Latest / The Breakfast Club / INTERVIEW: Josh Johnson Talks 2026 Webby Awards, New HBO Special, The Daily Show, Comedy Vs. Journalism + More

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INTERVIEW: Josh Johnson Talks 2026 Webby Awards, New HBO Special, The Daily Show, Comedy Vs. Journalism + More · The Breakfast Club

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Every day Ago clicks up the Breakfast Club.
• 0:05
  Speaker 2: You don't finish for y'all done morning.
• 0:09
  Speaker 3: Everybody is dj n V just hilarious.
• 0:12
  Speaker 4: Chelamagne the guy we are the Breakfast Club, lawn the
• 0:14
  Speaker 4: roses here as well. We got a special guest in
• 0:17
  Speaker 4: the buildings. Indeed, he's hosting the twenty twenty six Webby Awards,
• 0:20
  Speaker 4: Ladies and gentlemen, Josh Johnson.
• 0:22
  Speaker 3: Welcome, Hey, how are you feeling pretty pretty good?
• 0:25
  Speaker 5: How are y'all complain?
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: He's not just hosting the Webby Awards. He is a
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: host and contributor on the Daily Show as well. He's
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: got HBO comedy special coming out Symphony Symphony on May
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: twenty second.
• 0:37
  Speaker 4: Yes, we didn't get to all of that, but he's
• 0:38
  Speaker 4: hosting the Webby Awards that's coming around on the eleven
• 0:40
  Speaker 4: for this month.
• 0:41
  Speaker 3: Yeah, how do you all wake up so early and
• 0:45
  Speaker 3: seem so bright?
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: Okay?
• 0:47
  Speaker 3: Yeah, okay, that's fair and we just go christ You're okay,
• 0:52
  Speaker 3: all right?
• 0:53
  Speaker 6: Well they holding it back from me still, I'm still
• 0:55
  Speaker 6: getting used to wake early.
• 0:57
  Speaker 3: Yeah, passed the everybody looks great, thank you? Yeah for
• 1:01
  Speaker 3: it to be early, Okay, you know, like you would
• 1:05
  Speaker 3: expect everyone to look great by like noon. This is
• 1:09
  Speaker 3: right now, this is I know, that's what feels insane.
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: Do you feel like, how.
• 1:13
  Speaker 7: Do you like getting up this morning?
• 1:15
  Speaker 2: How did you feel?
• 1:15
  Speaker 7: You didn't fel like you look great because it was early?
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah?
• 1:18
  Speaker 3: Oh, man, I felt like I was hit by a
• 1:21
  Speaker 3: truck because then my my alarm went off and I
• 1:24
  Speaker 3: usually wake up a little later to get to the show.
• 1:27
  Speaker 3: And man, those those couple of hours make a huge difference.
• 1:31
  Speaker 2: Have been hit by a truck?
• 1:33
  Speaker 3: No, no, because you know what it is. It's like,
• 1:38
  Speaker 3: this is, this is what I imagine it would feel like.
• 1:41
  Speaker 3: And so luckily I was in bed. I wasn't hit
• 1:44
  Speaker 3: by a truck at all. But I think, you know,
• 1:46
  Speaker 3: if I got hit by a truck, I don't even
• 1:49
  Speaker 3: think I know right.
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: Right now screaming down I got hit by a truck
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: and talking about.
• 1:55
  Speaker 3: Honestly when I die, but die so fast. If I
• 1:59
  Speaker 3: if I got about a truck, I wouldn't even fight
• 2:02
  Speaker 3: that hard to stay alone. I'd be like you fair
• 2:06
  Speaker 3: enough that I don't even want to see myself post truck,
• 2:12
  Speaker 3: post truck, post yeah, post yeah, post truck. Both my
• 2:16
  Speaker 3: shoulders are together.
• 2:19
  Speaker 2: You don't be out and about in New York, like
• 2:21
  Speaker 2: doing the comedy club thing? Is that a thing? Yeah?
• 2:23
  Speaker 3: But then you get to wake up a little later,
• 2:25
  Speaker 3: you know, Like I'm fine with staying up, like you know,
• 2:28
  Speaker 3: I've done you know, one AM spots and everything like
• 2:31
  Speaker 3: that's fine, but then usually you get to wake up
• 2:34
  Speaker 3: at like ten after something like that.
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: I always want to know about that with the younger comics, right,
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: because you clearly do stand up, but I don't know
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: what time you do it.
• 2:42
  Speaker 2: But you take those bits and you put them online.
• 2:45
  Speaker 2: So I'm like, do you.
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: Still got to be out at one o'clock in the
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: morning in the comedy clubs?
• 2:49
  Speaker 3: Sometimes I think, I think it's important to just keep doing,
• 2:52
  Speaker 3: like there are there are ways of going about doing
• 2:56
  Speaker 3: everything to stay sharp and get better. But I do
• 3:00
  Speaker 3: think that sometimes you have to do some of those
• 3:03
  Speaker 3: uncomfortable things just to remember what it's like, you know,
• 3:06
  Speaker 3: like it's very different. Luckily, it's very different when I
• 3:09
  Speaker 3: do a one AM spot now versus before, because the
• 3:13
  Speaker 3: honestly even one AM aside some of the mics that
• 3:17
  Speaker 3: I would do back in the day, it's like, not
• 3:20
  Speaker 3: only did no one know you were covered, they were
• 3:22
  Speaker 3: very upset you were there. I remember when I was
• 3:24
  Speaker 3: in Chicago, there was a sports bar that had the
• 3:28
  Speaker 3: brilliant idea to have a stand up show during the playoffs.
• 3:32
  Speaker 3: Blackhawks are in the playoffs, by the way, and they
• 3:34
  Speaker 3: turned off the TV and they were like, all right, y'all,
• 3:37
  Speaker 3: we're going to start the show. And people in the
• 3:39
  Speaker 3: bar like, start the what? And then I'm just standing
• 3:42
  Speaker 3: there like I just bought a computer, like just like
• 3:47
  Speaker 3: like bombing in a way that doesn't even make sense,
• 3:49
  Speaker 3: because people it would be different if they knew they
• 3:52
  Speaker 3: had come to a comedy show and I didn't have
• 3:54
  Speaker 3: good jokes. I was doing some of my best jokes,
• 3:57
  Speaker 3: and they were like, you're not the game. It is terrible.
• 4:01
  Speaker 5: They set you off. Your manager set you up for
• 4:03
  Speaker 5: that one.
• 4:03
  Speaker 3: Oh at the time, I had no badager. Yeah, I
• 4:07
  Speaker 3: didn't even know what this bar was. I got there.
• 4:10
  Speaker 3: I was like, everybody's in the same jersey and then
• 4:12
  Speaker 3: they and then they turned off the TV and I
• 4:16
  Speaker 3: was like, oh, that doesn't seem good. Everyone seems because
• 4:18
  Speaker 3: you know that angry murmuring they usually used for the
• 4:21
  Speaker 3: folly art in movies, Like as soon as they charged
• 4:24
  Speaker 3: it was like and then they put the stage on
• 4:28
  Speaker 3: the other side, like towards and then they were like,
• 4:32
  Speaker 3: all right, we're gonna start the show.
• 4:34
  Speaker 5: How long was you said that?
• 4:36
  Speaker 3: I mean, no matter what, my time was too long,
• 4:38
  Speaker 3: but I'm pretty sure it's twelve minutes.
• 4:39
  Speaker 5: And they booed you off.
• 4:40
  Speaker 3: No, no, they didn't boo they were just they just stared. Yeah,
• 4:45
  Speaker 3: I got the two chuckles that I got. I was like,
• 4:49
  Speaker 3: all right, that's something you don't even want to be
• 4:51
  Speaker 3: here right now. That's pretty good.
• 4:53
  Speaker 2: That's a great way.
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: To look at it, thoughcause some people would look at
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: them two chuckles and be like, man, all I got
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: is two laughs. You look at it like, well, at
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: least I got two laughs.
• 5:00
  Speaker 3: I got two laps that I was never supposed to
• 5:02
  Speaker 3: get because when you start from boo, right, because because
• 5:06
  Speaker 3: boo boo is like what would be appropriate in that situation.
• 5:10
  Speaker 3: They they came to see a game at a sports
• 5:13
  Speaker 3: but they did everything right. They were like, I'm would
• 5:15
  Speaker 3: go to a sports bar my friends to watch the
• 5:17
  Speaker 3: Blackhawks in the playoffs, who are doing well. I'm pretty
• 5:20
  Speaker 3: sure we were like wad that year. And so luckily
• 5:24
  Speaker 3: it wasn't the game, it wasn't the Stanley cup, but
• 5:27
  Speaker 3: like they did everything right. And then it was the
• 5:30
  Speaker 3: venue owner that was like, you know what would be great,
• 5:32
  Speaker 3: We'll really bring people in during the playoffs. Is a
• 5:35
  Speaker 3: comedy show of people who are completely unknown, don't even
• 5:38
  Speaker 3: have managers.
• 5:40
  Speaker 5: Have.
• 5:44
  Speaker 7: That kind of a church crowd.
• 5:50
  Speaker 2: They supported you.
• 5:51
  Speaker 3: Yes, yes, yes it was. It was very kind. It
• 5:54
  Speaker 3: was to get straight like I've never been like the
• 5:57
  Speaker 3: boo level of like a like oh oh no they
• 6:02
  Speaker 3: hate me.
• 6:02
  Speaker 5: Okay, you know what I mean.
• 6:03
  Speaker 3: I've just been in bad situations. It's another I'll actually okay, no,
• 6:09
  Speaker 3: I'll tell you this. This is maybe my favorite one.
• 6:11
  Speaker 5: Okay.
• 6:11
  Speaker 3: So when I was when I was like starting out,
• 6:15
  Speaker 3: there's a club that was on South Side I called
• 6:17
  Speaker 3: Jokes and Notes, right, and this was my first ever
• 6:21
  Speaker 3: like feature weekend was there, so you know, you got
• 6:24
  Speaker 3: your host, you got your future, got your headliner, and
• 6:26
  Speaker 3: so it was my first ever feature weekend. So I
• 6:28
  Speaker 3: was going to be doing like twenty twenty five minutes
• 6:30
  Speaker 3: for the for the first time and getting paid. So
• 6:34
  Speaker 3: I was just like, now only am I like over
• 6:36
  Speaker 3: the moon. I'm going over every joke and I'm trying
• 6:38
  Speaker 3: to like mix mix everything up, have like a good
• 6:41
  Speaker 3: rhythm good, like like moving through topics and everything. And
• 6:44
  Speaker 3: so the first show I get up there and I
• 6:48
  Speaker 3: did really well for the first half of my set.
• 6:51
  Speaker 3: So that first like twelve minutes I was like had
• 6:54
  Speaker 3: them rolling and everything, but like, I don't know, I'm weird. Yeah,
• 6:58
  Speaker 3: I mean I'm odd. And this is also like a traditionally,
• 7:03
  Speaker 3: like like Black Club, they expect you to bring like
• 7:06
  Speaker 3: Barney Mac level of rhythm and like heat. You have
• 7:10
  Speaker 3: to have confidence, you have to just know your jokes
• 7:12
  Speaker 3: and everything. There's no like let me what else is
• 7:14
  Speaker 3: going on? I mean. And so second half of the
• 7:18
  Speaker 3: set I get into some of my weirder stuff and
• 7:20
  Speaker 3: you could just tell in the rule where they were
• 7:22
  Speaker 3: like we trusted you. What are you doing right that
• 7:27
  Speaker 3: you can't? Yeah, because there was one of those things
• 7:30
  Speaker 3: where it's like already they were like kind of roll
• 7:32
  Speaker 3: would be with some stuff, but then after a while
• 7:35
  Speaker 3: they were like is he is he okay?
• 7:40
  Speaker 8: I don't know.
• 7:40
  Speaker 3: I think I just had a joke about sharks or something.
• 7:43
  Speaker 3: I was just like like it was like it was
• 7:45
  Speaker 3: I started doing like shark facts into puns and they
• 7:48
  Speaker 3: were like what is he about? And then uh, and
• 7:52
  Speaker 3: then I had saved my last bit because I knew
• 7:56
  Speaker 3: it would do really, really well, and so I ended
• 7:59
  Speaker 3: like okay, you know, but still it was like there
• 8:02
  Speaker 3: was a clear ten minute gap of like, good stuff. Yeah,
• 8:07
  Speaker 3: I'm just fighting for my life.
• 8:08
  Speaker 5: Did you change this in the next couple of show?
• 8:10
  Speaker 3: Not only that? Okay, So then I get on the right,
• 8:13
  Speaker 3: I get off right, and the host this, this still
• 8:17
  Speaker 3: blows my body that he did this. It was like
• 8:19
  Speaker 3: it was it felt like out of a movie. So
• 8:21
  Speaker 3: the host gets up and he's like, you know what
• 8:24
  Speaker 3: forget all y'all? All right, there's a young brother out
• 8:27
  Speaker 3: here doing his best. He got he got it, he
• 8:29
  Speaker 3: got a dream, he's trying to make something of himself,
• 8:32
  Speaker 3: and everybody wants it. He literally started lecturing of the audience.
• 8:35
  Speaker 3: He was like, he was like, everybody want to talk
• 8:36
  Speaker 3: about I saw him win. They don't want to talk
• 8:38
  Speaker 3: about how they acted when all right, So everybody in here,
• 8:41
  Speaker 3: you know, I want you to give one more round
• 8:43
  Speaker 3: of plus where I bring your headline U, because I'm
• 8:45
  Speaker 3: gonna bring your headliner up if you if you over
• 8:47
  Speaker 3: here acting like this and I'm in the back of
• 8:49
  Speaker 3: the room and being like no, they were right but
• 8:52
  Speaker 3: they were like correct, like you know what I mean,
• 8:53
  Speaker 3: Like like the laughs aren't wrong, you know what I mean.
• 8:55
  Speaker 3: Like first half of the set I was doing so well.
• 8:58
  Speaker 3: Second half of the set, I was like doing like okay,
• 9:00
  Speaker 3: and I ended with a good bit, but like they
• 9:02
  Speaker 3: were right about me, right. So then I went outside
• 9:06
  Speaker 3: like like took a deep breath at everything. It was
• 9:09
  Speaker 3: like it was honestly the most eight mile I'd ever
• 9:11
  Speaker 3: been in my career, where I was like, oh Lord,
• 9:13
  Speaker 3: what am I gonna do? And so I mixed up
• 9:15
  Speaker 3: the whole set. I kept the first half that worked.
