Things That are More Likely to Ruin Stand-Up Comedy Than “Political Correctness”

By Will Weldon

1. Popular Youtube acts with no live performance experience getting booked on big shows
2. The marginalization of not-white performers into “specialty acts”, thus segregating important new voices away from mainstream communities that could use the infusion of newness
3. Audience members ever-increasing ability to record/stream performances without the performer knowing, thus ruining jokes that are works in progress, or presenting them out of the necessary context for the joke(s) to work
4. Local media not knowing how to cover stand-up in a way that will interest readers/viewers and entice them into going to see comedy
5. Comedians turning into the Fraternal Order of Police every time that a peer is criticized, thus preventing dialogues that can lead to important reflection on our own art
6. Seriously, if you’re booking your client with three million subscribers to his vlog, who has never spoken in public live before, on a show with over twenty people in attendance, you deserve to get fired and exiled from the business, because it’s going to go terribly
7. Comics taking away from time that could be spent writing jokes to fight with each other on Facebook about political correctness
8. Bringer shows. Don’t do them if you get invited to, and don’t ever book them if you want the respect of your peers
9. The sun’s UV rays
10. The GAP closing a bunch of stores
11. Rising ocean levels
12. The slow and crushing realization that your parents will never be proud of you, because their fundamental misunderstanding of how the business works and what you want from it means that they CAN’T ever be proud
13. Gwyneth Paltrow
14. Your own shitty act

Will Weldon is a stand-up comedian currently based in Los Angeles.

Reprinted with permission from Will Weldon. This list previously appeared on his Tumblr.

Sean L. McCarthy

Editor and publisher since 2007, when he was named New York's Funniest Reporter. Former newspaper reporter at the New York Daily News, Boston Herald and smaller dailies and community papers across America. Loves comedy so much he founded this site.

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2 thoughts on “Things That are More Likely to Ruin Stand-Up Comedy Than “Political Correctness”

  1. I agree with most of this, but show me “marginalization of non-white performers into specialty acts” that outweighs Trevor Noah and Larry Wilmore taking over for Stewart and Colbert; Ansari, Burress; Nujani; Che and Carmichael making huge strides; and the producer; 2 of the 3 judges and a huge percentage of the finalists on Last Comic Standing being nonwhite?

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