Slashdot Mirror
How To Promote Stage Comedy In a Geeky Way?
shaitand writes "I recently went to a renaissance festival where a man (Arthur Greenleaf Holmes) performed some of the most obscene NSFW and hilarious comedy I've seen in a long while. The show was free and he had CDs and DVDs in his bag and accepted donations. I certainly gave one. But why is this guy doing niche fairs and not HBO specials? I contacted him and he said that he would love to break out and because of his costume he has trouble and the nature of his act he has trouble getting on to traditional stages. How would you promote such an act? On further conversation he said he is an avid supporter of free flow of information and strongly encourages pirating his work far and wide. Since he is primarily interested in making money with live performance and not media sales I thought if he took this to the next level and released a DVD under a creative commons license the exposure and interest generated might help him break into new forums with his act?"
sudo make funny
First of all .. WTF is "Promote Stage Comedy in a Geeky way?" . To paraphrase a short green hairy dude "Promote or don't promote .. there is no geek in it".
Secondly .. he doesn't have an HBO special because (by your own and his estimation) he is not mainstream. No matter how much promotion you do, your potential audience will always be small if you only fill a niche.
Thirdly WTF is this doing here?!??!?
I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
Maybe the reason he cannot get on HBO etc is because he supports the free flow of information. Last I checked the major media people hate pirating work as they believe it cuts into their profits. Kinda like Bradley Manning filling in for Jay Carney @ the White House.
I'd say what the submitter considers to be obscene is ... well, it's not obscene. Based on the description and the video on his website, the commedy is largely based on the juxtaposition of the blueness of the material and the persona of being a 1500's poet. I found the video rather amusing - I imagine it'd be fun to see live.
"Old man yells at systemd"
The first rule of underground stage theater is don't post about underground stage theater.
"Old man yells at systemd"
Umm HBO is cable, so no FCC issues. And have you seen some of the stuff they do? Not exactly kid friendly.
Now, HBO spends millions on promoting comics and they kind of expect to make it up in subscriptions (if the guy is funny even to a very specific audience he would be safe here – see Game of Thrones – hard to be more geeky than that.) and selling DVDs of said show – which the artist freely promotes the piracy of.
Now, I am not saying HBO is the only game in the town or that I like the way they play the game (I would love to just by Game of Thrones without the other bits) - but if you want to play their game you need to play by their rules.
It's not a site for people with humour.
10: OH I'd disagree,
20: I've been voted +5 Funny repeatedly on Slashdot. And that is proof that Slashdot users have humor, because I am funny, very funny, I know this because I have been voted +5 Funny repeatedly on Slashdot where people are well known for having a great sense of humor, I know this for a fact because well..... GOTO 20
If my comment didn't sound as good in your head as it did in mine, then I guess we all know who's to blame
I contacted him and he said that he would love to break out and because of his costume he has trouble and the nature of his act he has trouble getting on to traditional stages.
Sounds like he knows exactly why he's having trouble getting mainstream gigs. If he wants to break out, he needs to apply his skills to more relatable material with a more mainstream presentation. That's how these things work.
Do you think all those boy band guys wanted to do that pop dreck? (God, I hope not.) But that was the opportunity presented at the time so they bent over and took the money.
In comedy, you pander to the crowd. Why else would Ron White drink so much? It's a tough gig and sticking to an act with narrow appeal is a death sentence.
He's not on HBO because the Renaissance fair crowd is a very small segment of society.
Your average person doesn't find mildly rude poems to be that funny.
And, yes, I did say mildly rude. Not "some of the most obscene NSFW and hilarious comedy I've seen in a long while." There is more obscene, NSFW, and hilarious period comedy in Blackadder - a prime time TV show that first aired 30 years ago this June - than in the clips that I've been able to find of him. We live in an era where "offensive" comedians turn to necrophilia jokes to shock audiences because pedophilia, incest, and rape jokes aren't seen as being all that shocking anymore. A sonnet about a knothole that looks like a vagina is the work of your average high school drama club member, not your average professional comedian.
This guy is exactly where he belongs; doing niche fairs.
HBO is the wrong place to start. All the comics there have some reputation from the clubs before they get on HBO. If he wants to move beyond RenFair performer, he should be trying to get his DVD in the hands of anyone who headlines their own comedy club shows. If one of them finds him funny, he might get a gig opening for someone with a bit more name recognition. The pay will be almost nil, but that's how people build their reputation to the point where HBO will pay any attention. Even then it's a bit of a long shot...the opening act from the show I saw this past Friday had already been on HBO.
Another option to explore...contact Netflix and offer the DVD royalty free for a year or so. If they accept it, urge anyone and everyone you meet to 5-star it in the hopes that it starts showing up as a suggestion to a wider audience.
But I wonder if his stuff isn't really that funny outside of the RenFair setting. In the context of a RenFair, that would be pretty funny because he's injecting humor into the scene that everyone is participating in. But outside of a RenFair setting, where people wear normal clothes and speak in their normal way, the humor won't play as well.
"Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos!"