• 9:17
  Speaker 3: I added some jokes I didn't tell in the second
• 9:19
  Speaker 3: one and second second show I did genuinely like incredibly well,
• 9:26
  Speaker 3: Like it was like like everything it flipped around. I
• 9:28
  Speaker 3: pieced it together in real time a little bit better,
• 9:31
  Speaker 3: had them rolling the whole time. And then I get
• 9:34
  Speaker 3: off stage. I'm like feeling good about myself and everything.
• 9:37
  Speaker 3: The host goes up and he's like, you know what,
• 9:40
  Speaker 3: forget y'all and gave them the same speech. He didn't
• 9:43
  Speaker 3: watch my set at all, gave them the same speech
• 9:46
  Speaker 3: assuming I like bob my second half, and then the
• 9:50
  Speaker 3: audience was even like I liked them and I'm in
• 9:53
  Speaker 3: the back like no, no, I'm.
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: A great example learn more from failure. You know, you
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: know you think I like about your comedy, jozs Is.
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: It's not like just it's not set up punchline, it's
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: more observations.
• 10:08
  Speaker 2: Right, do you see yourself as a comedian or social observer?
• 10:11
  Speaker 3: For us, I would definitely hope that I could be
• 10:15
  Speaker 3: saved the way I see myself with just like a
• 10:17
  Speaker 3: comic first and everything. I just choose to do things
• 10:21
  Speaker 3: through stories, which I know is like a little bit
• 10:23
  Speaker 3: of a longer winding road to go down, but the
• 10:27
  Speaker 3: ideas that the payoff is always going to be worth it,
• 10:30
  Speaker 3: and that I personally think a lot of stories are
• 10:34
  Speaker 3: more memorable than some uh some one liners rise to
• 10:39
  Speaker 3: the level that they become like a street joke, you
• 10:41
  Speaker 3: know what I mean, Like some things are so witty
• 10:43
  Speaker 3: and so and and and so sharp there's no fat
• 10:46
  Speaker 3: on the idea at all that it becomes uh just
• 10:49
  Speaker 3: like ubiquitous with with how we talk. And I think
• 10:53
  Speaker 3: a story has the opportunity to do that because I
• 10:57
  Speaker 3: think everyone, no matter who you are, whether you do
• 11:00
  Speaker 3: comedy or not, everybody has like in their life, like
• 11:03
  Speaker 3: two or three like wild stories, and they're like the
• 11:06
  Speaker 3: thing that you share with someone so that they don't
• 11:08
  Speaker 3: just know more about you, but they get real insight
• 11:11
  Speaker 3: into your experiences through what you choose to tell them
• 11:15
  Speaker 3: as stories. And so I would like to think that
• 11:17
  Speaker 3: people know me a bit better because I go more
• 11:20
  Speaker 3: of a story route. And I also think that stories
• 11:24
  Speaker 3: end up helping you when you have that sort of
• 11:27
  Speaker 3: social observation, you can relate it back to something that
• 11:30
  Speaker 3: is a more universal experience, versus just coming up with
• 11:35
  Speaker 3: like a good analogy in the moment that sums up,
• 11:38
  Speaker 3: you know, the Trump administration or something like that. It's
• 11:40
  Speaker 3: like I can tell you a story about the thing
• 11:42
  Speaker 3: that happened to me while I was little, and it's
• 11:43
  Speaker 3: a thing that's happened to you maybe, or thing that's
• 11:47
  Speaker 3: happened to your friend, and then when I relate it
• 11:49
  Speaker 3: back later to something that's happening on a global scale,
• 11:53
  Speaker 3: it makes a little bit more sense of where my
• 11:55
  Speaker 3: perspective might be coming from.
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: You know, I feel like in this Internet era, being
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: subtle like yourself, like laid back in a sense, it's
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: actually more it's actually rebellious.
• 12:09
  Speaker 3: I guess. I mean you know, as someone who is
• 12:13
  Speaker 3: very comfortable with things not going well, I think that
• 12:17
  Speaker 3: it's made it to the point where I can I
• 12:20
  Speaker 3: can post something and just and give it a shot,
• 12:23
  Speaker 3: you know. Like I think that at the time where
• 12:27
  Speaker 3: we were out here making post on TikTok that were
• 12:32
  Speaker 3: like eight minutes long, because I was like, let's post
• 12:34
  Speaker 3: the full story, like it just makes sense to post
• 12:36
  Speaker 3: the whole thing, not do part one, two, three, four. Yeah,
• 12:41
  Speaker 3: it might seem like counterintuitive, but I think for the
• 12:44
  Speaker 3: people that it worked for, it worked well enough where
• 12:47
  Speaker 3: they were like, oh, I'll watch this guy on TikTok
• 12:49
  Speaker 3: for eight minutes at a time versus like a minute
• 12:52
  Speaker 3: and a half or thirty seconds or whatever. And I
• 12:54
  Speaker 3: also think that when you aren't trying to it's just
• 12:58
  Speaker 3: like in interpersonal like it's just like in conversation. If
• 13:02
  Speaker 3: you are clearly as I'm talking to you, trying every
• 13:05
  Speaker 3: moment to be like too bitty and like get my
• 13:08
  Speaker 3: attention or make me feel some sort of way, I
• 13:11
  Speaker 3: think that it comes off as a little bit a
• 13:15
  Speaker 3: little bit less authentic, even if that's who you are
• 13:18
  Speaker 3: as a person, Like I just have friends that are
• 13:20
  Speaker 3: high energy and they're like that sometimes and they're like
• 13:23
  Speaker 3: darty and stuff like that. But I also think that
• 13:26
  Speaker 3: if you if you can accept that, all right, maybe
• 13:30
  Speaker 3: my personality, maybe my demeanor or my style of sharing
• 13:35
  Speaker 3: stories is only ever going to garner this much attention
• 13:39
  Speaker 3: in a sort of attention economy, right, I think that
• 13:42
  Speaker 3: you can live a much like happier and fulfilled life
• 13:45
  Speaker 3: sharing your stories and sharing your work as opposed to
• 13:49
  Speaker 3: we come from a sort of capitalist nature on everything
• 13:52
  Speaker 3: in America. So if you even if you have two
• 13:55
  Speaker 3: million followers, now you're like, how do I get to fifty?
• 13:58
  Speaker 3: And because you're like, now, how do I get to fifty?
• 14:00
  Speaker 3: Remember when you had two? So when you had two,
• 14:03
  Speaker 3: eight was amazing. And it's like having having those those
• 14:07
  Speaker 3: numbers in your head of what you think are like,
• 14:09
  Speaker 3: this is impactful, this is enough. I think once you
• 14:13
  Speaker 3: once you have enough in that way, and whether you're
• 14:17
  Speaker 3: talking about numbers and posting or following whatever, once you
• 14:20
  Speaker 3: can have enough that that's what makes people like dangerous
• 14:24
  Speaker 3: because they're like, Okay, everything is gravy now you know.
• 14:28
  Speaker 4: Now you said you like the uncomfortability. What got you
• 14:32
  Speaker 4: into comedy? Because comedy is is yeah, it's uncomfortable, uncomfortable,
• 14:35
  Speaker 4: but you still got to get on stage were you
• 14:37
  Speaker 4: was Was it an awkward thing? Was it you liked
• 14:39
  Speaker 4: being going to left? So what got you into doing
• 14:42
  Speaker 4: comedy in the first place.
• 14:43
  Speaker 3: I just always really loved comedy, and I was I
• 14:48
  Speaker 3: feel like I come from very funny people. So you know,
• 14:51
  Speaker 3: my my grandma was really funny, My mom and dad
• 14:56
  Speaker 3: are funny and everything, and everyone was funny in different ways.
• 14:59
  Speaker 3: And I just always loved watching comedy when I was
• 15:02
  Speaker 3: growing up, watching specials and everything. And so when I
• 15:04
  Speaker 3: moved to Chicago to start, I was like, let's just
• 15:07
  Speaker 3: let's just start. I didn't even know what would come
• 15:09
  Speaker 3: of it. Like I was genuinely very happy working at
• 15:12
  Speaker 3: the grocery store at doing comedy at night, Like I
• 15:14
  Speaker 3: was just chilling. So you know, the idea that I
• 15:16
  Speaker 3: could do it full time or anything like that kind
• 15:19
  Speaker 3: of still blows me Awaygo comedy, Yeah, yeah, for like
• 15:24
  Speaker 3: everything you have, like you have everything. And what I
• 15:27
  Speaker 3: liked about Chicago, at least while I was there, is
• 15:29
  Speaker 3: there was a small amount enough of industry that that's
• 15:33
  Speaker 3: not what was on people's minds, you know, Like like
• 15:37
  Speaker 3: when you would go up in LA, Like, I remember
• 15:39
  Speaker 3: I just did a couple of spots in LA and
• 15:41
  Speaker 3: then there'd be somebody whispering the green room, like the
• 15:43
  Speaker 3: casting director from Curb is here. I'm like, oh, like
• 15:47
  Speaker 3: now I'm thinking about that now. I'm like, now, you
• 15:50
  Speaker 3: can't not put that in your head, Like the presence
• 15:52
  Speaker 3: of these people and how it could impact your career.
• 15:55
  Speaker 3: It just it just puts you in a different space,
• 15:58
  Speaker 3: whereas in Chicago everybody was trying something different. I saw
• 16:02
  Speaker 3: some of the best shows still to this day that
• 16:04
  Speaker 3: I've ever seen in some of the weirdest spots in Chicago.
• 16:08
  Speaker 3: Like there was just a straight up room that these
• 16:11
  Speaker 3: guys rented when I was this is my first year
• 16:13
  Speaker 3: in Chicago. They rented this room that was like upstairs
• 16:17
  Speaker 3: in this It wasn't like a loft space or anything.
• 16:20
  Speaker 3: And they would just put out folding folding chairs and
• 16:23
  Speaker 3: they would have all their shows there and it's not
• 16:25
  Speaker 3: it wasn't even a space for show. Like even while
• 16:28
  Speaker 3: we were there, whether we were watching a short play
• 16:31
  Speaker 3: or a stand up show or improv whatever we were watching,
• 16:34
  Speaker 3: I was like, nobody should be here. But they made
• 16:38
  Speaker 3: it just out of pure imagination and having like a couple.
• 16:43
  Speaker 3: I'm assuming a couple of hundred extra bucks between all
• 16:46
  Speaker 3: of them to rent out this space for every one
• 16:49
  Speaker 3: of the shows. And I was like, this is that's
• 16:51
  Speaker 3: what makes it incredible.
• 16:52
  Speaker 6: Yeah, what was your inspiration growing up? I know you
• 16:56
  Speaker 6: said you watched stand up growing up?
• 16:58
  Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, I watched I watched a lot of
• 17:03
  Speaker 3: like Bill Burr, Christopher Titus, Wanda Sykes, Deo, Hugh Gley.
• 17:10
  Speaker 3: I watched a lot of like. I would also watch
• 17:14
  Speaker 3: people sitcoms too, because I feel like, you know, there
• 17:17
  Speaker 3: was there was an era where your hour turned into
• 17:21
  Speaker 3: like five episodes of your sitcom and everything. So yeah,
• 17:25
  Speaker 3: I was watching a little bit of everybody whoever. My
• 17:28
  Speaker 3: mom would let me watch as long as they did
• 17:30
  Speaker 3: Curse by Bob would let me watch, and then I
• 17:32
  Speaker 3: would just wait until she fell asleep and then try
• 17:34
  Speaker 3: to sneak back into the into the living room and
• 17:37
  Speaker 3: turn on Comedy Central again.
• 17:39
  Speaker 4: You know, I was gonna ask who, what was your
• 17:41
  Speaker 4: big break? Was it at a comedy club and somebody
• 17:44
  Speaker 4: seeing you, and what was.
• 17:45
  Speaker 2: Your big break?
• 17:46
  Speaker 3: I feel like this is a it's a very hard
• 17:49
  Speaker 3: thing because it's like it's it's so many dots that
• 17:53
  Speaker 3: you connect. Yeah, yeah, you know. I would say getting
• 17:57
  Speaker 3: the job at the Tonight Show changed a lot from me,
• 18:00
  Speaker 3: Like that was the thing where I was like, oh, okay,
• 18:02
  Speaker 3: I could quit at the grocery store. I didn't right away,
• 18:06
  Speaker 3: so there was Today's Show and show. Yeah, so I
• 18:09
  Speaker 3: was at Tonight Show, but I was like, let me
• 18:11
  Speaker 3: not quit the grocery store just in case, you know,
• 18:14
  Speaker 3: because you might be in the real picture. And they're like,
• 18:16
  Speaker 3: that's the worst joke we've ever heard.
• 18:18
  Speaker 2: You should leave.
• 18:19
  Speaker 3: Yeah, how did you get that job? So by the
• 18:22
  Speaker 3: time I did get a manager in Chicago, he was like,
• 18:26
  Speaker 3: let's submit a tape for you to do stand up
• 18:29
  Speaker 3: on Tonight Show. And the head writer at the time
• 18:32
  Speaker 3: liked my tape enough. He happened to see it and
• 18:35
  Speaker 3: liked my tape enough that he was like, maybe you
• 18:36
  Speaker 3: should do a packet, And so then I wrote a
• 18:38
  Speaker 3: packet of jokes and like desk pieces, Milelogue jokes, everything
• 18:42
  Speaker 3: like that, and then sent that in and then didn't
• 18:45
  Speaker 3: hear back for a little while, and I was a
• 18:47
  Speaker 3: little worried. I lost everything. I was like, oh, we
• 18:50
  Speaker 3: were submitting a tape for me to do like five
• 18:52
  Speaker 3: minutes on Tonight Show and then they asked for a packet,
• 18:55
  Speaker 3: and now we haven't heard anything, so they're like, maybe
• 18:57
  Speaker 3: maybe we should fully reconsider. And then I got a
• 19:01
  Speaker 3: basically what is tantamount to a call back where they
• 19:04
  Speaker 3: were like, can he do another packet? And this packet
• 19:07
  Speaker 3: had to be turned around in a day, so it
• 19:09
  Speaker 3: kind of simulates working there right as opposed to the
• 19:12
  Speaker 3: first packet. I think I had like four days or
• 19:15
  Speaker 3: the week or something like that, and so turned around
• 19:17
  Speaker 3: that packet really fast, got brought in for an interview,
• 19:21
  Speaker 3: and then got the job from there, and so that
• 19:24
  Speaker 3: that was one thing that was my first writing job.
