So says Ben Heal

We are where we are, Toto. In terms of live stand-up this is nowhere near where we were a decade ago. The sands are not just shifting, but being blown away. 

Internet comedy and live stand-up compete for attention, but also increasingly blur their forms. Net comedy performers are now part of the talent pool for live stand-up. Live stand-ups transition onto the internet, such as the use of crowd work clips as ads to attend live stand-up, pioneered by Liverpool’s Hot Water Comedy Club. Net comedy –  Instagram, TikTok, podcasts etc – is no longer comedy adjacent, its viewers will increasingly become part of the live stand-up audience.  

A generation ago, virtual meant ‘made to appear as if it exists’. Now, to many punters and performers, virtual simply ‘exists’ and is an entirely acceptable reality equivalent to stage stand-up.

Net comedy used to be a deeply dumb, click-led destination. At its outset, it was a shallow place, where short attention spans went to become shorter. 

Things change. The first printing press released an avalanche of stories dragging naive readers into parallel worlds. Early French cinema goers ducked under their seats as a film steam train came toward them. Time ticked by, and these literary and cinematic illusions gained a near-reality status. We are at this stage with net comedy.

Following Darwinian principles, the bulk of internet comedy falls by the wayside, much as open mike stand-ups do. Thankfully the net comedy survivors often bring new comedy angles in the battle against hack. Henry Rowley, Jack Skipper and Finlay Currie were Tiktokian ‘funny video’ comedians who transitioned to Fringe long form shows.

They learned to shift from 60 seconds to an hour. It worked, some of them finding their way on to the 2024 Edinburgh comedy awards’ long and short lists. To quote Henry Rowley: ‘With TikTok you don’t have to earn every single laugh, you just need people to go "ha", and click "Like".’ If you have the talent, you can change.

Cartoon by Jada Gwanzura

Defining characteristics of live stand-up? All in the same ‘time and space’, an event on some form of stage. Playing to an inexplicably weak-bladdered, live audience. The audience a beehive of complexity and interaction. A place where the call of a shock, and response of a laugh feed on one another to make a greater whole.

Well, the past always collapses at some point.

Live stand-up punters always had variety. Live stand-up always changes incrementally, yet seems something relatively solid and durable. It is now also a stepping stone to TV work, newspaper columns, stage and film work

Now net comedy is also something solid and durable in its own right. Perhaps the main achievement of internet comedy is to completely remove context to no apparent detriment. An audience is implied, and so is everything else. It’s collapsed the whole concept of stand-up: now the internet itself is the whole thing, seated audience, building and all. Like how someone can whistle a tune and it reminds you of the album version. It is synecdoche. The smaller version encompassing and replacing the larger reality. Net gain or net loss?

Never mind a boat, you’re going to need a bigger social and mental world to accommodate the future of live stand-up. Live stand-up has always ebbed and flowed, gone through paradigm shifts – short form, long form, laugh-free on purpose Hannah Gadsby, meta Stewart Lee – all increasing its complexity and range. 

Net comedy is just modernity causing more sand-shifting, which live stand-up will accommodate to survive and thrive.

• Ben Heal is at bheal3@gmail.com.

Published: 6 Sep 2024