Sam Jirik · @sam_jirik
27th Apr 2018 from TwitLonger
a transcript of the most important bit of "make happy"
make happy: 45:30
“But for real, what is [the show] about? It’s about performing. I try to make my show about other things, but it always ends up becoming about performing. I started performing very young, as a teenager, you know, professionally, and as a comedian, what you’re supposed to do—you’re supposed to talk about what you know. And what I knew, always, was performing. So, to talk about traffic or laundry felt incredibly disingenuous but I worry that making a show about performing would be too meta—it wouldn’t be relatable to people that aren’t performers. But what I found is that—I don’t think anyone isn’t . . . . I was born in 1990 and I was sort of raised in America when it was a cult of self-expression and I was just taught, you know, express myself and have things to say and everyone will care about them. And I think everyone was taught that and most of us found out no one gives a shit what we think. So, we flock to performers by the thousands because we’re the few that have found an audience and then I’m supposed to get up here and say ‘follow your dreams’ as if this is a meritocracy. It is not, okay? I had a privileged life, and I got lucky, and I’m unhappy. They say its, like, the “me generation.” It’s not. The arrogance is taught, or it was cultivated. It’s self-conscious, that’s what it is. It’s conscious of self. Social media is just the market’s answer to a generation that demanded to perform. So, the market said ‘Here. Perform everything. To each other. All the time.’ It’s prison. It’s horrific. It’s performer and audience melded together. What do we want more than to lie in our bed at the end of the day and just watch our life as a satisfied audience member? I know very little about anything. But what I do know is that if you can live your life without an audience . . . you should do it. And now you’re thinking, ‘How the fuck are you gonna dig the show out of this weird hole?’ Oh, you want me to be funny and make a point?”