Why Maron vs. the bro podcasters matters
And why he's wrong about trans jokes.
I’m enjoying Marc Maron’s burn-the-boats podcast tour to promote his new special. In fact, Maron is so good on podcasts I’m starting to think he should have his own. 😜
Or maybe we should get him on one of those Jubilee “Surrounded” debates, put him in the middle, and let a bunch of bro podcasters encircle him.
If you don’t know what I’m talking about, Maron’s been calling out Theo Von, Tony Hinchcliffe, Joe Rogan, and–
Ugh, I don’t feel like rehashing the whole thing. W. Kamau Bell offers up a good summary here if you need to catch up. (Warning: It may involve listening to Howie Mandel.)
Social media is eating it all up because 1) mmm, conflict and 2) the left has been looking for someone to call out the right wing creep into comedy, those interviews that “humanized” 🍊, and the surfeit of lame pronoun jokes.
But the conversation is frequently missing some points…
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We need to differentiate between comedians and broadcasters.
We keep lumping together different skillsets. Just because you call yourself a “standup comedian” doesn’t mean you’re actually good at standup comedy. Being both a masterful podcaster AND standup comedian is rarely achieved. That’s because killing for 45mins onstage with crafted jokes is way different than being entertaining in a studio for hours every week.
Like everything in life, it’s about time…
A great standup is happy to generate ONE MINUTE of new material per week. A great broadcaster must generate HOURS of new content per week. These are different animals. One crafts material. The other spouts content.
Putting standup and podcasting on the same platter is like associating military snipers with wrestlers who do sleeper holds. It's like comparing Leonard Cohen to Rush Limbaugh because they both said stuff into microphones. It’s like…
Man, coming up with the right analogy is tough. You really gotta think about it. See, that’s exactly what I’m talking about.
A great standup is happy to generate ONE MINUTE of new material per week. A great broadcaster must generate HOURS of new content per week.
This isn’t just about politics. It’s about being a hack.
The internet makes everything political. But this convo is as much about art as left-right stuff.
Maron’s attacks are the return of something that was a key part of standup when I started but that seems to have largely disappeared: calling out hack material. In recent years, we've largely lost the notion of BEING A HACK and WHY THAT SUCKS.
The algorithm loves low hanging fruit. As a result, aspiring comedians have flooded the zone with lowest common denominator stuff that used to generate eye rolls – things like lame crowdwork (“Are you two dating? No? One of you wants to bang the other one…”), racist accents (“Ching chong…”), bits based on ethnic stereotypes (“Puerto Ricans blare music so loud…”), cliché impressions (“Imagine Joe Biden at a car wash…”), juvenile topics that make third graders laugh (“I sh*t my pants” stories), retread comparisons (dogs vs. cats, NYC vs. LA, men vs. women), or some combo of the above.
Worth mentioning: There’s liberal hack too! See any bit that ends with we’re the good ones clapter, “straight white men suck,” pointing out a guy with a beard and saying he looks like he was at January 6th, etc.
The thing about hack is it works. That’s why comedians used to police hack-ness internally. We’d call each other out at mics, shows, and in green rooms. There was a whisper network about your act. (Comedians love gossiping more than any show on Bravo.) Andy Kindler would mock the worst offenders at his JFL “State of the Industry” addresses. The message: It wasn’t just about killing, it was how you killed. When social media took over, we lost a lot of that.
That’s why it’s nice to see Maron resurfacing that ethos. And he’s one of the few people who can do it since 1) he’s a respected standup vet and 2) he already has a massive platform. Plenty of other comedians feel the same but don’t have the audience or keep mum ‘cuz they hope to guest it up on one of those shows he’s attacking. After all, those shows are doing for a lot of comedians what The Tonight Show did for standups back in the 80’s. There probably weren’t many comedians attacking Johnny Carson publicly back then either, y’know?
Industry gatekeepers used to play a role here too. They recognized and filtered out crappy comics. The collapse of “the industry” has been great in a lot of ways (screw the middleman 🖕), but it’s also put a spotlight how much those suits served as curators. They were a moat between hacks and the masses.
Is all this coming off as elitist? Fine. I’m sick of everyone shitting on the elites. Without elites, we’re just Idiocracy. Someone’s gotta stick up for taste.
