My name is RanDoM and I’m a 28yr old stand up comic in NYC, what I’ve witnessed in the past year in open mic and spreading throughout the comedy scene leads me to believe the true art of stand up comedy will be dead in a decade if real comics don’t stand up and do something about it.
Political correctness has always been a cancer that stand up comedy was able to fend off because, for the most part, the audience understood political correctness was just a robotic propagating narrative and agenda to control one's behavior and thoughts with no soul behind it. Now the issue is becoming as stand up comedy becomes more mainstream the audience is siding with political correctness, therefore, corporations fold in the direction of cultural trends, and free expression or artistic creativity is only as open-minded as the enclosed box the social justice politically correct soulless fake comics circle around you in places.
What I’ve observed in my short time in the scene is comics don’t joke with each other, they don’t have an understanding of the history and they don’t even respect one another or comedy, they’ve begun treating stand up comedy as their activist protest place in which gossip, rumors, drama, lies, defamation, deplatforming, and physical assaults take place to any comic who doesn’t follow a bias identity politics politically correct social justice agenda.
I don’t need to explain my issues with social justice warriors(death threats, assaults, FBI investigations, police called, club bannings, confrontational altercations at shows) but it got so bad by the end of 2018 it seemed my act wasn’t even jokes anymore and it became just about addressing the elephant in the room of an incident that had happened a week before or what comedians had said on social media the night before. The average person says “I’d imagine it’s hard to start out on stage at an open mic just talking in front of people”, now imagine as you’re going on stage to perform stand up comedy, everyone that was in that room was speaking about you on social media the night before whether in blogs, facebook threads or hashtags saying you’re spouting hate speech, you should be banned, someone should attack you or other threatening unsupportive speech. Not only is it now my job to be funny, but every open mic I did there was a preconceived hate towards me and a tension in the air that no comic has that I had to always dimmish every open mic before I could even begin to attempt comedy.
I have no problem with PC comics or comics who use their platform for activism. My problem is with the activist PC comics who forget that we’re all comics in this together and use their platform to defame, deplatform and destroy the careers of fellow comedians because they disagree on social justice issues because that’s what the up and coming NYC comedy scene is. Stand up comedy was not about being self righteous or having an agenda or pushing a bias political narrative, stand up comedy was for all intensive purposes suppose to be silly, absurd, nonsensical, ridiculous, personally connecting and relating but collectively everyone laughing together because whether we agree or not, the stand up comics mentality was “we’re all in this fucked up world together dealt different hands, lets laugh at each other's hands and unite” where now in the generation of PC SJW fake comics, the mentality is “you are specifically viewed and treated differently based on your cards and can only mention things about another's hands based on what politically correct narrative is chosen for you”. I find that to be dividing and unfunny.
The soul of comedy is being destroyed because it’s original intent is being manipulated to a new generation that doesn’t know anything past network television, streaming video services and trending social media comedy. Therefore you have up and coming PC comics that go as far to ban non PC comics, that promote an identity politics adgenda that if you disagree with they will deplatform you, publish lies about you and convince everyone to discredit your art or expression. My proclamation isn’t just so comedians can tell “dark humored offensive jokes”, the reason I’m sending out a proclamation is so comedians can stop losing their livelihood for expressing themselves in a way fake comics don’t understand, don’t care to understand and don’t want to understand. The clique argument, you don’t understand inside the mind of a musician if you’re not one, I don’t know why people think because comics can humanize themselves that people think they’re ordinary people, comics are a genetic abnormality that not only process tragedy differently into an empathic connecting to others humor, we have our own language where even the comics I despise with all my heart, I can still tell their a real comic at the end of the day just by how they speak and how they word things or the metaphors they put together in sentences.
The shots I take at established or legendary comics isn’t for attention. In fact, In my less than a year as an open micer I’ve destroyed several opportunities by voicing my feelings on very established or legendary comics, that I grew up loving but feel they aren’t being true to the art form and no one in their circle is checking them or keeping them real or humbled. The only comics I take shots at are those I don’t believe to being authentic to the nature of comedy which is “this is not about politics, personal agenda or taking things seriously” and I’m enraged that almost all of the comics I’ve looked up to, have either become apart of the PC SJW culture, or they just stand by watching it happen without saying a thing, which I understand at some points, not every comic who spent 10 years making a name for themselves wants to destroy it by calling out a comic doing something fake in the industry, but I do it because care more about the preservation of the art form than my own career and I despise more comics didn’t feel like me. there are established and famous comedians that have told me how much they respect me and yet I ask if I can have them publicize it and they say “no I don’t want that negative attention on my name”, so half of me understands why they industry is forcing them to give a fuck and the other half of me feels like my entire purpose is to liberate comics from taking comedy seriously,
Comedians always used to self-police for joke thieves, so why don’t they self-police when there is a comic who does nothing but take things seriously, push a political agenda rather than be funny and even censor comedians that they deem “problematic”. Deplatforming and defamation, as well as lawfare, is the name of the PC SJW fake comics game and they have infiltrated the stand-up comedy industry like a plague. Tell me what female comedian is network television successful that doesn’t have a political identity politics agenda? Show me one African American comic regarded as a legend that isn’t selling a liberal ideology of black oppression propaganda? You’re telling me all over streaming services and network television for some strange reason all the most successful famous comedians coincidently have all the same beliefs thoughts feelings and narratives in which they go about their comedy bits? If you want more diversity in comedy why not have a mainstream famous successful comic who outwardly supports trump or the NRA in their stand up comedy act? Why not have a comic who thinks all politics are just an Illuminati corporation and race and gender don’t exist?
In conclusion as comedy became more mainstream more corporations attached themselves to it but than mainstream audiences with their mainstream opinions added on with the social media internet age where everyone has a voice they begun dissecting this art-form and as corporations folded to an anonymous egg profile twitter account ranting, comics began to cave with the corporations and now we’re trapped in this industry where comedy itself is such a serious business and it’s only becoming more politics, seriousness and watered down comedy to the point where there is no real difference between a politician and a mainstream successful stand up comedian and the even sicker thing is, if comics like me don’t stand up to this disgusting transition of soulless expression, not only will real comedy not exist, but all comedy will be as monotone and robotic as alexa or siri telling you jokes, because the mainstream has spoken, the SJW warriors and bloggers attacked, the corporations have folded on real comedy and as the real comics become a dying breed, no comic is brave enough to stand up for the artform, making me believe every stand up comic is a fake bitch in it for some ulterior motive other than to just, create, expires yourself in a humorous ridiculous way. Seriously comics, this is comedy….