Social media changed standup comedy

I’ll be honest, I haven’t really seen much standup comedy in a long time - in person or on TV/streaming. I remember loving standup when I was in my teens and early 20s, but that fell off in recent years. I’m not sure if that’s the case with other people.

Either way, I still see clips on social media, and I’ve noticed a shift in what comedians are actually doing in their show. It used to be that a tour was one show repeated each night. Lots of comedians now spend a decent chunk of their set on crowd work:

• asking the front row what they do for a living
• getting people to text stuff to be shown on stage
• running with heckles instead of shutting them down

Before, you’d watch a standup DVD or a standup set on TV or whatever, laugh at the jokes, see a poster advertising the comedian playing near you, and order tickets.

Since everyone is glued to their screen all the time, social media is a primary marketing channel for just about every business. But comedians can’t post videos of themselves doing their set of jokes from the tour - by the time someone buys a ticket, they’ve already heard the punchlines and seen the delivery.

So comedians post the crowd work instead, partly as content, but also as a way to market the show without spoiling the core set of jokes.

It also means each night is unique in some way. Musicians do this too - Taylor Swift has surprise songs each night. If you go to the live show in person, you get to be a part of the unique version of the show, unlike before where it didn’t really matter which show you went to.

Cynically, I think it’s mostly marketing. But I’ll accept it’s likely also a change in how people interact with comedy and how phones and social media have affected live shows altogether.