Comedy and the corporate world have a lot in common. I mentor young people from time to time and I insist on them understanding that a job is not about the work, but the relationships, the networking, about being liked and trusted. I’ll drop anyone who will insist on it being about skills and merit, etc. A lot of folks who work in tech do not understand this concept and a lot of them eventually fail. This whole essay, you could replace “comedy” with “engineering” and be spot on!!
True! At work, I feel as if being liked covers for a certain amount of incompetence, but competence doesn’t go the same distance when you’re not as well liked.
Great post. But I wonder if there was more to it than just getting over yourself (as central as this usually is to everything). The fact that these other aspiring comics didn't have real day jobs and you did seems key. Doesn't it mean that they'd staked their lives on this project in a way that you hadn't? For them, networking was a matter of survival, and so getting over themselves was a necessity. For you, it was optional, and you had to face your own ego to do it, again and again. A very difficult challenge.
You're on to something here. The job definitely did play a large part in it and maybe took off some of an edge that other comics had out of necessity.
You always hear comics who made it talk about "I never had a Plan B." But for every one of those there are literally hundreds of others who never had a Plan B and didn't make it, so they get to their 30s with absolutely nothing going on in their lives. I didn't want, or wasn't brave enough, to take that big of a risk. I never tried very hard at my old jobs, but I did enough to get by and stay stable. I'm lucky that I've had a pretty soft landing after giving up comedy.
To echo what Peter said here, I once remember getting into a conversation with a group of comics comparing cost of rooms/rents/living conditions the status game in this circle being the more squalid your living conditions were, the more committed you were to giving up everything and making it in comedy. This was probably 7-8 years ago, and if any of those guys are still doing comedy, none of them are doing it at a high level. I found that most who "never had a Plan B" flamed out after a few years. Comedy is such a long game that you can only go so long living in an apartment without hot water, etc.
That said, I too had an office job while pursuing comedy, and the fact that I never made the leap away from it is probably why I'm writing this comment instead of being on stage right now.
I had a similar situation looking around at the other comics working very low level jobs, while I had to be in the office the next day looking presentable etc. It did other me and made me think of the larger issue of what comics are, they’re at least a bit if not very insane, and looking around at all the mental illness and insecurity in stand up I wondered if they didn’t want an office job to pursue their dreams, or couldn’t hold down an office job. I realised the desire for fame in itself was a mental illness, that I increasingly didn’t have the more healthy I got, and realised I wanted to make my friends laugh more than strangers. It might all be cope though, I come from a very unstable background and my driving force in life is to be safe and financially secure lol
An understandable desire for sure, and one that I share. If you can be stable and secure while doing something meaningful, that’s the best case scenario. It’s just incredible difficult to pull off.
As a fairly nonsocial writer, I relate to your thoughts here, Peter. I now realize I should probably be posting more and complimenting other writers like yourself. So consider yourself complimented. I'll bet I would have laughed at your jokes. No joke! Here's one: When I told everyone I wanted to be a comedian, they laughed. They're not laughing now.
Very interesting. I did the amateur circuit in NYC briefly while working a “real” job and found it hard to keep up, physically! I was also super young and lacking a clear direction.
My question to you is, now that you know what you did wrong, or could have done differently, what stops you from trying again?
Trying to build a comedy career is a massive time and energy suck, and I don’t have the necessary levels of either now that I’m in my late 30s with a kid on the way. It was much easier in my 20s when I had no responsibilities to anyone but myself and I only needed my job to pay the rent instead of provide for a family.
That’s what I guessed. It’s only possible when your level
of responsibility in all other areas is low to non-existent. For me, I’m happy being a humor writer now. But the idea of stepping onstage still sometimes sounds appealing. In theory, at least!
I was like this (not about comedy) and maybe I had the ‘that should be me’ though once or twice but I was mainly like this because I was unsure of myself and because I hated feeling insincere…(and because the situation was one of pretty gross snobbiness, and I GENUINELY could not relate to most of those people…like the leap would have been massive, the effort so taxing).
I am suspicious of myself though because I am so hostile and impatient sometimes with some of the situations and people…and I assume there has to be some real envy mixed in, and also petty insecurity because I always get aware of how I just CANNOT with them…and how it’s awful for my career sometimes—but they actually enjoy each other! So I also envy them that, I guess? Not just the success…but there’s a snobbery even in that envy like ‘whoa I wish I was as banal as you are that you can find that other very boring snob interesting.’
