razor sharp and truly funny. it feels to me like most of the comics i can name today are “good” at writing/performing standup, but that only a few of them are actually, truly funny.

Years ago, I went out on the town with a buddy and a few of his friends, one of whom was a touring comedian.  He was essentially a nobody.  Nobody could hang with him in terms of any kind of back and forth banter, he was just way too quick and experienced at that.  It was pretty eye-opening.

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