Special | 6m 33s | Video has closed captioning.
Comedy is a huge part of entertainment and culture, but for decades there have been very limited opportunities for comedians to reach audiences and succeed. Fortunately, the internet has blown that wide open, providing new venues for the creation of comedy, removing the limitations of the old guard, and opening new doors to laughter.
Aired: 01/18/13
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[music playing] JON FRIEDMAN: I think comedy on the internet has taken off because most people are at work and it's just a nice little escape.
It's so accessible.
It's right there.
Why not laugh a little bit?
MIKE LAWRENCE: It used to be there was this one way.
You would slog it through the clubs, then you get on late night, and then hopefully, you get a sitcom.
That's completely out the window now.
SAM REICH: There's a different twisted kind of thing that you find funny alone in the dark that you might find funny sitting in an audience.
MIKE LAWRENCE: Boy, what podcast has definitely done for comedy, it's created a new type of fan of comedy.
You're taking something that used to be inaccessible and you're making it accessible.
There's just a more personal connection.
"Nerd of Mouth" is a podcast where lonely people get to be together by listening to us alone and reveling in their nerdom.
Is being a nerd something you choose or does it choose you?
This episode is just gonna be all of us striking out at t-ball.
[laughter] The inspiration was somewhat of a disdain towards most portrayals of nerd culture.
"The Big Bang Theory" is my Tyler Perry.
It's just non-nerdy people nerd-facing it up.
I know particle physics.
Well, I'm lonely.
And it's just insulting, and that's kind of how it came about.
What I love about a podcast is that it's allowed people to be nichier.
It used to be that you had to answer to the world as an artist.
Now I get to be as alienating as I want.
There's no censorship, so you can be as weird as you want.
Oh, my kingdom of fudge!
[laughter] I just did morning radio for the first time, and they said to me, you can talk about this, this, and this, but you can't talk about that, that, and that.
You just wanna be able to talk about what you want.
Because there's a difference between someone just seeing you do a five-minute set versus hearing you for two hours and getting to know you as a person.
Let's try to describe what our childhoods were like.
PODCAST GUEST: Oh, in that case, I'll just cry.
[laughter] MIKE LAWRENCE: I feel like all of my fans are just me with less confidence.
And they see something in me that they see in themselves, and that's a great thing.
We're bridging this gap now.
Out of all these fans who kind of like comedy, now they realize, oh, there's comics for me in venues for me.
And you could really get to see somebody as a person.
JON FRIEDMAN: Twitter has really strengthened comedy in the comedy world.
It's a good training tool in writing jokes.
My style of humor and jokes are short little weird thoughts and that fit perfectly into the Twitter environment.
Twitter has actually helped my joke writing process, 'cause you're forced to fit in what you wanna say into those 140 characters.
You get rid of the waste, and you just get to the funny.
On New Year's Eve, I tweeted, it was one year ago today that I also didn't want to go out.
I tweeted, I still can't believe "the Machine" left "Rage Against" to join "Florence and."
I try to experiment within the medium itself.
It's only 140 characters, but there are a lot of different style of tweets that you can do.
I like to do quotes a lot and then attribute it to a person.
I quoted, "Foursquare and seven apps ago--" and that was Abraham LinkedIn.
Here's a quote, it's just, "Ohhhhh."
And that was the first person to peel open a banana.
Sometimes you'll come up with an idea instantly based on a news story that's breaking.
I remember when we caught Bin Laden.
I tweeted out, oh, great, now I'm terrified of zombie Bin Laden.
And then that was retweeted hundreds of times.
Those tend to get retweeted the most, because it's happening right then and there.
And people wanna hear and read about it right then and there.
When you're doing a show live, laughter or silence is an immediate response.
On Twitter, it's the same thing.
If you tweet something out, people comment on it, or retweet.
You're getting that immediate satisfaction to know if what you did is connecting with people or not.
SAM REICH: The internet is amazing because it's an experimental medium for comedy.
We're not beholden to censorship.
We can tackle very controversial subjects online.
Comedy is important to us because it's cathartic.
Jokes that seem a little inappropriate to 400 people might appeal to you when you're alone and there's no one to judge you for your reaction.
We did a sketch called "Stormtroopers 9111."
It's three stormtroopers sitting around talking about the Death Star getting blown up in the tone that people who talk about 911 talk about 911.
When you look at that part of the galaxy where the Death Star used to be and just nothing.
The Jedis win.
Jedis.
I'll tell you something, they hate our way of life.
SAM REICH: It sounds so controversial.
But to watch the video, it actually makes a lot of sense and is relatively tame and very funny.
But I don't think we ever would have dared to do that live.
Big, over-the-top content is what works, is what gets the views.
I'm really proud of a video that we did called "Gay Men will Marry Your Girlfriends."
Keep marriage between a man and a woman.
And in response, we will marry your girlfriends.
SAM REICH: I wanted College Humor to come out as pro-gay marriage, which makes no sense, because we're a comedy website.
Who cares?
And so we came up with this idea which was, of course, you should let gay men marry each other.
Because otherwise, they'll marry your girlfriends, who they're so much better suited to than you.
So don't make us marry your girlfriends.
Support gay marriage.
SAM REICH: The fact that we were able to say something even a little bit preachy and get that message across in such an effective way as a comedy site felt really rewarding.
When something bad happens in the world, you need to laugh.
When nothing bad happens in the world and you're bored, you need to laugh.
It's good exercise.
And the internet is a very available catharsis.
It's point and click catharsis.
You're all a bunch of drones.
Hey, keep your voice down.
You're drones, especially the drones.
Oh-ho-ho!
MIKE LAWRENCE: Embracing the internet and embracing these modern changes is the best way to go about it because, I mean, the reality is you evolve or you die.
[chuckles] JON FRIEDMAN: I think to be successful as a comedian on Twitter is just to trust your instincts.
Take risks, and go with what you think is funny.
SAM REICH: There's something about doing it for that person sitting alone in the dark, whose mouth is agape at first, and then slowly warms up to us.
It's just hugely important to not take our important lives all too seriously.
[music playing]
