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Karl Straub's avatar

Wonderful piece— much of this can be helpfully applied to the similar phenomenon in other arts. (Music, prose, songwriting, my god, hacks are thick on the ground in those fields.) I’ve never seen your points collected more effectively— this piece goes right into my archive. Thanks for posting!

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Tommy Mack's avatar

"If you create art that it for other people and not yourself, it’s likely at some point you will hit a wall and start to despise your own work. It happened to me!" - sad to hear that. I realise this is blowing smoke up your arse but I always thought you were one of the most original and fresh voices among our crop of aspiring stand ups.

I think it takes a will of iron not to fall into at least some hackiness as a new act. You think up a joke and think, "haha, that's funny, clever me!" rather than "is this joke me? Does it work in my voice?" To paraphrase Jeff Goldblum in Billy and the Cloneasaurus, you're so preoccupied with how it can be done, you never stop to think whether you should.

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