While we’re spreading blame, let’s look at the people who seem to truly be in charge of comedy right now: Mark Zuckerberg, the Chinese government, and the owners of YouTube (y’know, the guys who removed “Don’t be evil” from their code of conduct). At least Netflix’ Ted Sarandos seems to genuinely love comedy (but feels like his platform is putting out less and less of it lately).
We’re all slaves to the algorithm now and that sucks. I discussed this here while doing some faux crowdwork in my special BOLO (available now on YouTube!):
The algorithm is an insatiable beast that constantly requires feeding. The incentives now are to release a constant IV drip of content. When you gotta meet a quota, quality inevitably goes down (see: ICE raids at Home Depots). And that’s when hack sneaks in the room and says, “I’m here for ya.”
There is no hack subject, only hack approaches.
Here’s where I’ll push back (slightly) against Maron’s pov. In this viral clip, he goes after comedians who tell jokes about marginalized folks.
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I get it. There are plenty of hacky, lame, cruel jokes about trans people, the word “retarded,” and immigrants.
But that doesn’t mean those topics should be 100% off limits. It just means that if you wanna joke about these topics, you gotta push harder to have a fresh take and write, y’know, a good joke that sounds nothing like a Ted Cruz “my pronouns are…” tweet. If your twist is a cruel cliché, that sucks. But if it’s a “wow, I never thought about it that way” surprise, then ✊.
Part of the reason so many comics joke about these sensitive topics is they get crowds engaged. That part can be good. It’s what you do with them that matters. Like, here’s me telling a (IMO not cliché) joke about pronouns:
And here’s one about immigrants:
And here’s one re: retarded:
The challenge is to make jokes about these topics feel fresh instead of ugh.
(To be fair, I’m a hypocrite who has told plenty of jokes on iffy topics that I’m not proud of…but hey, at least I 1) strive to avoid being that guy and 2) am self-loathing enough to feel bad about it when I am.)
Navigating the slalom course
Some more examples of good jokes about hack subjects…
“Airplane jokes are hack.” Oh yeah? CK’s “Everything’s amazing and nobody is happy” bit was about an airplane experience and it’s one of the best bits of the century.
CK discussed why he’s okay with tackling hack topics years ago:
I never thought of [hack] subjects as bad to talk about. If you think any subject is hack, go to youtube and watch Jay leno's appearances on the old Letterman show. There are a ton of them and they're amazing. He was SO Fucking good and everything he talked about was "hack". he did airplane humor in at least five different segments on the same show. he never let it go. Just kept hammering and hammering at it, but with such beautiful precision, such energy, gorgeously worded bits. To frown on them because of the subject matter is to be a self-serving idiot.
Patton Oswalt once told a joke about the Star Wars prequels. Back then, saying those movies sucked was way overdone onstage. Yet Oswalt’s imagined conversation with George Lucas was hilarious (perfect analogy too).
Lucas: “You seem very sad.”
Oswalt: “Yes, you’re right. I don’t give a fuck about any of that stuff. That sounds… horrible! I would never go see that.”
"Would you like a dish of ice cream?"
"Why, yes I would l like some ice cream. That would be very nice!"
"Well here's a big sack of rock salt!"
"What? You said I'd be getting ice cream?"
"Well, when you add the cream and sugar and ice and do a little mixing and then presto, you have ice cream!"
"I DON'T GIVE A SHIT WHERE THE STUFF I LOVE COMES FROM! I JUST LOVE THE STUFF I LOVE! Hey, do you love Angelina Jolie? Does she give you a big boner? Well then here's Jon Voight's ballsack! That's right! The sweaty, pink ballsack she swam out of. Now j*rk off to that, you lucky so and so!"
Some questions worth asking if you’re a comedian who wants to go there with a bit:
Do you actually care about what you’re saying?
Who’s the target of the joke?
Is the twist something genuinely surprising?
Is the whole point to be cruel or are you giving a unique/fresh/interesting perspective?
Could someone else do the joke or could it only come from you?
Who is the joke for?
Just asking those questions can go a long way in helping you navigate the sensitivity slalom course and avoid hackdom.
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P.S. I write more about “inside comedy” stuff and the craft of standup over at my Substack FUNNY HOW:
That entire Werewolves and Lollipops album is absolutely insane. One of the best comedy albums ever. “Now j*rk off to that, you lucky so and so!" is burned into the back of my brain.
Excellent. Youse all need to watch BOLO immediately.