So I was snobby about not being snobby, the Holden Caulfield thing! The refuge of all outcasts! Ressentiment!
I did succeed well enough for me though and this is partly because of just the MASSIVE luck to get taken up as a buddy to a freaking master networker. They just took a shine to me in some inexplicable way, maybe because I am hapless and unthreatening —they did find my haplessness and social faux pas hilarious—but primarily it seemed that they simply enjoyed my company for god-knows-what reason.
I wish that could have happened to you! But one thing about it is that I am not very competitive and this was helpful. They are a rock star and the idea of being a rock star is genuinely terrifying to me…The more I see about their stardom, the more I realize it would kill me within weeks. I just enjoy their rock stardom very sincerely—and maybe that’s nice to have a friend who enjoys one’s success and is not competitive but instead relieved that they do not a spotlight on them 24/7.
Networking is just the beginning. To climb up a hierarchy requires total commitment. You need to identify the big dogs and artfully kiss ass. You need to smooth off the disagreeable sides of your personality. You need to outwork everyone else. And once you start ascending a bit, you need to demonstrate your loyalty to the new pack by occasionally kicking down at your old buddies.
I learned these lessons during my career in engineering. Are they universal? Do they apply to the stand up comedy scene?
Honestly? Maybe, but I hope not. I'm hoping you don't need to completely neuter yourself and cross some old friends to truly make it, but I might be naive.
Man, Peter, I have an insane amount of respect for anyone who tries standup comedy, nevermind those who get up on that stage over and over again to try and make it in comedy. Much love for the attempt (inspiring) and this reflection here. To make it on comedy alone is a brutally high (unnecessarily high?) hurdle. I’d say this is the case with many fields. The desire for any craft or field to be a complete meritocracy can cloud paths to success. Sometimes it’s not meant to be. I firmly believe there’s a direct correlation between luck and the quality of relationships you build.
Also, you opened for Neal fucking Brennan! That’s incredible!
Thanks. It is very difficult for sure. I actually got to open for a lot of big names before they became famous (John Mulaney in 2010 probably being the biggest one) so I have a lot of great memories to take with me on top of it.
This was a very raw and very real peice! Interesting read from start to finish!! I totally relate with not wanting to sell yourself out! I also like how looking back your able to understand how you could have retained your authenticity without selling yourself out!! Life would be so much easier if we knew then what we know now!! 😆 sometimes real life is the funniest thing of all!! I totally understand why you would feel the ways you felt! I don't think it's a pride issue...I honestly think it was just a lack of understanding on your part! If you had of had the tools to maintain your integrity you would have used them!! There is nothing wrong with not wanting to be fake! Maybe I'm biased...I can't call myself a writer...writing is to technical...I'm not interested in following the 2 post a week rule and I'm not interested in finding ways to grow my substack...I'm only interested in sharing my experiences with those who need it!! I want to show people they can find hope in the worst circumstances!! So I'm probably biased 🤣😂😂
Loved this. I too hated the idea of "hanging out" at a club, bar show, etc. when I didn't have a spot. I rationalized it as a waste of time and felt it had nothing to do with the actual craft of comedy, but so much of what you said here rings true.
At the same time, the incessant need to network, build a social media presence, and all of the secondary stuff that helps you advance has always reminded me of the Mitch Hedberg joke about working really hard to become a really good cook, and then people asking "Ok, can you farm?" I became a comedian so I didn't have to do small talk at a bar with colleagues, only to find out that's a lot of what being a comic is.
Great post and admirable self awareness. I did stand up in college, was pretty funny and got big laughs but never tried to make it a career post college. I was very confident I could be funny but even more confident I couldn't make a career of it for a host of reasons. Sometimes I look back and regret not trying even a little bit when I see a mediocre comedian and know I could do that. Then I see a great comedian and I thank my younger self for being self aware enough to know my own limits.
Comedy and the corporate world have a lot in common. I mentor young people from time to time and I insist on them understanding that a job is not about the work, but the relationships, the networking, about being liked and trusted. I’ll drop anyone who will insist on it being about skills and merit, etc. A lot of folks who work in tech do not understand this concept and a lot of them eventually fail. This whole essay, you could replace “comedy” with “engineering” and be spot on!!