• 19:28
  Speaker 3: It was the first thing that really I feel like
• 19:31
  Speaker 3: catapulted me into this place of you can be as
• 19:36
  Speaker 3: funny as possible to your friends on the street and
• 19:39
  Speaker 3: the clubs and everything. But it gave me a little
• 19:42
  Speaker 3: bit more of that industry legitimacy to get other jobs
• 19:45
  Speaker 3: and everything.
• 19:46
  Speaker 2: So from show, you ended up on the Daily Show.
• 19:49
  Speaker 3: Yeah. So I left Tonight Show, was hoping to do
• 19:53
  Speaker 3: a pilot that did not get picked up, and then
• 19:56
  Speaker 3: I was just touring for a couple months and then
• 20:00
  Speaker 3: I actually submitted a packet and was trying to be
• 20:05
  Speaker 3: a contributor on the show the opposition, and because the
• 20:10
  Speaker 3: producers were some of the same producers, when I didn't
• 20:13
  Speaker 3: get the opposition, they were like, you should do a
• 20:14
  Speaker 3: daily show packet, and so I did that as well,
• 20:17
  Speaker 3: and it was another I think, like I don't even
• 20:20
  Speaker 3: think that was two rounds. I basically did the packet
• 20:23
  Speaker 3: and sent it in, got it read and everything. They
• 20:26
  Speaker 3: brought me in for an interview, and then yeah, Trevor
• 20:28
  Speaker 3: hired me.
• 20:29
  Speaker 7: It was the packet, I mean the packet. What was
• 20:31
  Speaker 7: the pilot that didn't get picked up? Can you say?
• 20:34
  Speaker 3: I'm trying to remember the name of it. I think
• 20:37
  Speaker 3: it wasn't called Broke Travel. It was something It was
• 20:40
  Speaker 3: basically a show where you would like travel on a budget.
• 20:44
  Speaker 3: It was like me and two other comedians and then
• 20:47
  Speaker 3: we would we would basically do a countdown on We
• 20:52
  Speaker 3: would start the trip with whatever, like nine hundred bucks
• 20:55
  Speaker 3: or something like that, and then it would just count
• 20:57
  Speaker 3: down everything that we did. And so it was like
• 21:00
  Speaker 3: a lightly scripted sort of reality show. It was actually
• 21:04
  Speaker 3: I think like it was supposed to potentially be a
• 21:06
  Speaker 3: Comedy Central show and yeah, you've never heard of it,
• 21:09
  Speaker 3: so it clearly clearly did not go.
• 21:12
  Speaker 7: I was wondering if anybody was like pitching you to
• 21:14
  Speaker 7: like build your own social commentary show, like kind of
• 21:17
  Speaker 7: like Foul and Kimmel, but like a youngercial media based
• 21:21
  Speaker 7: version of it, Like if that's something that's ever been
• 21:23
  Speaker 7: on your reader.
• 21:24
  Speaker 3: No, I mean I guess now more so. Yeah, But
• 21:28
  Speaker 3: at the time, Now, at the time, it was like
• 21:31
  Speaker 3: still the regular way of doing things. So you know,
• 21:35
  Speaker 3: you do your Comedy Central, like comics to watch, So
• 21:40
  Speaker 3: I'm trying to remember when I got comics to watch.
• 21:43
  Speaker 3: But right after that did New Faces at JFL and
• 21:47
  Speaker 3: then got the half hour and everything, and then was
• 21:51
  Speaker 3: writing on Tonight Show, but then got to do my
• 21:54
  Speaker 3: debut set and everything. So there were a lot of
• 21:57
  Speaker 3: the sort of ladder rung that I was able to hit.
• 22:02
  Speaker 3: But I think that not not only was I lucky,
• 22:05
  Speaker 3: but I think the overall future of any sort of
• 22:08
  Speaker 3: entertainment endeavor is to have a like a not side hustle,
• 22:13
  Speaker 3: but have a real plan for how you're going to
• 22:15
  Speaker 3: produce and make your own things independently while trying to
• 22:18
  Speaker 3: get some of these jobs because the jobs are fewer
• 22:21
  Speaker 3: and further between and So the jobs help because it
• 22:25
  Speaker 3: supplements income and everything. But I think having your own thing,
• 22:28
  Speaker 3: whatever it is that you do, is kind of going
• 22:32
  Speaker 3: to be the future. Like some of these places are
• 22:34
  Speaker 3: never going to go away. They have billions of dollars
• 22:36
  Speaker 3: and they have that sort of like a legacy establishment.
• 22:39
  Speaker 3: But I think that for the most part, when you
• 22:41
  Speaker 3: look at a young creative now, you kind of want
• 22:44
  Speaker 3: them to have this two pronged approach of here's the
• 22:48
  Speaker 3: thing that I'm going to be doing while no one
• 22:50
  Speaker 3: is calling me that is going to lead to calls
• 22:53
  Speaker 3: in the future. Here's the thing that I'm going to
• 22:54
  Speaker 3: be doing that I get to display what my skill
• 22:57
  Speaker 3: set is and also work on my skill set in
• 22:59
  Speaker 3: real time with people there willing to grow with me,
• 23:01
  Speaker 3: versus here is just the job. And if you can
• 23:04
  Speaker 3: get one of these jobs, it's amazing and you should
• 23:06
  Speaker 3: definitely go for it. But always having your own thing
• 23:10
  Speaker 3: going on at the same time, I think is the
• 23:12
  Speaker 3: is the future of all entertainment.
• 23:15
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, you had your podcast right.
• 23:18
  Speaker 3: On my podcast. And I also just when I started
• 23:21
  Speaker 3: putting the stand up out on YouTube, I wasn't I
• 23:24
  Speaker 3: wasn't sure what would happen. I just yeah, I'm very thankful.
• 23:28
  Speaker 3: I mean I had always written a lot, but I
• 23:30
  Speaker 3: had just never put it to task, Like I had
• 23:33
  Speaker 3: never committed myself to like the daily practice being backed
• 23:39
  Speaker 3: up with a delivery of a like a product or
• 23:43
  Speaker 3: of any content or anything. So even when I was
• 23:45
  Speaker 3: in Chicago, I would write a lot, and I would
• 23:47
  Speaker 3: always be trying something different at the mics, And I
• 23:49
  Speaker 3: think that's what helped me at the Jokes and Notes
• 23:51
  Speaker 3: shows because it was like, all right, if I had
• 23:53
  Speaker 3: done my set and half of it did well and
• 23:56
  Speaker 3: have it bombed, and that's just like who who what
• 24:00
  Speaker 3: I brought and who I was, then I don't even
• 24:02
  Speaker 3: know if I would have been asked back to feature,
• 24:03
  Speaker 3: because like how you're going to have somebody like bomb
• 24:06
  Speaker 3: half the half their set. So then because I wrote
• 24:09
  Speaker 3: so much, I was able to make those adjustments and
• 24:11
  Speaker 3: I was able to have a better set the next time,
• 24:14
  Speaker 3: and luckily I was there for the whole weekend. So
• 24:16
  Speaker 3: like shows two, three, and four went really well.
• 24:19
  Speaker 5: Right.
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: I think comedias like you have so much success because
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: y'all do right so much.
• 24:23
  Speaker 2: Because remember back in the day, people would take years
• 24:27
  Speaker 2: to build the hour.
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: Sure, now y'all just write and write and taking the
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: content sharing it on social media, like you're not afraid
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: to give up these jokes.
• 24:36
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's also the level of access. It's like, you know,
• 24:39
  Speaker 3: back in the day, people had to either like buy
• 24:43
  Speaker 3: the you know, the bootleg of the barber shop, or
• 24:46
  Speaker 3: they had to wait for the thing to come out
• 24:48
  Speaker 3: on some sort of platform. Yeah, like like HBO or
• 24:51
  Speaker 3: something like that. And the thing about pacing is that,
• 24:55
  Speaker 3: you know, I'm blessed that I'm able to have YouTube
• 25:00
  Speaker 3: and a space that I can just upload whenever, because
• 25:03
  Speaker 3: when you are waiting to be able to share your hour,
• 25:07
  Speaker 3: it like it can sort of derail plans like you
• 25:10
  Speaker 3: look at COVID, right, and that derailed a lot of
• 25:14
  Speaker 3: comedians who were set to do that. Like I was
• 25:16
  Speaker 3: set to do an hour I actually my Comedy Central
• 25:19
  Speaker 3: hour is supposed to tape April fourth of twenty twenty,
• 25:23
  Speaker 3: and I was just once they closed the NBA, I
• 25:25
  Speaker 3: was like, we probably not going to do the NBA. Yeah,
• 25:29
  Speaker 3: I mean it is what they I'm doing by special
• 25:32
  Speaker 3: and that's cool with everything the NBA is closed, you know,
• 25:36
  Speaker 3: and so having that happen, I still got to tape
• 25:39
  Speaker 3: in twenty twenty one. But you know, if you're going
• 25:43
  Speaker 3: through the model that most comics go through of like
• 25:46
  Speaker 3: a sort of hour every year, even that gets gets
• 25:50
  Speaker 3: stifled by something that's completely out of everybody's control. And
• 25:54
  Speaker 3: then a network, you know, you do have to be
• 25:56
  Speaker 3: sympathetic to a network situation where they can't be on
• 26:00
  Speaker 3: old or backlogged for a whole year. So there's some
• 26:02
  Speaker 3: people that did lose their opportunity because of how long
• 26:07
  Speaker 3: it took to come back around. And then there's people
• 26:10
  Speaker 3: who had to quickly come up with something else because
• 26:14
  Speaker 3: now the thing they were gonna do doesn't really fit anymore.
• 26:17
  Speaker 2: Do you still, oh, go ahead? What with HBO?
• 26:20
  Speaker 6: Right, like, do you have full creative control or did
• 26:22
  Speaker 6: they tell you what you can't say? Oh you know,
• 26:25
  Speaker 6: did they try to pick your bits for you or
• 26:28
  Speaker 6: try to take any out when you submit?
• 26:30
  Speaker 2: No?
• 26:30
  Speaker 3: No, no, I mean with HBO, they they never really
• 26:34
  Speaker 3: stepped in on the on the writing side of things
• 26:38
  Speaker 3: or told me what bid or you know, what to
• 26:40
  Speaker 3: cut or anything. I'm also because I'm I'm fairly clean,
• 26:45
  Speaker 3: Like I don't really curse that much. Like even I mean,
• 26:47
  Speaker 3: you have to go back to like three or four
• 26:50
  Speaker 3: years ago where I was like cursing at all, really like,
• 26:53
  Speaker 3: I don't really swear that much, and so that already,
• 26:56
  Speaker 3: yeah I did say swear, Yeah, yeah, yeah, you could
• 27:01
  Speaker 3: tell I was hit with a belt. Yeah, no, I
• 27:04
  Speaker 3: don't swear much.
• 27:06
  Speaker 2: And so that.
• 27:07
  Speaker 3: Already, what are they really going to tell me to
• 27:11
  Speaker 3: take out? And then also that isn't their way, Like
• 27:14
  Speaker 3: they don't they don't run up on you and and
• 27:17
  Speaker 3: come back to you with a transcript of your set
• 27:19
  Speaker 3: with red lines on it or anything. So I didn't
• 27:23
  Speaker 3: feel in any way that I would I would be
• 27:25
  Speaker 3: stifled like that. So I just went ahead and did
• 27:29
  Speaker 3: the set that I felt like represented both where I'm
• 27:32
  Speaker 3: at in the moment the best as possible, but also
• 27:35
  Speaker 3: the most cohesive piece of work that I've done to
• 27:39
  Speaker 3: this point. And so I'm very thankful that I was
• 27:42
  Speaker 3: able to do it with their support and just the
• 27:46
  Speaker 3: fact that I could take take a bit of a
• 27:50
  Speaker 3: of a step back from thinking about production as much,
• 27:53
  Speaker 3: because when you are posting to YouTube and everything, you
• 27:56
  Speaker 3: have to be the one that does the quality control,
• 27:59
  Speaker 3: and it's like, how is the sound? You know, is
• 28:01
  Speaker 3: everything in focus? And stuff like that, And I think
• 28:04
  Speaker 3: with a special. The difference between the topical stuff that
• 28:07
  Speaker 3: I do each week and the special is that I
• 28:10
  Speaker 3: personally think, especially from the specials I watch growing up,
• 28:13
  Speaker 3: that everything should be timeless when it's supposed to be
• 28:17
  Speaker 3: like a snapshot of who you are in that moment.
• 28:19
  Speaker 3: So I look at this thing and I'm like, I
• 28:22
  Speaker 3: really want twenty thirty, forty years from now for people
• 28:25
  Speaker 3: to watch it back and it be just as relevant.
• 28:28
  Speaker 3: So I'm not really making any references to things that
• 28:32
  Speaker 3: are happening now because I do that every week.
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: You know, you have such an oldest soul, right, So
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: with that oldest soul, did that draw you.
• 28:40
  Speaker 2: To HBO because a young man like you, it.
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: Would be on Netflix or something. It's like back in
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: the day everybody wanted to stand up special on HBO.
• 28:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah, HBO. No, it just feels like a throwback.
