My Reaction To: Changing the Stand Up Game

Via a great Tucker Max discussion topic and deli.cio.us, I came across a great article about changing the stand up comedy game that caused some interesting reactions in my head and gave me an idea:

The Idea:

Create a seperate video for each of my jokes, post it online, and have users rate my joke one by one. I would post one joke per day. And I would post different versions of the same joke as I rewrote them.

If I can get enough people to vote, I’d promote and perform a “full comedy set as determined by the fans”. This could get really interesting if someone really hated me and had a big following, and then got his fans to vote for all of my worst jokes. It may be time to start making enemies.

My reactions to the article:

• Jay Schultz and I also had a similiar idea about a specialized social networking site for comedians and fans to learn about each other back in 2006. After basic research, we realized myspace, among other sites, already had a comedy section.
   
• Char is right that young comics don’t want to post tons of their videos online, but I don’t think the reason he gives, that they are afraid of their material being stolen, is the number one reason.   

  The reason I hear most often is that young comics don’t want videos of themselves posted unless they kill the set. They’re afraid promoters, bookers and/or potential fans may see it and think they suck. They’d rather get booked by word of mouth than by having someone find a less than stellar performance.  I wrote about my theory before, but I haven’t been 100% committed to it in the past month. I’ve stopped posting EVERY performance online, and have become more selective. This article motivated me to start posting everything again. Anyone interested in standup should be able to follow my progression, mic by painful mic. In the interest of full disclosure, I do post my less than stellar videos on a different youtube account than I post my good stuff so that bad videos don’t show up in random search results. So unless you’re reading my blog, you won’t be able to find the bad videos via youtube search. I’m also thinking of creating a seperate youtube account for my joke by joke video voting above.
   

• I can’t wait for the first time Dane Cook steals one of my jokes. I’ll take this as a sign of my progress as a writer and performer.
• Is there a way to encourage two drink minimums before watching comedy on YouTube?
• A lot of what he described is what I’ve been trying to do. I’ve just been focusing more on creating content (and getting funny) than on marketing and promoting my blog. I’m still undecided if I should start spending some of my time marketing and promoting, or worrying about that after I’m a more solid performer. Judy Carter’s The Comedy Bible says the 3 steps of comedy success are 1) Get Good 2) Get Noticed 3) Get Paid. Given Web 2.0, maybe this is no longer the case?