Anthony Devito on how social media has made us lose touch with what's good comedy

Millennial comedian roasts Gen Z! That headine is not what this piece is really about but I bet I have your attention.

Somewhere along the way I became the ‘old guy in the room’. About 12 years ago, when I started doing stand-up in New York City, the path to success was drastically different. One toiled away at open mics and prayed to the TV gods for a network late night or Comedy Central set.

We were precious about our material. We didn’t go public with ideas until they were bulletproof. Cut to today’s motto: ‘Content first, quality second.’ Thoughtfulness has taken a backseat to hot takes.

I remember being a ‘new face’ at the 2012 Just for Laughs Festival in Montreal. I was seated in the back of a converted hotel conference room, next to a guy with a bushy beard who looked a lot like Community creator Dan Harmon. Turns out that was actually Dan Harmon. Aside from his Hollywood accolades, all I knew about him was he continually butted up against his own network (NBC) for creative freedom of his TV show.

We both listened to Patton Oswalt give a keynote address about the state of ‘our’ industry. I put ‘our’ in quotes because Dan Harmon was in charge of a hit sitcom, and – at the time –I worked at the Apple Store.

Patton was going on about the advent of YouTube and social media eliminating the industry gatekeepers who served as an impenetrable wall between our work and the masses. This felt like the dawn of a new era. I was excited for myself and everyone in my peer group. You know, me and Dan Harmon. But I didn’t foresee the downside. No one in that room did.

Cut to 10 years later and the peculiar fruition of Patton’s statement becoming true. The positive: we don’t need ‘industry gatekeepers’ anymore. The negative: we’ve become worse thinkers for the sake of serving an algorithm.

As a comedian, most of my Instagram feed is filled with captioned, joke clips from my friends. Most of the exclamation point-laden titles are meant to grab the scrolling: COMEDIAN CALLS GRANDMA A CUNT ON HER BIRTHDAY!!!

I’m not judging, I’m doing my best to keep pace. For days I avoided mirrors after posting a clip titled ‘I jacked off with my Mom’s fake boob.’ But man, along the way, have we lost touch on what’s actually good comedy.

Social media has caused our ideas to become fast and loud. Not better. We didn’t kill our overlords. We swapped them out. We traded unfeeling guys in suits for an even less feeling internet. We used to be thoughtful. Now controversy is our currency. And there’s no turning back.

Social media isn’t going away. Neither is this phenomenon of clickbait material. This isn’t a passing storm. This is our new weather system and it’s ‘adapt or die.’ And by die, I mean end up a comic with 10 TV credits and a day job. Maybe at the Apple Store.

• Anthony Devito: My Dad Isn’t Danny Devito’is at the Just The Tonic at the Mash House at 7.30pm

Published: 9 Aug 2022