• 28:53
  Speaker 3: You know, you know what it is? Though, I think
• 28:55
  Speaker 3: that HBO has a level of discernment and there's elective
• 29:00
  Speaker 3: and they're also able to treat because they're selective, They're
• 29:04
  Speaker 3: able to treat each each piece of work that they
• 29:07
  Speaker 3: put out like its own very unique thing, whether that's
• 29:10
  Speaker 3: in their limited series or their specials. Whether it's in
• 29:12
  Speaker 3: their TV shows or their produced movies, Like you know
• 29:16
  Speaker 3: that when something's on HBO, it's like very curated, it's
• 29:20
  Speaker 3: like specifically thought about. And so I think that was
• 29:23
  Speaker 3: the main thing as well, because even before anyone was
• 29:26
  Speaker 3: calling me like once again like no manager, no nothing,
• 29:29
  Speaker 3: I really wanted to be doing things with HBO because
• 29:32
  Speaker 3: it meant something to me. Even before Netflix popped up
• 29:36
  Speaker 3: with like we're going to do a special a week,
• 29:38
  Speaker 3: you know whatever, I was like, the things that I
• 29:40
  Speaker 3: see on HBO are like instant classics, like premium yes, yes, yeah,
• 29:46
  Speaker 3: And and I think that there's definitely something to be
• 29:49
  Speaker 3: said for the opportunities that gives comedians that there are
• 29:53
  Speaker 3: some streamers out there willing to just like Pump Pump,
• 29:56
  Speaker 3: Pump Pump, but then they also as a as a streamer,
• 30:01
  Speaker 3: it then becomes on you when when everybody's getting those opportunities,
• 30:05
  Speaker 3: it then becomes on you to push as much as
• 30:09
  Speaker 3: possible and get your name out there, even though you're
• 30:12
  Speaker 3: already on the thing that's supposed to get your name
• 30:14
  Speaker 3: out there. Whereas I think with HBO them being selective
• 30:18
  Speaker 3: and very intentionally curating for a year, the things that
• 30:22
  Speaker 3: they're going to put out. You know, if I if
• 30:25
  Speaker 3: I have like four or six really important things to
• 30:28
  Speaker 3: tell you in the span of a week, right, Like,
• 30:30
  Speaker 3: let's just say we're having conversations every day, and there's
• 30:33
  Speaker 3: like I need you to pay attention to these four things,
• 30:36
  Speaker 3: these pillars that that's going to stick with you way
• 30:39
  Speaker 3: more than like I have fifty things to tell you.
• 30:42
  Speaker 3: It's like, now, they could be fifty really important things,
• 30:46
  Speaker 3: but are you going to remember them all?
• 30:48
  Speaker 2: That's right? And if other things.
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: I saw a promo for your special somewhere and I
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: don't even remember where.
• 30:53
  Speaker 2: That's how.
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: I just know I saw johsh Johnson Symphony Symphony Special
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: coming on HBO. I don't know, maybe I was watching
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: thisbe I don't know where I saw.
• 31:00
  Speaker 3: I know I thought, yeah, now, So I'm very I'm
• 31:03
  Speaker 3: very thankful that they are as invested as I am
• 31:07
  Speaker 3: in the overall project. And I'm just trying to make
• 31:09
  Speaker 3: sure that every time I do a special it feels
• 31:12
  Speaker 3: really different. So then that way not just that people
• 31:17
  Speaker 3: keep coming back, but also that you're pushing yourself creatively.
• 31:21
  Speaker 3: You know, I think that sometimes hour to hour, especially
• 31:25
  Speaker 3: as you get into that fifth sixth, seventh, eighth hour
• 31:30
  Speaker 3: of a comic. I don't know how you feel. I'm
• 31:32
  Speaker 3: interested how you feel about it. But it's like, once
• 31:34
  Speaker 3: you get to that established place and you're able to
• 31:38
  Speaker 3: say you're putting out your sixth hour with whoever, I
• 31:41
  Speaker 3: feel like sometimes that's when the quality there's almost this
• 31:45
  Speaker 3: like I don't know if you would call it like
• 31:48
  Speaker 3: a jay z effect, but it's just like you're so
• 31:50
  Speaker 3: established that now people are like, well, of course their
• 31:53
  Speaker 3: thing is going to be on this streamer. It's going
• 31:55
  Speaker 3: to be good, but there's not a different quality to
• 31:58
  Speaker 3: it to where you're like, what makes this one better
• 32:01
  Speaker 3: than the last one?
• 32:02
  Speaker 2: It's such rare air? Who the hell got six specials?
• 32:06
  Speaker 2: Like very rare air six?
• 32:10
  Speaker 5: Mike E.
• 32:11
  Speaker 2: I don't think Mike shit. I think I think he
• 32:14
  Speaker 2: is still how long his career has been to get No.
• 32:17
  Speaker 3: No, that's fair, that's kind but that's kind of what
• 32:20
  Speaker 3: I mean. It's like, once you once you get to
• 32:22
  Speaker 3: that to that place, it's like, what is what is
• 32:26
  Speaker 3: going to be the next thing that shows us that
• 32:28
  Speaker 3: you're pushing it and and I don't know, like I'm
• 32:31
  Speaker 3: not even talking about one person in particular, but just
• 32:34
  Speaker 3: when you watch after a while, it's like, yeah, sometimes
• 32:39
  Speaker 3: you're like, they got their bag. But I don't know
• 32:42
  Speaker 3: what makes this one feel different than the other one.
• 32:45
  Speaker 6: Yeah, because I feel like a special it's always supposed
• 32:47
  Speaker 6: to be special, Like it is different. You have to
• 32:49
  Speaker 6: make it different from the last one and somehow top
• 32:53
  Speaker 6: the the success of the last one. Right, But like
• 32:56
  Speaker 6: you said, which makes it now? I like a comic
• 32:58
  Speaker 6: who I feel like keeps up with that all it's
• 33:00
  Speaker 6: I'm Ali Sadik. He like he kills it in and
• 33:04
  Speaker 6: it seems like it gets better and better because he's
• 33:07
  Speaker 6: also a storyteller and it's from his personal experience. And
• 33:11
  Speaker 6: also Mike Epps he's more so like he tells stories,
• 33:14
  Speaker 6: but he's like he's the dopest one liner I know. Like,
• 33:18
  Speaker 6: so every I feel like every one of Mike EPP's
• 33:22
  Speaker 6: specials get better.
• 33:23
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: I like Chris rock Chappelle's Air. The reason why I
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: say that is because I think Chris is on like
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: six or seven. But it's an event.
• 33:36
  Speaker 3: That's exactly what I mean. And like, one of the
• 33:38
  Speaker 3: things you know, I gotta say about Ali real quick.
• 33:40
  Speaker 3: One of the things that's wild about Ali is that
• 33:42
  Speaker 3: he'll tell such a good story that someone will watch
• 33:46
  Speaker 3: something he put out before I did tell me the story,
• 33:49
  Speaker 3: which should ruin it, right. They'll tell me the story,
• 33:53
  Speaker 3: but that they will tell me the story, and I'm
• 33:55
  Speaker 3: getting it through their filter, which means not even being
• 33:57
  Speaker 3: told as well. And I'm still like what you know?
• 34:00
  Speaker 3: I mean like like I'm still having that that reaction,
• 34:03
  Speaker 3: and it's like that that's proof that you've curated a
• 34:05
  Speaker 3: thing so well that even in like the describing of it,
• 34:09
  Speaker 3: people are like, oh jeez, jeez when you know, and
• 34:12
  Speaker 3: then it makes you want to go and watch, go
• 34:14
  Speaker 3: and watch. Yeah, yeah, I wanted to know.
• 34:17
  Speaker 4: I was asking before when you write for somebody, is
• 34:21
  Speaker 4: it difficult because you actually have.
• 34:23
  Speaker 5: To understand who they are as a person?
• 34:25
  Speaker 4: Like like, let's say you're writing for Charloa, you're writing
• 34:27
  Speaker 4: for Travis Scott, or you're writing for whoever.
• 34:29
  Speaker 2: It may be.
• 34:31
  Speaker 4: Going to say, yess, no, writing for somebody, how difficult
• 34:40
  Speaker 4: is it? And do you have to put yourself in
• 34:43
  Speaker 4: their body or do you have to study them?
• 34:45
  Speaker 3: Wouldn't that be great if I was a ghostwriter for
• 34:47
  Speaker 3: Travis Scott and then everyone was realizing it, Right now,
• 34:51
  Speaker 3: what are you doing. There's no money in common. No,
• 35:00
  Speaker 3: you're gonna get me killed.
• 35:03
  Speaker 7: No.
• 35:04
  Speaker 3: So basically, what I think some of it is is
• 35:07
  Speaker 3: having the ability through you know, we are very blessed
• 35:12
  Speaker 3: now that we can basically watch most of what we
• 35:15
  Speaker 3: can even imagine on playback on demand, right, And so
• 35:19
  Speaker 3: if you are going to be writing for someone like
• 35:21
  Speaker 3: you know, that was something that happened with The Daily
• 35:23
  Speaker 3: Show when we had the guest host year and so
• 35:26
  Speaker 3: like Shah would come or Wanda Sykes would come, or
• 35:29
  Speaker 3: you know, like these people that I'm like, oh, this
• 35:31
  Speaker 3: is this is like someone that your whole trajectory of
• 35:36
  Speaker 3: a career would have had to go differently to write for.
• 35:39
  Speaker 3: And now we're getting to write for these people within
• 35:42
  Speaker 3: a week's time of each other, just from what the
• 35:45
  Speaker 3: show is doing, right, And so it can be difficult,
• 35:48
  Speaker 3: But I think that the main thing is that there's
• 35:52
  Speaker 3: a sort of there's a way that someone tells you
• 35:58
  Speaker 3: without telling you what type the jokes they like, and
• 36:01
  Speaker 3: it's usually through like the humor that they've already put out.
• 36:04
  Speaker 3: So if I'm watching you and I'm watching how not
• 36:07
  Speaker 3: just you speak here, but just like even in stand
• 36:10
  Speaker 3: up and stuff like that I'm like, Okay, I've written
• 36:14
  Speaker 3: enough jokes now where I'm like, this joke feels like
• 36:16
  Speaker 3: it would go with something that you would already say yeah,
• 36:19
  Speaker 3: you know. And then and then likewise, it's like, sometimes
• 36:22
  Speaker 3: you could be writing something and even though it's funny,
• 36:25
  Speaker 3: it's very funny, it's something you would never say like
• 36:29
  Speaker 3: it just it doesn't have your your rhythm to it.
• 36:31
  Speaker 3: There's like a music to how people speak, and sometimes
• 36:35
  Speaker 3: you can write something that on its face is amazing.
• 36:39
  Speaker 3: And I think that's also where it's really important. And
• 36:41
  Speaker 3: one of the things that being at Tonight Show and
• 36:43
  Speaker 3: Daily Show have really taught me is to let go
• 36:45
  Speaker 3: of the sort of like ego around what you produce,
• 36:50
  Speaker 3: because it's not always about whether or not the thing
• 36:53
  Speaker 3: is good. Sometimes it's about if the thing fits you know,
• 36:57
  Speaker 3: and so and so. I think sometimes people sty for
• 37:00
  Speaker 3: their careers a bit, not just in writing but in
• 37:02
  Speaker 3: anything by being like this is this is so dope?
• 37:05
  Speaker 3: Why doesn't everybody see it? And it's like, it's not
• 37:06
  Speaker 3: even about it being dope, it is you're right like that.
• 37:10
  Speaker 3: That's the craziest thing. It's like, there's so many creatives
• 37:13
  Speaker 3: out there that can look at about any work that
• 37:15
  Speaker 3: it may be filmmaker, you're you're you're a rapper, you're
• 37:18
  Speaker 3: a producer, whatever. I'm like, you are right, this thing
• 37:21
  Speaker 3: is dope. You're not wrong, and don't let go of
• 37:23
  Speaker 3: that thing that is that is dope. But does it
• 37:26
  Speaker 3: fit right now? If you are writing for Travis Scott
• 37:28
  Speaker 3: and you're like, I think you should do country this
• 37:30
  Speaker 3: album and he's like, no, you can write the best
• 37:32
  Speaker 3: country song of all time. But if Travis doesn't want it,
• 37:35
  Speaker 3: he doesn't want it. And I and I think that
• 37:38
  Speaker 3: being able to step step aside of your if your ego,
• 37:41
  Speaker 3: makes it really easy to write for people because then
• 37:44
  Speaker 3: you don't see every rejection of a joke. You know,
• 37:47
  Speaker 3: when you were at Daily Show, there's probably plenty of
• 37:51
  Speaker 3: things that you're like, I don't think I would say
• 37:53
  Speaker 3: it like this and I and that, but that even
• 37:57
  Speaker 3: that's not me. Isn't a dig on the joke or
• 37:59
  Speaker 3: the or the creative or anything. There's a thing that
• 38:03
  Speaker 3: I learned in college when I was going through my program.
• 38:08
  Speaker 3: They basically made you take a bunch of elective classes
• 38:11
  Speaker 3: within your major that were things you were never gonna
• 38:14
  Speaker 3: do right because some of it is because it's good
• 38:16
  Speaker 3: to get experience in a little bit of everything, and
• 38:18
  Speaker 3: some of it is because the college wants more your money.
• 38:20
  Speaker 3: And one of the things that we did there was
• 38:23
  Speaker 3: a class that we had where we had to direct
• 38:26
  Speaker 3: a young person, and our professor was telling us that
• 38:30
  Speaker 3: when you're a little kid, and this happens a lot
• 38:32
  Speaker 3: with child actors, stuff like that, when you're a little kid,
• 38:35
  Speaker 3: because you are so new to everything, you cannot distinguish
• 38:40
  Speaker 3: me being bad at this thing and me being a
• 38:43
  Speaker 3: bad person. So that's why, like little kids on every level,
• 38:48
  Speaker 3: not just child actors, every level take criticism so deeply
• 38:52
  Speaker 3: because they're still establishing how to make a distance between
• 38:55
  Speaker 3: themselves and whatever it is they're doing. I can go
• 38:58
  Speaker 3: out and if I have a bad set, or if
• 39:01
  Speaker 3: I put out a set and people aren't vibing with
• 39:02
  Speaker 3: her or whatever, I still even believe myself to be
• 39:06
  Speaker 3: a great comedian. I just need to do better, right,
• 39:09
  Speaker 3: And that even takes a step away, but that's still
• 39:12
  Speaker 3: not as close as like, some people never leave that stage,
• 39:17
  Speaker 3: and so to even criticize their work at all, it's
• 39:20
  Speaker 3: like you're calling them a bad person because you didn't
• 39:24
  Speaker 3: like a joke or you didn't like a piece that
• 39:27
  Speaker 3: they put out, and nothing could be further from the truth,
• 39:31
  Speaker 3: Like you're you literally, that's just that's not me. Let's
• 39:35
  Speaker 3: make an adjustment.
• 39:36
  Speaker 9: You know.
• 39:38
  Speaker 7: How did you get to that point though, with like
• 39:39
  Speaker 7: the Daily Show? Because I saw your interview with Colbert
• 39:42
  Speaker 7: when you were talking about just like the pressures of it,
• 39:43
  Speaker 7: because it's already this big legacy show and I mean,
• 39:48
  Speaker 7: you're the newcomer, right, You're the new kid. How do
• 39:50
  Speaker 7: you get to that point on that stage in because
• 39:52
  Speaker 7: that's a different level of like everything.
