Why are stand up comedy fans so terrifying?

Because every now and again you go onto Youtube and you discover a Dane Cook or a Denis Leary and if you remotely like any of their jokes regardless of why they'll jump down your throat or at least they would if you dared to leap into the murky depths of said Youtube comments to defend them at which point you'd be eaten alive like the film crew from Cannibal Holocaust and they'd have to send in Robert Kerman to find your ass bloodied and beaten in there. From what I understand, stand up comedy fans get absolutely terrifying when there's a comedian they hate or dislike for whatever reason, especially if a comedian is accused of stealing jokes from another guy. I'm not sure how stand up comedy cred wars work so for years I've been very intimidated as to how to approach the subject of stand up comedy due to me not wanting to tread on any land mines left by people back in the Comedy Political Correctness Wars of the 90s.

I'm aware that people like George Carlin and Richard Pryor and Louie CK are safe to like because their reputations are unblemished somehow, and I like Todd Barry's stuff, but the further away you get from Carlin and Pryor and Louie CK the more you worry over treading on Comedy War Land Mines. Many lives appear to have been lost in these epic Comedy Wars, and they don't look like they're a laughing matter.

Dude, no, it's not that stand-up comedy fans are terrifying, it's that fans themselves are terrifying. Just stay away from the You Tube comments section, a'ight? Nobody there is not terrifying.

If you go into a Youtube comments section expecting anything other than virulent stupidity and hatred, you get what you deserve.

Though why Youtube comments would generate significantly more of this behaviour than almost any other form of Internet medium, I can only guess. Maybe it's the instant-gratification nature of video media, while say, a wiki presupposes a predilection for reading and a greater degree of intelligence, and the people who use them are thus unlikely to behave like meth-addicted teenage boys. The same goes for porn sites, specifically Rule 34... Though I guess we shouldn't expect too much from people who go there to fap to pictures of cartoon horses.

Metal fans are like this too. Have fun trying to safely negotiate the comments on any music video from one of the "core" genres.

edited 19th May '13 11:07:22 AM by Alma

My answer: GIFT. It's really easy to talk big behind a computer screen.

I just assumed all internet discussions of stand up comedians were like this.

Why did I think that Youtube comments were the pulse on society's trends and general happenings? Was it because I just didn't know better?

Yeah, I agree about Dane Cook. I'm not saying he's the best comedian ever, but the way people go on you would think he's a baby eating puppy kicker. I actually liked one of his specials. On a side note, has anyone ever watched videos that have really bad audiences. What I mean is, I've watched videos of really good comedians where the audience is just sitting there staring.

Youtube comments are generally a rather hostile environment no matter what the subject matter, sadly. Though it would be nice to express that I like a certain comedian (or anything really) publicly without having someone jump down my throat and angrily thrash around about it.

Can we not do this whole "bitching about fetishes" thing? Like, at all?

edited 19th May '13 9:17:42 PM by Robotnik

See when I first got online, the environment I expected to encounter was closer to Train Man where bros would help out other bros with stuff and be happy.

Youtube comments are occasionally good, funny and civil, but like with Cracked.com there's a dedicated fanbase to anything and people take stand up comedy very seriously. I guess years of watching those flame wars unfold made me nervous about approaching stand up comedy as a medium in general. The same thing happened when I dipped my toe into superhero comics for a while and I got roasted by online forumites who didn't think I knew nearly enough about Superman to understand the implications of this superhero and why he works in comics versus the movies. I get really nervous approaching things that have dedicated fanbases especially when I know little about them to begin with.

Especially since even within professional stand up there seems to be this culture of "destroying" inferior comedians. And people laughing at the denigration of other human beings live on TV when this happens.

You can see why I would have taken the Youtube commenters as a barometer for fandom.

No. I'm going to bitch about fetishes (that's what we're calling it now? OK) if I damn well want to. >:|

But that wasn't even my point. Cloppers are just one small depraved corner of a huge fucked-up user base. Rule 34 commenters are some of the most hateful and bigoted I've ever seen. Worse than Youtube, if such a thing is possible. They seem to think that they don't have to behave themselves on a porn site, so aaaall the nasty racist, homophobic, etc. stuff comes out.

Oh man. Cracked comment threads aren't as bad as Youtube, but they're certainly more obnoxious. I just cannot comment there anymore. Just reading the comments raises my blood pressure and diminishes my faith in humanity.

You know what, nowhere on the Internet is safe. Just assume that any comment thread or forum-type place is going to be a cesspit and you'll probably be OK.

edited 20th May '13 8:45:30 AM by Alma

You know, I think you may have something there after all. I mean, Youtube is Youtube alright, but heckling is a very real phenomenon, too. I think it has to do with wit as a social tool.

Being witty is the intellectual equivalent of flexing your biceps, you try to be funny so people will like you, and they will either like you because your jokes put you on their level (like reference humor, pleasantly humorous exchanges or "you know that thing where" humor), below (self-deprecation), or because you're successfully proving that you are a master of wit by laying down some serious statements and vicious attacks by smart use of language, which puts you above your audience. Or, you fail and they don't.

The relationship between comedian and audience is a social communicative situation. There'll always be people who don't like you for one reason or another, but when you're just trying to seem cute, they'll likely ignore you, or when you're trying to be all buddy-buddy, they'll think it's annoying, but if you want to go up there and act like you're the man, failure to live up to your aspirations will get people angry. After all, when try to prove your intellectual might in a communicative exchange with someone and your counterpart thinks that you're all talk and no bite, they'll feel provoked to display their own strength.

At least, that's how it appears to me. I'm not a big expert on stand-up comedy, to be honest.

edited 20th May '13 6:36:26 PM by Robotnik

Complaining on this site isn't forbidden though, you silly billy.

edited 20th May '13 11:08:02 AM by kay4today

Ha, that's rich.

It's only forbidden in media forums.

Oh please, there's tons of complaining. Even on trope pages. You just need to word it right.

edited 20th May '13 1:38:54 PM by kay4today

There's no rule against being critical or disagreeing with other tropers. There is a rule against being a dick.

It's not the mods' fault that so many people haven't figured out how to do the former without falling into the latter.

...getting back to comedians, regarding Dane Cook, I just hate his movies.

What makes me shake my head is when I go onto a You Tube comment board and see the comments have somehow become a seething pit of argument not at all related to what is going on with the video. I mean, popping onto a video about a kid performing magic tricks and seeing the comments are all about who would win in a fist fight: Tiger Woods or God? I realize that most of these are pretty much trolls, but still. Its very surreal.

Are Dane Cook and Denis Leary particularly well known?

Because speaking from a British perspective, one of the stand up comedians who gets the most flak over here is Michael Mc Intyre, who's one of the more popular/well exposed comedians over here.

They are, at least in the U.S. I don't know about elsewhere. Michael McIntyre I have heard of, but I can't speak for anyone else.