True! At work, I feel as if being liked covers for a certain amount of incompetence, but competence doesn’t go the same distance when you’re not as well liked.
You may appreciate my retrospective on my 15 year career in engineering:
https://open.substack.com/pub/erikbuilds/p/why-technical-minded-creatives-should?r=ih3h3&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=false
You may not have made it in comedy, Peter, but you're an excellent writer with an uncommonly good understanding of psychology.
I appreciate that, thank you!
Great post. But I wonder if there was more to it than just getting over yourself (as central as this usually is to everything). The fact that these other aspiring comics didn't have real day jobs and you did seems key. Doesn't it mean that they'd staked their lives on this project in a way that you hadn't? For them, networking was a matter of survival, and so getting over themselves was a necessity. For you, it was optional, and you had to face your own ego to do it, again and again. A very difficult challenge.
You're on to something here. The job definitely did play a large part in it and maybe took off some of an edge that other comics had out of necessity.
You always hear comics who made it talk about "I never had a Plan B." But for every one of those there are literally hundreds of others who never had a Plan B and didn't make it, so they get to their 30s with absolutely nothing going on in their lives. I didn't want, or wasn't brave enough, to take that big of a risk. I never tried very hard at my old jobs, but I did enough to get by and stay stable. I'm lucky that I've had a pretty soft landing after giving up comedy.
To echo what Peter said here, I once remember getting into a conversation with a group of comics comparing cost of rooms/rents/living conditions the status game in this circle being the more squalid your living conditions were, the more committed you were to giving up everything and making it in comedy. This was probably 7-8 years ago, and if any of those guys are still doing comedy, none of them are doing it at a high level. I found that most who "never had a Plan B" flamed out after a few years. Comedy is such a long game that you can only go so long living in an apartment without hot water, etc.
That said, I too had an office job while pursuing comedy, and the fact that I never made the leap away from it is probably why I'm writing this comment instead of being on stage right now.
I had a similar situation looking around at the other comics working very low level jobs, while I had to be in the office the next day looking presentable etc. It did other me and made me think of the larger issue of what comics are, they’re at least a bit if not very insane, and looking around at all the mental illness and insecurity in stand up I wondered if they didn’t want an office job to pursue their dreams, or couldn’t hold down an office job. I realised the desire for fame in itself was a mental illness, that I increasingly didn’t have the more healthy I got, and realised I wanted to make my friends laugh more than strangers. It might all be cope though, I come from a very unstable background and my driving force in life is to be safe and financially secure lol
An understandable desire for sure, and one that I share. If you can be stable and secure while doing something meaningful, that’s the best case scenario. It’s just incredible difficult to pull off.
Reminds me if a wonderful quote by a famous comedian:
“I always wanted to be somebody, but now I realize I should have been more specific.” Lily Tomlin
As a fairly nonsocial writer, I relate to your thoughts here, Peter. I now realize I should probably be posting more and complimenting other writers like yourself. So consider yourself complimented. I'll bet I would have laughed at your jokes. No joke! Here's one: When I told everyone I wanted to be a comedian, they laughed. They're not laughing now.
Very interesting. I did the amateur circuit in NYC briefly while working a “real” job and found it hard to keep up, physically! I was also super young and lacking a clear direction.
My question to you is, now that you know what you did wrong, or could have done differently, what stops you from trying again?
Trying to build a comedy career is a massive time and energy suck, and I don’t have the necessary levels of either now that I’m in my late 30s with a kid on the way. It was much easier in my 20s when I had no responsibilities to anyone but myself and I only needed my job to pay the rent instead of provide for a family.
That’s what I guessed. It’s only possible when your level
of responsibility in all other areas is low to non-existent. For me, I’m happy being a humor writer now. But the idea of stepping onstage still sometimes sounds appealing. In theory, at least!
I was like this (not about comedy) and maybe I had the ‘that should be me’ though once or twice but I was mainly like this because I was unsure of myself and because I hated feeling insincere…(and because the situation was one of pretty gross snobbiness, and I GENUINELY could not relate to most of those people…like the leap would have been massive, the effort so taxing).
I am suspicious of myself though because I am so hostile and impatient sometimes with some of the situations and people…and I assume there has to be some real envy mixed in, and also petty insecurity because I always get aware of how I just CANNOT with them…and how it’s awful for my career sometimes—but they actually enjoy each other! So I also envy them that, I guess? Not just the success…but there’s a snobbery even in that envy like ‘whoa I wish I was as banal as you are that you can find that other very boring snob interesting.’