• 39:55
  Speaker 2: I think.
• 39:56
  Speaker 3: I think that for the most part, you just have
• 39:58
  Speaker 3: to be accepting of a few realities, right the same
• 40:03
  Speaker 3: way that when you look at people on stage, and
• 40:06
  Speaker 3: some people are like, I could never do that because
• 40:08
  Speaker 3: they have a fear of like public speaking or something.
• 40:12
  Speaker 3: And so some people are like, oh, I really like
• 40:14
  Speaker 3: writing comedy or I really love comedy, but I don't
• 40:17
  Speaker 3: know if I could ever do it. And the thing
• 40:19
  Speaker 3: I always tell them in those instances is that, like,
• 40:22
  Speaker 3: if you go up, people want to see a good show,
• 40:26
  Speaker 3: so like everyone's already kind of rooting for you. And
• 40:29
  Speaker 3: I think that's an important thing to remember because I
• 40:31
  Speaker 3: think one of the reasons people have a fear of
• 40:33
  Speaker 3: public speaking is that they have that fear of being booed,
• 40:35
  Speaker 3: or they have that fear of being looked at as like, well,
• 40:38
  Speaker 3: you should just never do this again, right, That would
• 40:41
  Speaker 3: be harrowing, you know. And I think that behind the desk,
• 40:46
  Speaker 3: I have to accept some facts, which is that I
• 40:48
  Speaker 3: have the support of everybody there. I see it not
• 40:52
  Speaker 3: just in not just in the words that people say,
• 40:54
  Speaker 3: but I also see it in how hard everyone works.
• 40:57
  Speaker 3: Like while I'm hosting, everyone's putting their best foot forward.
• 41:00
  Speaker 3: Everyone is trying to help me succeed. The audience is
• 41:03
  Speaker 3: also excited to be there. They're excited for the show.
• 41:05
  Speaker 3: Some of them are excited to see me. And I
• 41:09
  Speaker 3: just have to take in that some of the pressure
• 41:12
  Speaker 3: that I might feel is a bit manufactured because of
• 41:15
  Speaker 3: what could possibly go wrong. But those things not only
• 41:19
  Speaker 3: are they not happening right now, the likelihood that they're
• 41:22
  Speaker 3: even going to happen would only be a result of
• 41:25
  Speaker 3: me like living in my own fear. And so I
• 41:28
  Speaker 3: think that that pressure sort of melts away when you
• 41:30
  Speaker 3: actually start doing the thing. And that's something that luckily
• 41:34
  Speaker 3: I was able to adjust to pretty quickly. But it
• 41:38
  Speaker 3: is a I think because of the responsibility that is
• 41:41
  Speaker 3: an enormous weight. But it's not a weight that you
• 41:44
  Speaker 3: carry heavy on you. It's just a It's like if
• 41:47
  Speaker 3: somebody handed you something heavier, you were like, oh, well
• 41:49
  Speaker 3: this is substantial.
• 41:51
  Speaker 1: You know, let's stay there for a second, right, Because
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: you're a great behind the desk, and you spoke about
• 41:55
  Speaker 1: ego when you're a writer, but you're also great as
• 41:59
  Speaker 1: the talent. How do you check your ego when it
• 42:01
  Speaker 1: comes to writing for people you know you're better than
• 42:04
  Speaker 1: as a host?
• 42:05
  Speaker 3: Dangn I mean wow, wow, Uh, I just don't. I
• 42:12
  Speaker 3: think that everything happens in its time, like and I know,
• 42:15
  Speaker 3: I know, I'm I'm probably able to look back with
• 42:19
  Speaker 3: some sort of rose tenanted glasses because a lot of
• 42:21
  Speaker 3: things worked out for me. But I think that sometimes
• 42:24
  Speaker 3: when you feel like that that hungry you know, every
• 42:28
  Speaker 3: once in a while you'll see someone who's like that
• 42:30
  Speaker 3: sort of hungry young line. You see this in fighting
• 42:33
  Speaker 3: a lot, where they want their title shot just because
• 42:35
  Speaker 3: they want their first fight, and it's like, look, you're
• 42:38
  Speaker 3: hot right now, and you're you're probably never going to
• 42:41
  Speaker 3: be better physically, but you have the experience yet to
• 42:43
  Speaker 3: go out and knock out a champ, and so now
• 42:46
  Speaker 3: you could set yourself up in your own belief like
• 42:49
  Speaker 3: you have to. You have to balance this level of
• 42:52
  Speaker 3: belief with what could possibly be delusion. And I think
• 42:55
  Speaker 3: that having belief and having experience means you're not going
• 42:59
  Speaker 3: to be delusion. And so sometimes taking that back seat
• 43:02
  Speaker 3: once in a while and learning from someone, even if
• 43:05
  Speaker 3: your ego tells you you're better than this person, or
• 43:07
  Speaker 3: you could be doing this thing better or whatever, you're
• 43:09
  Speaker 3: not in that position right now for a reason. And
• 43:11
  Speaker 3: the reason is either decisions that you've made up until
• 43:15
  Speaker 3: this point or things that are out of your control.
• 43:17
  Speaker 3: And so I think that to me, like ego isn't
• 43:23
  Speaker 3: even always the enemy. It's literally just like your thoughts
• 43:26
  Speaker 3: in your head about how you feel about about life
• 43:29
  Speaker 3: as it is right now. But I think that sometimes
• 43:31
  Speaker 3: it causes us to be less curious than it's necessary,
• 43:34
  Speaker 3: and so you should always ask yourself, like why if
• 43:37
  Speaker 3: I think I should be in this position, why am
• 43:40
  Speaker 3: I not in this position? Is it something that I
• 43:41
  Speaker 3: did or is it something that didn't happen yet? Is
• 43:44
  Speaker 3: it something that I'm setting myself up for in the future.
• 43:46
  Speaker 2: Should I be learning now?
• 43:47
  Speaker 3: Should I be learning now? Because because once again you'll
• 43:50
  Speaker 3: be thinking you're better than somebody, and then you'll actually
• 43:53
  Speaker 3: get in their position and you'll be like, oh, this
• 43:54
  Speaker 3: is this is really hard. I don't know. If you're
• 43:56
  Speaker 3: watch Wipeout, everybody thinks that they could do wipe Out. No, No,
• 44:01
  Speaker 3: it's the obstacle course, or like Ninja Warrior. When you
• 44:05
  Speaker 3: watch n Warrior, the next person thinks they could do it.
• 44:08
  Speaker 5: I mean me watching it at home, thing I can do.
• 44:10
  Speaker 3: Yeah, It's like you just watch somebody grab a ring
• 44:13
  Speaker 3: in the air and try to connect it to another
• 44:15
  Speaker 3: regular air and you're over here on the couch like
• 44:18
  Speaker 3: just just you know what I mean, it's right there,
• 44:23
  Speaker 3: and it's like you're not You're not there in that moment.
• 44:25
  Speaker 3: You don't know what that experience is like, and you
• 44:27
  Speaker 3: don't know people's arms get tired, you know. And so
• 44:31
  Speaker 3: I think that the way I was able to really
• 44:35
  Speaker 3: be patient and not have an ego about that sort
• 44:38
  Speaker 3: of thing is that everyone is your your teacher. You're
• 44:41
  Speaker 3: always learning from people, whether you want to or not,
• 44:43
  Speaker 3: whether they're a good teacher or not. Some people teach
• 44:45
  Speaker 3: you a credible lessons, and they're horrible people, you know
• 44:48
  Speaker 3: what I mean, Like like every once in a while,
• 44:50
  Speaker 3: you'll look back and you'll be like, oh, I really
• 44:52
  Speaker 3: needed that thing to happen. They still suck. Don't get
• 44:55
  Speaker 3: me wrong, that's they were terrible. But also if I
• 44:57
  Speaker 3: didn't have that experience, I wouldn't know how to make
• 44:59
  Speaker 3: those adjustments.
• 45:00
  Speaker 2: You know, you also have.
• 45:02
  Speaker 1: You are in an era right now where people want
• 45:04
  Speaker 1: comedians to be funny and politically aware, right, especially because
• 45:08
  Speaker 1: you on a daily show.
• 45:09
  Speaker 2: Do you think comedies becomes a new journalism for a
• 45:11
  Speaker 2: lot of people.
• 45:13
  Speaker 3: No, I think I think maybe some people digest it
• 45:16
  Speaker 3: that way, but I think that that's actually to everyone's
• 45:21
  Speaker 3: detriment a little bit. I always make the point to
• 45:23
  Speaker 3: tell people that I am a fake journalist, you know, like,
• 45:26
  Speaker 3: like every once while somebody will come to daily show.
• 45:29
  Speaker 3: They might even ask the question, like, what made you
• 45:30
  Speaker 3: want to get a journalism? I was like, oh, I'm not, Oh,
• 45:33
  Speaker 3: I have terrible news for you. I'm not a journalism
• 45:35
  Speaker 3: at all. We're doing a comedy show. But but I
• 45:38
  Speaker 3: think that there's a couple of things happening. One is
• 45:42
  Speaker 3: that the news is more like divisive and depressing that
• 45:48
  Speaker 3: it's ever been right because even if you have no
• 45:54
  Speaker 3: one really does news like us, because we do our
• 45:56
  Speaker 3: news like entertainment. If anything, I think it will be
• 45:58
  Speaker 3: important the next time you of a journalist on to
• 46:00
  Speaker 3: ask them what made them want to get into entertainment,
• 46:03
  Speaker 3: because that is kind of how a lot it's being digested.
• 46:07
  Speaker 3: Where the journalists now are doing opinion the entire time,
• 46:12
  Speaker 3: like the whole time, like tell me what happened, yeah
• 46:17
  Speaker 3: and so. And then you see comedians who are kind
• 46:19
  Speaker 3: of doing a little bit of what we always done,
• 46:21
  Speaker 3: which is just talk about everything. But now because the
• 46:24
  Speaker 3: news is so depressing or people don't know how to
• 46:29
  Speaker 3: feel about what just happened, like, then they look to
• 46:32
  Speaker 3: comedians because it's it's a more it just goes down
• 46:37
  Speaker 3: a little easier with with with some jokes. That being said,
• 46:41
  Speaker 3: I think it's really important to keep reading. I think
• 46:43
  Speaker 3: it's really important to have multiple sources that you that
• 46:46
  Speaker 3: you take your news in from, so you're not just
• 46:49
  Speaker 3: like locked into one specific opinion about something. Because all
• 46:55
  Speaker 3: of legacy media doesn't matter what you watch, has some
• 46:58
  Speaker 3: ties to money. That's how they've been able to stay
• 47:01
  Speaker 3: open and so you'll find that, like you, you could
• 47:04
  Speaker 3: be watching what you feel like is the most reputable
• 47:07
  Speaker 3: news source, and then you'll see an anchor ask a
• 47:10
  Speaker 3: guest something like, well, don't billionaires have a right to exist?
• 47:14
  Speaker 2: And you're like, where did this company?
• 47:18
  Speaker 3: What are you talking about?
• 47:20
  Speaker 5: You know what I mean?
• 47:20
  Speaker 3: And it's like, but that's because at the end of
• 47:23
  Speaker 3: the day, this company is owned by this company that's
• 47:25
  Speaker 3: owned by this company that's owned by a billionaire. And
• 47:28
  Speaker 3: so no matter how hands off you try to be,
• 47:31
  Speaker 3: or no matter how much as a billionaire you love
• 47:33
  Speaker 3: independent journalism or whatever, eventually that messaging is gonna creep through.
• 47:36
  Speaker 3: We've already seen where Jeff Bezos has basically said, hey,
• 47:40
  Speaker 3: you're gonna run like this, and he said that out
• 47:43
  Speaker 3: loud for everybody to see. If you read it, You're
• 47:45
  Speaker 3: gonna run like this.
• 47:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 47:46
  Speaker 3: And so I'm not saying that makes that news source
• 47:51
  Speaker 3: like completely irrelevant for all time, but it does paint
• 47:54
  Speaker 3: a picture because now if I keep in my head
• 47:56
  Speaker 3: that Jeff Bezos said you're gonna run like this, then
• 48:00
  Speaker 3: no matter what story they put out, I'm like, this
• 48:02
  Speaker 3: is a Jeff Betos approved news story. What does that
• 48:04
  Speaker 3: mean in my mind right, And so I think that
• 48:07
  Speaker 3: using comedians as journalism can be really dangerous because journalism
• 48:12
  Speaker 3: is something that you need a professionalism about and you
• 48:17
  Speaker 3: need you do need a degree in as well, because
• 48:21
  Speaker 3: I think in the in the pursuit of that degree,
• 48:24
  Speaker 3: you learn all the best practices. All those best practices
• 48:26
  Speaker 3: are there for a reason. And so as a comedian,
• 48:29
  Speaker 3: you're not checking sources, You're not like you're trying to
• 48:31
  Speaker 3: make people laugh. And so I don't I don't think
• 48:34
  Speaker 3: comedians should even see themselves in that light, you know, So.
• 48:37
  Speaker 1: You you do worry about audiences confusing comedy with actual
• 48:40
  Speaker 1: political understanding.
• 48:42
  Speaker 3: Yes, because I think I can come to an understanding
• 48:45
  Speaker 3: off of something I learned, and I try to be
• 48:48
  Speaker 3: as well researched as I can from my set. But
• 48:50
  Speaker 3: that's my choice. That's like a thing that I've decided
• 48:53
  Speaker 3: to do. That's not something that everyone is doing. And
• 48:56
  Speaker 3: that's not even something that comedians who also cover topic stuff.
• 48:59
  Speaker 3: That's not even something tell them to do. I don't
• 49:01
  Speaker 3: I don't run up to people be like, why why
• 49:03
  Speaker 3: didn't you cite six sources? You know what I mean?
• 49:05
  Speaker 3: Like that that, first of all, who am I to
• 49:09
  Speaker 3: tell you that, and then and then second it's like,
• 49:12
  Speaker 3: that's not that's not their their intent. Their intent is
• 49:15
  Speaker 3: to be funny. And so I think that some comedians
• 49:18
  Speaker 3: are some some comedians are playing a dangerous game where
• 49:22
  Speaker 3: they are trying to get into a sort of like
• 49:26
  Speaker 3: journalism that they honestly won't be able to get out of,
• 49:30
  Speaker 3: because once people come to you for those things, you
• 49:33
  Speaker 3: can't now back up and be like, y'all, I'm just
• 49:36
  Speaker 3: joking and we were just playing jokes. If you step
• 49:38
  Speaker 3: into journalism and that's how people see you, it's the
• 49:41
  Speaker 3: same way with a journalists. Imagine now a journalist gets
• 49:45
  Speaker 3: on stage in front of five thousand people and bombs
• 49:48
  Speaker 3: and they're like, y'all, I'm just a journalist. It's like, well, no,
• 49:52
  Speaker 3: you showed up to be a comedian, so so now
• 49:55
  Speaker 3: you have to do comedy. And so if you're a
• 49:56
  Speaker 3: comedian trying to do journalism, you have to you have
• 49:59
  Speaker 3: to re do it. And so I always try to
• 50:02
  Speaker 3: make that correction of like even when people tell me
• 50:05
  Speaker 3: like you're my news, I'm like, oh, you should still
• 50:07
  Speaker 3: watch the dues, you should please still be reading like
• 50:10
  Speaker 3: I'm because one I'm not going to cover everything. Two,
• 50:12
  Speaker 3: I'm not gonna be right about everything, So you have
• 50:14
  Speaker 3: to you have to discern for yourself. Like, I'm glad
• 50:17
  Speaker 3: people find me entertaining. I'm glad that people want to
• 50:19
  Speaker 3: engage with the things that I think are important, like this,
• 50:22
  Speaker 3: this last set that I did on Spirit. It's like
• 50:25
  Speaker 3: people people are sleeping on how big of a deal
• 50:28
  Speaker 3: this is? Like Spirit closed. Look, this is what I'm saying.
• 50:43
  Speaker 3: This is all I'm saying, right, is that the the
• 50:46
  Speaker 3: thing did not happen in a vacuum. We are in
• 50:49
  Speaker 3: a war that we don't understand why we're in. We're
• 50:52
  Speaker 3: clearly in it illegally. It's raising the cost of fuel.
• 50:56
  Speaker 3: This company was already on a thin margin. And I
• 50:59
  Speaker 3: don't remember who it was, but I think it was
• 51:01
  Speaker 3: Delta that then this is also why I'm not a journalists.
• 51:05
  Speaker 3: You see, I don't even know what to do, but
• 51:08
  Speaker 3: I'm pretty sure it was Delta that canceled as many
• 51:12
  Speaker 3: if not more flights the same day that Spirit closed,
• 51:15
  Speaker 3: and that got buried as a story because Spirit closed.
• 51:22
  Speaker 3: And so I'm like, I'm like, all right, clearly, something
• 51:25
  Speaker 3: bigger than Spirit is going. This isn't just business practices.
• 51:28
  Speaker 3: Something is happening with fuel, which is important for flying.
• 51:32
  Speaker 3: You would like to fly with enough fuel, you know.
• 51:35
  Speaker 3: And so I think that, yeah, I choose this topic
• 51:38
  Speaker 3: one because I think it could be really funny. It
• 51:40
  Speaker 3: gives me an opportunity to tell all of my spirit
• 51:42
  Speaker 3: stories that I have from my my times, like flying
• 51:45
  Speaker 3: on spirit. But also I think that this is going
• 51:48
  Speaker 3: to end up being something that's really important for the
• 51:51
  Speaker 3: for the future, and we're going to look back on this.
• 51:54
  Speaker 3: We're going to look back on this time for something
• 51:56
  Speaker 3: that we get charged in the future that we are
• 51:59
  Speaker 3: not charged for out or something we used to get
• 52:01
  Speaker 3: because you saw Delta be like, no more pretzels. We
• 52:05
  Speaker 3: can't we can't look look if the flight is if
• 52:09
  Speaker 3: the flight is less than two hours, we can't be
• 52:11
  Speaker 3: handed out water anymore.
• 52:13
  Speaker 4: You know what, whatever the thing they just give you water, Yeah,
• 52:15
  Speaker 4: they pour it out a long thing.
• 52:16
  Speaker 5: Don't even get.
• 52:19
  Speaker 3: And so and then so ten years from now, because
• 52:22
  Speaker 3: the prices never go down and the and the companies
• 52:24
  Speaker 3: never make adjustments for the customer, they are like, hey,
• 52:26
  Speaker 3: we're just going to do this new thing to be nice, right.
• 52:29
  Speaker 3: So then ten years from now, when you're on a
• 52:31
  Speaker 3: United flight and the and the flight attendant walks by
• 52:34
  Speaker 3: with the bottle of water and they're like, open your mouth,
• 52:36
  Speaker 3: we're gonna look back at this.
• 52:38
  Speaker 5: Time, you know what i mean?
• 52:41
  Speaker 3: Yeah, just like I ain't. That'll be how they wake
• 52:46
  Speaker 3: you up to adjust your seat, because they love wake
• 52:48
  Speaker 3: you up to adjust your seat. They're like, we landed
• 52:50
  Speaker 3: in twenty minutes. I don't know why you want.
• 52:55
  Speaker 7: Yeah, you got to put your seat up because oh yeah,
• 52:59
  Speaker 7: she used to be say take off for in the
• 53:00
  Speaker 7: most dangerous times, and if your seat is back, it's
• 53:02
  Speaker 7: harder for you to get up and get out into
• 53:04
  Speaker 7: people behind you.
• 53:04
  Speaker 3: I'm fully with you, but thirty minutes. Yeah, but that's
• 53:09
  Speaker 3: where I'm like, give me.
• 53:10
  Speaker 5: Five minutes before. Yeah, well, you take five minutes to
• 53:12
  Speaker 5: put your seat.
• 53:13
  Speaker 7: But once you're on dissented like it all counts. Like
• 53:15
  Speaker 7: once you're coming down, anything can happen in that time.
• 53:17
  Speaker 7: You got to be ready to figure it out.
• 53:19
  Speaker 3: That's fair, that's fair.
• 53:20
  Speaker 6: They don't go back that damn far to be trying
• 53:23
  Speaker 6: to have to figure out what's happening.
• 53:25
  Speaker 7: It's the same reason why they actually take your back
• 53:28
  Speaker 7: off your lap, even if your person is small you're like, well,
• 53:29
  Speaker 7: I gotta give you that, But it's because if something happened,
• 53:31
  Speaker 7: they just want you.
• 53:32
  Speaker 2: To be able to like, yeah, I.
• 53:36
  Speaker 7: Would probably do it, but it depends on what's happening.
• 53:38
  Speaker 7: You're not thinking about that. If you're really in an
• 53:40
  Speaker 7: emergency landing, you're not thinking about your person.
• 53:42
  Speaker 6: And then it's also fifty people on the plane, you
• 53:44
  Speaker 6: know what I'm saying, fifty plus people, So I get
• 53:47
  Speaker 6: what you're saying.
• 53:47
  Speaker 7: But they just want it all clear, like all roads clear,
• 53:50
  Speaker 7: so you can safely figure out what you got to do.
• 53:52
  Speaker 3: No, for sure, I'm not even saying that it's bad.
• 53:55
  Speaker 3: It just felt like thirty minutes because now sleep like yeah,
• 54:01
  Speaker 3: and I'm like I'm like okay. And it also depends
• 54:03
  Speaker 3: on how the flight tend that wakes you up. Every
• 54:05
  Speaker 3: once in a while, I have a flight tended just softly.
• 54:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah we're landing, so.
• 54:13
  Speaker 9: Yeah.
• 54:13
  Speaker 3: And then every once a while you get somebody that's like,
• 54:16
  Speaker 3: excuse me.
• 54:20
  Speaker 8: Yeah, so the spirit seed no, no spirits seat, I'll.
• 54:30
  Speaker 3: Show you right now, Okay, because I flew spirit a
• 54:32
  Speaker 3: decent amount. It took my career a while, uh show
• 54:38
  Speaker 3: that's yeah, it was, it was I remember because the
• 54:44
  Speaker 3: Spirit was my first flight, and so I remember getting
• 54:47
  Speaker 3: it the Spirit seat and then going to put because
• 54:49
  Speaker 3: it it has the button, and you would think a
• 54:51
  Speaker 3: button would do something, So I press the button, be
• 54:53
  Speaker 3: like like I'd be strung. I actually there was one
• 54:59
  Speaker 3: time I thought my seat was broken, so I pressed
• 55:01
  Speaker 3: the button and then put my foot on the seat
• 55:05
  Speaker 3: ahead of me to push back because I was like, oh,
• 55:07
  Speaker 3: it just has to break through. It stuck, and no
• 55:09
  Speaker 3: it was not. It goes back two centimeters. I mean,
• 55:14
  Speaker 3: I want to.
• 55:15
  Speaker 2: I want to before we leave. I want all.
• 55:16
  Speaker 1: If you heard these comments from Chappelle when he was
• 55:18
  Speaker 1: on Michelle Obama's podcast, you was talking about young comics.
• 55:22
  Speaker 2: Okay, let's play this.
• 55:24
  Speaker 9: Younger comedians are a little bit different because their audience
• 55:28
  Speaker 9: isn't in their room, into their internet people.
• 55:32
  Speaker 7: You know.
• 55:32
  Speaker 9: It's like sharing a space with people is really important
• 55:38
  Speaker 9: to connection and understanding. And it's no wonder why we
• 55:42
  Speaker 9: feel so divided is because all of our interaction is
• 55:45
  Speaker 9: happening without this heart to heart feeling.
• 55:49
  Speaker 8: We're losing that.
• 55:50
  Speaker 9: And you said, young comedians nowadays have a different ethos
• 55:54
  Speaker 9: because they're.
• 55:55
  Speaker 3: Not negative too, because it gets more engagement.
• 55:59
  Speaker 1: If they talk bad about somebody, they'll get they'll get
• 56:02
  Speaker 1: more clicks and more engagements.
• 56:04
  Speaker 5: So everything's a disrecord now and it used to be.
• 56:07
  Speaker 2: It's not like that.
• 56:09
  Speaker 1: The reason I wanted to ask you because when I
• 56:10
  Speaker 1: listen to you, I hear you talk about difficult topics
• 56:14
  Speaker 1: with empathy instead of dunking on people. So is compassion
• 56:17
  Speaker 1: underrated in comedy right now?
• 56:20
  Speaker 3: I mean I think so I hear what Chappelle is
• 56:23
  Speaker 3: saying because it you know, that's how all the algorithms work.
• 56:29
  Speaker 3: You know, what keeps people on? Does it keep people
• 56:31
  Speaker 3: on to talk about how great somebody is? Or does
• 56:35
  Speaker 3: it keep people on to be like, you know what
• 56:37
  Speaker 3: else they did? Like? That's I mean, it's and it's
• 56:41
  Speaker 3: also some of it is the algorithms, and some of
• 56:43
  Speaker 3: it's human nature. It's like you you remember the person
• 56:47
  Speaker 3: who bumped into you in the morning and didn't say anything.
• 56:51
  Speaker 3: You might not remember the five people who held the
• 56:53
  Speaker 3: door open for you. Wow. And so I think that
• 56:55
  Speaker 3: the Internet, while some of these tools and little tricks
• 56:59
  Speaker 3: that that they use to keep us on and keep
• 57:01
  Speaker 3: us engaged, there's still a shade of us in there,
• 57:04
  Speaker 3: Like we can't just pass it all off onto all
• 57:07
  Speaker 3: the platforms because because we also gravitate a little bit
• 57:11
  Speaker 3: towards negativity our ourselves sometimes and it can be the
• 57:15
  Speaker 3: fastest way. Like to what Chappelle's saying about disc record,
• 57:19
  Speaker 3: It's like you look at some people's careers and and
• 57:21
  Speaker 3: the person that they dissed that was bigger than them,
• 57:23
  Speaker 3: that they then like beat in that battle, It's like, yeah,
• 57:27
  Speaker 3: you took their spot a little bit, and then you
• 57:29
  Speaker 3: took it to the stratosphere maybe, but like that's that's
• 57:33
  Speaker 3: I'm you look at the you look at the sort
• 57:38
  Speaker 3: of younger days of battle rap and of hip hop,
• 57:41
  Speaker 3: and the whole thing was I deserve to be on
• 57:44
  Speaker 3: stage not just because I'm great, but because I'm better
• 57:47
  Speaker 3: than you, the person who's currently on stage right now.
• 57:49
  Speaker 3: I'm now gonna prove that, and I'm gonna I'm gonna
• 57:53
  Speaker 3: completely strip you down, bear and expose that I am
• 57:57
  Speaker 3: better than you. And then I get your spot, and
• 58:00
  Speaker 3: then someone comes and tries to take mine, and then
• 58:02
  Speaker 3: I just gotta do the same thing, right. And so
• 58:05
  Speaker 3: there's there's a level of that when you apply it
• 58:09
  Speaker 3: to any competition. And because now we are in a
• 58:12
  Speaker 3: sort of attention economy and a competition for attention. You're
• 58:16
  Speaker 3: going to see a lot of that stuff. And so
• 58:18
  Speaker 3: I think that having some having some empathy and not
• 58:22
  Speaker 3: always I think sometimes people mistake like empathy with agreement.
• 58:26
  Speaker 3: You know, I can understand how someone got to where
• 58:28
  Speaker 3: they are, even if I despise them as a person.
• 58:30
  Speaker 3: I think when you're empathetic, people forget that you also
• 58:34
  Speaker 3: might feel the same way about them, you know what
• 58:37
  Speaker 3: I mean, as you might feel the same way about
• 58:40
  Speaker 3: someone that they feel. But it's like you can completely
• 58:43
  Speaker 3: despise everything about about Trump. But I think understanding how
• 58:49
  Speaker 3: he got the way he got also gives you the
• 58:52
  Speaker 3: tools to combat and more effectively, you know what I mean.