So I was snobby about not being snobby, the Holden Caulfield thing! The refuge of all outcasts! Ressentiment!
I did succeed well enough for me though and this is partly because of just the MASSIVE luck to get taken up as a buddy to a freaking master networker. They just took a shine to me in some inexplicable way, maybe because I am hapless and unthreatening —they did find my haplessness and social faux pas hilarious—but primarily it seemed that they simply enjoyed my company for god-knows-what reason.
I wish that could have happened to you! But one thing about it is that I am not very competitive and this was helpful. They are a rock star and the idea of being a rock star is genuinely terrifying to me…The more I see about their stardom, the more I realize it would kill me within weeks. I just enjoy their rock stardom very sincerely—and maybe that’s nice to have a friend who enjoys one’s success and is not competitive but instead relieved that they do not a spotlight on them 24/7.
I’m finding from people commenting and sharing that networking is a struggle for lots of creatively minded folks.
Networking is just the beginning. To climb up a hierarchy requires total commitment. You need to identify the big dogs and artfully kiss ass. You need to smooth off the disagreeable sides of your personality. You need to outwork everyone else. And once you start ascending a bit, you need to demonstrate your loyalty to the new pack by occasionally kicking down at your old buddies.
I learned these lessons during my career in engineering. Are they universal? Do they apply to the stand up comedy scene?
Honestly? Maybe, but I hope not. I'm hoping you don't need to completely neuter yourself and cross some old friends to truly make it, but I might be naive.
Man, Peter, I have an insane amount of respect for anyone who tries standup comedy, nevermind those who get up on that stage over and over again to try and make it in comedy. Much love for the attempt (inspiring) and this reflection here. To make it on comedy alone is a brutally high (unnecessarily high?) hurdle. I’d say this is the case with many fields. The desire for any craft or field to be a complete meritocracy can cloud paths to success. Sometimes it’s not meant to be. I firmly believe there’s a direct correlation between luck and the quality of relationships you build.
Also, you opened for Neal fucking Brennan! That’s incredible!
Thanks. It is very difficult for sure. I actually got to open for a lot of big names before they became famous (John Mulaney in 2010 probably being the biggest one) so I have a lot of great memories to take with me on top of it.
This was a very raw and very real peice! Interesting read from start to finish!! I totally relate with not wanting to sell yourself out! I also like how looking back your able to understand how you could have retained your authenticity without selling yourself out!! Life would be so much easier if we knew then what we know now!! 😆 sometimes real life is the funniest thing of all!! I totally understand why you would feel the ways you felt! I don't think it's a pride issue...I honestly think it was just a lack of understanding on your part! If you had of had the tools to maintain your integrity you would have used them!! There is nothing wrong with not wanting to be fake! Maybe I'm biased...I can't call myself a writer...writing is to technical...I'm not interested in following the 2 post a week rule and I'm not interested in finding ways to grow my substack...I'm only interested in sharing my experiences with those who need it!! I want to show people they can find hope in the worst circumstances!! So I'm probably biased 🤣😂😂
Thanks! I mean my main takeaway was “I wish I knew at 25 what I now know at 39” which is pretty much metaphysically impossible 🤣
Right?? But it would be so awesome if we could!! LOL
Loved this. I too hated the idea of "hanging out" at a club, bar show, etc. when I didn't have a spot. I rationalized it as a waste of time and felt it had nothing to do with the actual craft of comedy, but so much of what you said here rings true.
At the same time, the incessant need to network, build a social media presence, and all of the secondary stuff that helps you advance has always reminded me of the Mitch Hedberg joke about working really hard to become a really good cook, and then people asking "Ok, can you farm?" I became a comedian so I didn't have to do small talk at a bar with colleagues, only to find out that's a lot of what being a comic is.
We tried to escape LinkedIn only to find ourselves in a real life version of it.
Great post and admirable self awareness. I did stand up in college, was pretty funny and got big laughs but never tried to make it a career post college. I was very confident I could be funny but even more confident I couldn't make a career of it for a host of reasons. Sometimes I look back and regret not trying even a little bit when I see a mediocre comedian and know I could do that. Then I see a great comedian and I thank my younger self for being self aware enough to know my own limits.