• 58:55
  Speaker 3: If you just throw your hands up at everybody who
• 58:58
  Speaker 3: is evil and go they're the de it's like that, look,
• 59:01
  Speaker 3: that's true, that's fine, that that makes sense, but also like,
• 59:05
  Speaker 3: how do you how do you dismantle a devil? And
• 59:09
  Speaker 3: I think understanding that and showing some empathy towards that
• 59:13
  Speaker 3: doesn't mean you agree with anything. You're just like, no,
• 59:16
  Speaker 3: I see you and and the person to me. One
• 59:19
  Speaker 3: of the good things about empathy is I think it
• 59:21
  Speaker 3: actually makes you scarier to the opposition sometimes because you
• 59:24
  Speaker 3: really see them, you know, like I understand you, and
• 59:28
  Speaker 3: if I understand you, I get you a little bit
• 59:31
  Speaker 3: deeper than these people who are either just scared of
• 59:33
  Speaker 3: you or these people who are just just gonna rail
• 59:36
  Speaker 3: against you all day and like, you know, call you
• 59:39
  Speaker 3: out your name and be right. I'm not like, once again,
• 59:41
  Speaker 3: when people don't have the specific type of empathy that
• 59:46
  Speaker 3: I have and they are reactionary or they're reacting what's
• 59:50
  Speaker 3: happening right now, I'm fully with it, like I'm never
• 59:53
  Speaker 3: gonna tell anybody else how to to act like me
• 59:56
  Speaker 3: or how to act in a situation. But you look
• 59:58
  Speaker 3: at Clarence Thomas and it's like I see you. I
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 3: see you, dude. You are an affirmative action higher, your
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 3: affirmative action into your law school and everything. And now
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 3: you're trying to pull up the ladder behind you because
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 3: you think that in your circle and with your friends,
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 3: it'll make up for the fact that you're black, right,
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 3: you know what I mean? I see you, and so
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 3: I can have empathy for someone who like I was
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 3: at a Catholic school, I was one of few. I
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 3: was I was one a few black kids, and everybody
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 3: is going to have a need as an adolescent to
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 3: fit in, right, So where there's some things that I
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 3: did to fit in that I shouldn't have done looking back,
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 3: and it's like, and you can have some compassion for
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 3: yourself because you're twelve, fourteen whatever. But then when I
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 3: look at my experience and then I see Clarence Thomas,
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 3: I'm like, oh, I see you because I could have
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 3: because I could have gone down this route if I
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 3: really like stayed within this sort of like self hate
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 3: or if I really stayed within this. I owe these
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 3: people something because they took me in and they're just
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 3: so gracious to do it because of Look, because look
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 3: at me, right, And so if I understand you, then
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 3: I can address you more effectively.
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 2: What what if you don't understand?
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 3: Sometimes I don't understand, and I try to be honest
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 3: about that too, you know, like sometimes I don't act like.
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 3: One of the reasons I think we're in the position
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 3: that we're in right now is because a lot of people,
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 3: whether they're on the progressive side of things, they're leftists,
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 3: they're liberal, they're conservative, they're you know, straight up Nazis. Whatever.
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 3: Everybody's trying to be the Trump whisperer, and I'm not
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 3: like I'm just like for each thing that he does,
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 3: I have a different assessment of it. And so whether
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 3: I'm on the show or I'm doing stand up or whatever,
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 3: sometimes I'm like, y'all, this is crackhead behavior. I see no,
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 3: because I grew up around now, I've seen this before.
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 3: This because now to be like, we win in the war,
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 3: but that's why we got to keep fighting. That's how
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 3: crackheads fight. That's the crazy thing. It's like I already
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 3: beat you, which is why I also need to call
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 3: to it my friends to come help me get up
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 3: off the ground right. And I think that that's something
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 3: that if I'm honest about too, that also might be
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 3: what sometimes people mistake for journalism, where it's like I
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 3: try to be honest about what I do and don't
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 3: know in real time what I think in real time.
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 3: And I think one of the reasons people are gravitating
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 3: towards independent creators of any sort of content is because
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 3: we usually unless we're like sort of blinded by money,
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 3: are not beholden to the interest that would make us
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 3: say something or act like we believe something that we don't.
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 3: You know, if I am if I am an anchor
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 3: for Fox News, there's a certain line I gotta tell, right, Like,
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 3: there just is like we kind of all know it
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 3: and see it when we see it, right, But if
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 3: you are online and you might even have some aligning
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 3: opinions to Fox News, you seem a little bit more
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 3: free because no one can can find your tethers yet
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 3: And it's not until like what's your name, Ashley Saint
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 3: Clair or whoever got up on Twitter and was exposed
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 3: in everybody being like they get there. All these people
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 3: you think are independent get their tale points directly from
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 3: the White House, and they're getting paid directly by billionaires
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 3: to act like they're independent. And and so I think
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 3: that that's one also, just to reiterate, because I cannot
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 3: stress this enough the danger of treating independent creators who
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 3: just have a camera in front of them or bought
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 3: a microphone from Best Buy as journalists, because then you
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 3: look at your Nick Shirley's and you're like, this guy
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 3: can't read. He can't like like sometimes people and and
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 3: look I get it, like I can't imagine if you're
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 3: in the Somali or Haitian community. I can't imagine if
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 3: this dude rolls up on you with a camera. He's
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 3: got all these followers and he's streaming you right now
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 3: and stuff. I can't imagine what that's like in real time. Right.
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 3: But also when you just give this dude some some space,
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 3: which I'm not saying he should be given a platform
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 3: in any way. I'm just saying when you listen to
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 3: him talk by the people who invite him to talk,
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 3: and he starts talking, his talking sounds like not reading.
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 3: This dude went up there, y'all, y'all got it. I
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 3: don't know if it's it was still some good investigation
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 3: of journalism on Nick Shirley's part.
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 2: That's the guy that exposed everything in Minnesota, right.
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 3: I don't I only wouldn't say he exposed everything.
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 2: I mean he did, and then he exposed the whole Minnesota.
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 2: This is the dude case confusing people.
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 3: No, no, no, because I think I think you might
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 3: be confusing the fact that in Minnesota, the stuff that
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 3: he was talking about was already being investigated. So he
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 3: just amplified. He just amplified it. And he also incorrectly
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 3: amplified it because then this dude, because he's not a journalist,
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 3: doesn't know like protocols, doesn't know what to do. So
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 3: then this dude also just shows up at daycare and
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 3: it's like, let me in with a camera. It's like
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 3: they were like no, and they're like, well, you must
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 3: be doing fraud. It's like, no, you are a grown
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 3: man with a camera that wants to come. Yeah. No,
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 3: that's crazy.
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 1: And so that's an interesting one though, because if there
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 1: was there clearly was something going on there that was wrong.
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 2: Now I don't know who hipped him to it or
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 2: why he did what he did, what.
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 1: If he heard about it just being in Minnesota and
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 1: decided to be vigilante.
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 3: I think I think you once again, this is like
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 3: where journalism comes into play, and like do you cite
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 3: your sources, do you get background on people? Do you
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 3: do you ask the right questions so that you're not
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 3: when you when you are an independent creator and you're
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 3: just over here trying to get clicks. You're trying to
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 3: get clicks, so you ask questions that are going to
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 3: lead to clicks. You're not necessarily asking questions that get
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 3: down to the truth of the matter.
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 2: He didn't do any investigation.
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 3: I don't think he did any investigation. And I also
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 3: think that like he knows what he's doing, even as
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 3: someone who seems very dumb, he also knows what he's
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 3: doing like a like a dumb bully can also be
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 3: smart about bullying. Some people just have a talent for
• 1:05:37
  Speaker 3: certain things, right, And so when I look at a
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 3: Nick Shirley, I'm like, whether whether he is right about
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 3: the next story he engages or not, it's how he
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 3: goes about it, and it's and it's also who he
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 3: does it to, because it's not journalism is supposed to
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 3: be journalism across the board. If your journalism is only
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 3: finding where the fraud is in any brown or black
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 3: skinned community so that you can perpetuate ye, so you
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 3: can perpetuate a narrative that all black and brown people
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 3: are scammers, It's like, now it doesn't even to me,
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 3: it doesn't even matter as much if you keep finding
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 3: the thing, because once again, you look at you look
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 3: at crack versus cocaine. Right, And if we as a
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 3: country really cared about people doing illictit drugs, why didn't
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 3: we raid clubs? Why didn't we raid Studio fifty four?
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 3: Why don't we raid people on Wall Street? Why don't
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 3: we raise. We know to keep going to the places
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 3: where the crack is, never where the cocaine is, right.
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 3: And that's the sort of like classic Nick Shirley, that's
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 3: Nick Shirley before Nick Shirley. That's that's a dude out here,
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 3: all right. I see these people as villains. So it
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 3: doesn't even matter that right behind Nick Shirley in a
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 3: suburban community you might have all the white collar fraud
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 3: that you could that you could make content out of
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 3: for ten years. We're not gonna cover that because that's
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 3: my neighbor. He's not a criminal. It's these people over
• 1:06:59
  Speaker 3: here that I got a dry that are different than me.
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 3: That must be the criminals.
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 2: Intention matters in that situation.
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 3: No, I don't even know if intention matters as much
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 3: as understanding the impact of a story. And also, like
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 3: what are you I look at how sometimes legacy media
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 3: will cover one story for two weeks, and I'm like,
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 3: there's more going on in the world that like one thing.
• 1:07:26
  Speaker 3: Trump is kind of exposed a bit. Is that you
• 1:07:29
  Speaker 3: can cover a thing for thirty six hours. Absolutely, you
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 3: can actually get to a bunch of different things. I
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 3: feel like before Trump, sometimes the news would stay on
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 3: a story for like a week and not even really
• 1:07:39
  Speaker 3: have anything new to say. But there's so much that's
• 1:07:42
  Speaker 3: going on in the rest of the world they don't
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 3: want to talk about. But there's clearly room to talk
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 3: about There's room to do major news of what's happening
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 3: in the US and talk about Sudan. There's room to
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 3: do major news in the US and talk about what's
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 3: happening on college campuses and stuff like that.
• 1:07:59
  Speaker 7: But it isn't a lot of that driven by then
• 1:08:01
  Speaker 7: the metrics, right, because like I think about like a website,
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 7: like a dot com, Like I used to work at
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 7: a dot com TMZ. We had a board in the
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 7: morning when you would come in, so you knew all
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 7: your big top ten stories that were like picking up huge.
• 1:08:12
  Speaker 7: Those were the stories you drilled in on the most
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 7: for the rest of that week, sometimes two weeks. But
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 7: it was because the numbers were there and that's what
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 7: people wanted to hear, regardless of what else was happening
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 7: in the world. And I feel like TV's the same way,
• 1:08:23
  Speaker 7: like where producers are coming in and being like, there's
• 1:08:25
  Speaker 7: all this great stuff happening, but like the masses are
• 1:08:28
  Speaker 7: clinging to this and they're going to be searching this.
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I feel like that. I always struggle with that
• 1:08:35
  Speaker 3: stuff because I feel like maybe I can let like
• 1:08:40
  Speaker 3: an indie website get away with that sort of like
• 1:08:43
  Speaker 3: what the top ten thing is. But honestly, if you're
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 3: if you're a network backed by a billionaire, you got
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 3: some you got some extra cushioning to cover the things
• 1:08:53
  Speaker 3: that you think are important, because they always do end
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 3: up covering the things that the billionaire thinks are important.
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 3: There are narratives and there are stories out there that
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 3: I feel like people aren't thinking about as much, but
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 3: then they get a lot of coverage, and it's because
• 1:09:05
  Speaker 3: of the interest of who owns the company, And so
• 1:09:08
  Speaker 3: I feel like they they they they play cute and
• 1:09:12
  Speaker 3: fast and loose with that logic. Yeah, you know, like
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 3: I'm not saying that's not true. That's absolutely what you're saying.
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 3: That's absolutely true that Hey, if we want to be
• 1:09:22
  Speaker 3: the number one news network, we got we gotta make
• 1:09:24
  Speaker 3: sure that ninety percent of the time we're covering top
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 3: ten of what is trending.
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 5: But how is it?
• 1:09:29
  Speaker 3: How is the thing trending as well? Sometimes things are
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 3: trending through genuine, organic interest of a narrative or just
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 3: of a story, and then sometimes things are like being peddled.
• 1:09:41
  Speaker 8: You know.
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 1: I get mad at the news because I feel like
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 1: they could be creating the trending topics, because there's so
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 1: many things that we could be discussing.
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 3: But that's exactly what disc that we're not. Yes, that's
• 1:09:51
  Speaker 3: exactly what I mean. It's like if you are, if
• 1:09:54
  Speaker 3: you are the news, we look to you to see
• 1:09:57
  Speaker 3: what happened. How are we going to take you what
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 3: happened that we want to see because we don't know
• 1:10:04
  Speaker 3: something that's trending online. You you look at things that
• 1:10:07
  Speaker 3: aren't even true, and then they get they get so
• 1:10:10
  Speaker 3: much airplay, and then there's no time to do a
• 1:10:12
  Speaker 3: whole retraction story. We're just like it's a.
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 5: Small little thing, but the damage is already done.
• 1:10:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:10:18
  Speaker 3: Cool, Yeah. And so I feel like there are there
• 1:10:25
  Speaker 3: are standards for journalists and there are standards for comedians,
• 1:10:31
  Speaker 3: and they are two very different things. And it always
• 1:10:34
  Speaker 3: like I'm not going to be melodramatic about it and
• 1:10:36
  Speaker 3: say it breaks my heart, but it always makes my
• 1:10:38
  Speaker 3: stomach drop a little bit when I see like a
• 1:10:41
  Speaker 3: major news network's anchor doing like a front facing video
• 1:10:46
  Speaker 3: TikTok style in a way where I'm like, not, y'all
• 1:10:49
  Speaker 3: are no, because two things are happening.
• 1:10:52
  Speaker 2: When you do that.
• 1:10:53
  Speaker 3: One, you you make it harder to discern you from
• 1:10:56
  Speaker 3: like just someone on TikTok, right, because y'all are the news.
• 1:10:59
  Speaker 3: If you're going to be legacy media, like have some
• 1:11:02
  Speaker 3: prestige about it. You know, I understand that's how the
• 1:11:05
  Speaker 3: people are digesting stuff, and I understand you're trying to
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 3: meet the people where they are so like that, but
• 1:11:09
  Speaker 3: you have to meet everybody with that. Your college professor
• 1:11:12
  Speaker 3: does not necessarily have to meet you where you are.
• 1:11:14
  Speaker 3: You applied, you got into college, there was an application process,
• 1:11:18
  Speaker 3: and you're here now and you're paying for your professor
• 1:11:21
  Speaker 3: to teach you something. If by the end of class
• 1:11:24
  Speaker 3: you're like, well, this is everything everybody says at the
• 1:11:26
  Speaker 3: barbershop anyway, it's like, what are you spending the money on?
• 1:11:30
  Speaker 3: What degree are you really getting?
• 1:11:31
  Speaker 5: Yeah, but you also got to you.
• 1:11:33
  Speaker 4: Know, we always say meet people where they are, right
• 1:11:34
  Speaker 4: and perfect example, my daughter's twelve, right, she knows damn
• 1:11:37
  Speaker 4: there more about Michael Jackson than probably all of us
• 1:11:40
  Speaker 4: in this room, right, And I live through it.
• 1:11:43
  Speaker 5: Charlamagne lived do it, you live through it.
• 1:11:45
  Speaker 4: But the problem is is she has these small things
• 1:11:48
  Speaker 4: that give a little bit of information and she feeds
• 1:11:50
  Speaker 4: that little bit of information because it's not a long hour,
• 1:11:52
  Speaker 4: it's not an our class, it's not an our course,
• 1:11:54
  Speaker 4: it's just like seven eight minutes. She gets to information
• 1:11:57
  Speaker 4: and it makes her excited. But now she gets it
• 1:11:59
  Speaker 4: from you might be Janet Jackson's sister. Then he gets
• 1:12:02
  Speaker 4: it from you, which might be Dana Jackson's father, then
• 1:12:04
  Speaker 4: he gets you from you to which is at Michael
• 1:12:06
  Speaker 4: Jackson's storian, and she gets all this information for her.
• 1:12:09
  Speaker 3: I think in these days, these kids learn better that way.
• 1:12:13
  Speaker 4: I've watched kids listening to stuff on Positive two, like
• 1:12:16
  Speaker 4: on Tempo too, and they're talking like this.
• 1:12:19
  Speaker 3: I'm understand it. They get it and can repeat it
• 1:12:22
  Speaker 3: what they.
• 1:12:22
  Speaker 4: Get it, and they understand it me Positive too. I
• 1:12:24
  Speaker 4: gotta slow it down to the necktive two so I
• 1:12:26
  Speaker 4: could get it, you know what I mean.
• 1:12:27
  Speaker 3: No, I'm with you. I think that some of it
• 1:12:29
  Speaker 3: is packaging though, because I'm not saying that that institutions
• 1:12:35
  Speaker 3: have always done everything right so they should not budge
• 1:12:37
  Speaker 3: at all. But I think that some of it is
• 1:12:39
  Speaker 3: in the packaging, and I find that, like I think
• 1:12:43
  Speaker 3: there are subtle tells when a network is doing something
• 1:12:47
  Speaker 3: specifically to fit in versus being at the cutting edge
• 1:12:52
  Speaker 3: of meeting people where they are, if that makes sense,
• 1:12:54
  Speaker 3: Like for instance, this is this is like one of
• 1:12:56
  Speaker 3: my biggest pet peeves is like, you will be watching
• 1:12:59
  Speaker 3: engaging conversation, So not just everybody's screaming over each other
• 1:13:03
  Speaker 3: on one of those panels, right, You'll be watching engaging
• 1:13:06
  Speaker 3: conversation and then they'll be like, Okay, can you wrap
• 1:13:11
  Speaker 3: up the entire thing in ninety seconds? We have to
• 1:13:14
  Speaker 3: go to break whatever. I personally think that we are
• 1:13:18
  Speaker 3: moving to a place where the news if we want
• 1:13:21
  Speaker 3: to meet people where they are, IFHO want to cover
• 1:13:23
  Speaker 3: top ten, you know all that stuff like that, the
• 1:13:25
  Speaker 3: news should be a little bit more flexible in how
• 1:13:30
  Speaker 3: they package to people, because if this thing is going
• 1:13:32
  Speaker 3: well right now, why end it for a thing that
• 1:13:35
  Speaker 3: maybe nobody wants to talk about next after the commercial?
• 1:13:38
  Speaker 3: And so that is an old school thing that I
• 1:13:40
  Speaker 3: think probably needs to be done away with because I
• 1:13:42
  Speaker 3: do think it undercuts some of their interests. And I
• 1:13:45
  Speaker 3: also think that them making more news on demand and
• 1:13:49
  Speaker 3: clipping pieces of the news after the fact and then
• 1:13:52
  Speaker 3: putting it on places like YouTube and places to watch
• 1:13:54
  Speaker 3: for free and everything that is meeting people where they are,
• 1:13:57
  Speaker 3: and that is like like supplying people with the news
• 1:13:59
  Speaker 3: in a way that isn't like thirsty or gonna dilute
• 1:14:05
  Speaker 3: your overall credibility. Because I think that one of the
• 1:14:09
  Speaker 3: best things for news is that stories started being on demand.
• 1:14:12
  Speaker 3: So now I'm interested in this thing, and I don't
• 1:14:15
  Speaker 3: have to wait until eight o'clock for them to hopefully
• 1:14:17
  Speaker 3: talk about it again. I can learn about it in
• 1:14:19
  Speaker 3: real time because they already covered it, so now I
• 1:14:20
  Speaker 3: can watch it. And if I'm covering a story, like
• 1:14:23
  Speaker 3: let's say I'm I'm a journalist and I'm trying to
• 1:14:26
  Speaker 3: find background on a bunch of different things, I can
• 1:14:29
  Speaker 3: look up things and collect things and make a playlist
• 1:14:31
  Speaker 3: and then watch it back faster than any other time
• 1:14:34
  Speaker 3: in history, and so then I can go out more
• 1:14:37
  Speaker 3: informed than ever on a subject, just me personally, never
• 1:14:41
  Speaker 3: mind the research that the team might be doing. And
• 1:14:44
  Speaker 3: so I think that's a great way that news has
• 1:14:46
  Speaker 3: made adjustments, and I just think that more adjustments need
• 1:14:49
  Speaker 3: to be made. That yeah, some of them just and
• 1:14:52
  Speaker 3: that's just my opinion. But some of them just seem
• 1:14:54
  Speaker 3: a little thirsty to me.
• 1:14:55
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think Cable New suckch I got. This was
• 1:14:57
  Speaker 2: my last question.
• 1:14:57
  Speaker 1: I want to go back to Nick Shairly thing right
• 1:14:59
  Speaker 1: because the minutes a fraud's candle, we know it's real,
• 1:15:02
  Speaker 1: right because we know seventy eight people who been charged,
• 1:15:05
  Speaker 1: sixty convicted to play guilty.
• 1:15:06
  Speaker 2: So when you know that, does the intention you know
• 1:15:10
  Speaker 2: are to why he may have done it or to
• 1:15:11
  Speaker 2: how he did it? Did that matter?
• 1:15:13
  Speaker 3: I do think the how matters because I think the
• 1:15:16
  Speaker 3: how is the difference between a between a journalist and
• 1:15:21
  Speaker 3: between like a troll, you know what I mean, like
• 1:15:24
  Speaker 3: like because Nick Shirley did not lead to all those convictions.
• 1:15:28
  Speaker 3: Nick Shirley did not like like to me, Nick Shirley
• 1:15:32
  Speaker 3: is like someone who will go somewhere with a with
• 1:15:36
  Speaker 3: a microphone already following a narrative and a story that
• 1:15:39
  Speaker 3: they've established ahead of time.
• 1:15:41
  Speaker 1: So so you think somebody told him what was going on,
• 1:15:43
  Speaker 1: somebody already did the investigation and just said, hey, you.
• 1:15:45
  Speaker 2: Go ahead to blow it up.
• 1:15:46
  Speaker 3: I don't even think someone told him. I think that
• 1:15:49
  Speaker 3: you you can if you if you're looking online. Some
• 1:15:52
  Speaker 3: of these people were already being in process of being
• 1:15:55
  Speaker 3: indicted and stuff like that. So now you know you
• 1:15:58
  Speaker 3: can go there. And Nick surely himself is really I
• 1:16:02
  Speaker 3: can't imagine him ever going to a place and being like, oh, actually, y'all,
• 1:16:07
  Speaker 3: the Haitians weren't eating the chickens. They weren't. They weren't
• 1:16:11
  Speaker 3: you know what, I'm sorry, that's my bad. Oh yeah, yeah, no, no,
• 1:16:18
  Speaker 3: I'm just saying biting the head off or because because
• 1:16:20
  Speaker 3: the dog the dog and cat thing led to so
• 1:16:23
  Speaker 3: many other like weird fringe things that people were saying.
• 1:16:27
  Speaker 3: They were like, oh, they're doing blood rituals with chickens
• 1:16:29
  Speaker 3: and stuff like that, like whatever, Like Nick Shirley's not
• 1:16:32
  Speaker 3: gonna go to that community and then put cameras in
• 1:16:35
  Speaker 3: people's faces and ask trolley type questions and then be like, y'all,
• 1:16:40
  Speaker 3: I did my investigating. Turns out I was just being racist.
• 1:16:44
  Speaker 3: That's my bad. Like that's that's never gonna happen. And
• 1:16:47
  Speaker 3: so I think it's important to really take note of why.
• 1:16:51
  Speaker 3: And this also goes with like political commentators anything. There
• 1:16:56
  Speaker 3: may be something that is happening that we can't no
• 1:16:59
  Speaker 3: one trying to deny is happening. But before you align
• 1:17:03
  Speaker 3: yourself with the narrative that someone is building, I think
• 1:17:07
  Speaker 3: it's just important to investigate it the person and why
• 1:17:10
  Speaker 3: they're building that narrative. You know, like you will not
• 1:17:13
  Speaker 3: see Nick Shirley cover a bunch of the sort of
• 1:17:21
  Speaker 3: rise of Nazism in Ice. Let's say, yeah, you know
• 1:17:25
  Speaker 3: what I mean. And so it's like, all right, so
• 1:17:28
  Speaker 3: even if he covers something and he's completely right about it,
• 1:17:30
  Speaker 3: let's let's see what Let's see what this intention is
• 1:17:35
  Speaker 3: because I think that also the intention can be backtracked
• 1:17:38
  Speaker 3: to like what is he right about? So basically, he
• 1:17:41
  Speaker 3: showed up late to a story that's actually what happened.
• 1:17:44
  Speaker 3: This thing was already going through the proper channels of
• 1:17:47
  Speaker 3: the American justice system, and this kid shows up late
• 1:17:50
  Speaker 3: and then blows up the thing more like.
• 1:17:53
  Speaker 2: He amplified it to reinforce the narrative exactly.
• 1:17:56
  Speaker 3: And it's like, and but the narrative isn't There was
• 1:17:58
  Speaker 3: some fraud, we investigate, we found it, and the people
• 1:18:00
  Speaker 3: are being held accounts. Some Mali Americans are stealing billions
• 1:18:05
  Speaker 3: of your day. Actually, you know why the price of
• 1:18:07
  Speaker 3: bread went up? Somali Americans. You know why the price
• 1:18:10
  Speaker 3: of gas is up. It's not straight of her moves
• 1:18:12
  Speaker 3: is not no some Mali Americans. And so it's like,
• 1:18:15
  Speaker 3: I think you just have to track that stuff. And
• 1:18:18
  Speaker 3: I wish I could even articulate it a little bit
• 1:18:20
  Speaker 3: better than I am now of like of like how
• 1:18:23
  Speaker 3: important it is to track how narrative building happens. You know,
• 1:18:27
  Speaker 3: because he is he Nick Shirley isn't someone at the
• 1:18:30
  Speaker 3: cutting edge. Nick Shirley is someone who shows up after
• 1:18:33
  Speaker 3: the fact to like amplify the aspect of the racist
• 1:18:38
  Speaker 3: thing that's true, to make the whole racist narrative look true.
• 1:18:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah, now he's saying he's being held hostage in Cuba.
• 1:18:44
  Speaker 3: This dude said he was being held hostage in Cuba
• 1:18:47
  Speaker 3: in a hotel that he's not even supposed to be
• 1:18:49
  Speaker 3: like like that that hotel, the way that the embargo worked,
• 1:18:53
  Speaker 3: even the way that we travel there. Now, like I'm
• 1:18:57
  Speaker 3: to my knowledge, he's not even supposed to be at
• 1:18:59
  Speaker 3: that hotel, Like it's like technically illegal for him to buy.
• 1:19:02
  Speaker 3: Like the Cubans don't care, but on America side, we're like,
• 1:19:06
  Speaker 3: don't give them money by staying at this hotel whatever. Right,
• 1:19:09
  Speaker 3: And so it's like you're saying you're being held hostage
• 1:19:12
  Speaker 3: in Cuba, and like, how are you being held hostage?
• 1:19:15
  Speaker 3: How'd you get to Cuba again? And what were you
• 1:19:17
  Speaker 3: trying to cover in Cuba? What?
• 1:19:19
  Speaker 2: Help help me?
• 1:19:19
  Speaker 3: Help me understand because you're not good at.
• 1:19:21
  Speaker 2: Talking, Josh Tatham, you to shake those journalists allegations.
• 1:19:28
  Speaker 3: I'll tell everybody one at a time, I'm not a journalist.
• 1:19:31
  Speaker 4: Tonight, he's hosting the Webby Awards. Definitely check it out
• 1:19:34
  Speaker 4: and we appreciate.
• 1:19:35
  Speaker 2: You for joining. His brother was on Male eleventh.
• 1:19:37
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 1:19:37
  Speaker 3: I was like, oh, this is going out. Yeah, that's
• 1:19:40
  Speaker 3: all Reason died saying. I was like, okay, I thought
• 1:19:44
  Speaker 3: you stuck on the journalist. No, I was like, oh
• 1:19:47
  Speaker 3: are we saving it?
• 1:19:49
  Speaker 1: Webby Awards and Male eleventh and his HBO special Symphony
• 1:19:52
  Speaker 1: is May twenty second.
• 1:19:53
  Speaker 3: Yeah, shout out to the Webby Oh okay, can I
• 1:19:57
  Speaker 3: finished saying, yes, okay, No matter what, this goes out.
• 1:20:00
  Speaker 3: Shout out to the Wedding Awards for having them. Oh,
• 1:20:03
  Speaker 3: thirtieth anniversary of the Webby Awards, celebrating the best of
• 1:20:06
  Speaker 3: the internets.
• 1:20:07
  Speaker 5: Tonight, ladies and gentlemen. John Johnson. Thank you for join us.
• 1:20:10
  Speaker 3: It's the Breakfast Mob. Appreciate y'all.
• 1:20:13
  Speaker 1: Hold every day a week ago clicks up the Breakfast club'