Quite seriously, read some of his material. 99%, I'm certain, kids won't understand.
I think the main reason that he isn't on HBO is simply that 99% of the adults wouldn't either.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Hi! I'm Matt "Breakpoint" Heck. You may know me as "Theodore" from the web series "Aperture R&D" (in which case I assume that's the point in the credits at which YouTube had to pause to re-buffer). Presuming nothing falls victim to arson during post-production, In a little under a year, you might see me in a film and a few other odd detours. If you lived on the Central Coast around, oh, 2001-2003, you might know me for doing stand-up comedy. If you've been to Burning Man over the last few years, you might have seen a 15,000 cubic foot helium airship I helped stick 200 feet over the Nevada desert with a Tesla coil concert under it. It's even VAGUELY possible you know me from my (cough) "music" with The Braindead Monkeys, featuring such classic tracks, god help me, as, "Terrorism!". And, if you clicked on the wrong link somewhere, there's a very outside chance you might even have read some of my short science fiction, in which case I'm very sorry, I didn't mean it, and they all lived happily ever after right after a thorough memory wipe, which I would offer you if I could.
However, in as much as I am ever actually cited or referred to anywhere, it's always from something I wrote (essays or code) in my professional capacity as (primarily) a software engineer. Far more people have used the touchscreen jukeboxes I did for Ecast, or the MPEG decoders I helped write for Xing (or, certainly, the DeCSS keys that were apparently lifted from them), or even the video games beta release I worked on, then are probably ever going to recognize my face or my voice, let alone my name. But even then, what DO people remember my name from? A few off-hand emails about Qt vs wxWindows (now wxWidgets) I wrote a long, long time ago, but which apparently had a larger effect than I had any right to expect. In other words, I am remembered for writing something that was really merely a step or so above a private message.
So, now that you know where I'm coming from, let me give you my take on a few things-- because "Silicon Valley" and "Hollywood" are going to overlap more and more, not less, and the overlap is cultural as much as it is technical. I spend some of my social time with other engineers, actors, writers, stand-up comics science fiction anthology editors, and makers (I helped run TechShop for a year or so). They all have one thing in common: burnout is a problem.
I would propose that practically everything you do in this world for love or money will fall somewhere on an equilateral triangle that we might label "Compensation", with these three vertices:
* Pay
* Fame
* Satisfaction
Somewhere on that triangle is a very specific spot where YOU would be happiest, and it probably isn't dead-center. Likewise, somewhere on that triangle is a spot where YOU are RIGHT NOW, and that is the sum of everything you are currently doing, and everything you have done.
Now, I'm not talking about your whole life, here-- hopefully your marriage isn't done for fame or money-- but I am talking about your (supposedly) 9-5 job, plus the "consulting" work that may or may not really reimburse you for the time you put into it but is damn cool, plus the hobbies and projects you participate in because you really, really want to.
The simple fact of the matter is that the vast majority of the time, the things we would like to do for pay, fame, and satisfaction do not do all three of those things. Often, they only do one of them. Worse, sometimes you go negative in a category. But the thing to realize-- and this can be maddeningly frustrating to try to explain to people who are more comfortable in (or more easily satisfied with, moo) their lives-- is that those things you do that you can't figure out why in the hell you bother? Those things that you still do even though it seems like they're just not worth it? We do a lot of those things to make the sum of EVERYTHING we do a little closer to where we'd like to be on that triangle.
Or at least, we SHOULD.
Now, I will readily assure you that
AKA "How do I market to geeks?"
How can you possibly maintain the following train of thought?
(1) "I think renaissance faire people are geeks"
(2) "I think slashdot people are geeks"
(3) "these groups form an equivalence set"
(4) "ask slashdot how to market to geeks"
(5) "slashdot tells me"
(6) "market to geeks"
(7) "reach the renaissance faire target market"
(8) "Profit!"
Seriously, I hope that the OP doesn't think that geeks form a monolithic market block, any more than Anonymous all hold the same political positions on everything.
it doesn't run linux
rewriting history since 2109
why is this guy doing niche fairs and not HBO specials?
Maybe because you're not the ultimate arbiter of what's funny and what isn't.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
Firstly, congratulations on getting your guy's link onto Slashdot.
I've got news for you: there are thousands of comedians playing night after night in front of crowds of 100 or less. Many of them are subjectively better than most TV comedians. Some of them will break through. Some of them will spend the rest of their life doing it for the love of it. Some of them will make a living wage on it but no more.
There are well worn paths, and your guy seems to be on one. He's doing paid gigs.
> And have you seen some of the stuff they do? Not exactly kid friendly.
Yep...
Game of Thrones
True Blood
The Sopranos
Somehow I don't think HBO would bat an eye at some off color jokes. Now make if this comedian was a hot young chick and willing to get naked on stage, then HBO might take notice.
Yeah, but to get an HBO special, you already have to be pretty well established. The last time HBO gave specials to unknowns was back in the days when Rodney Dangerfield used to promote them on his HBO "Young Comedians" specials (helping start the careers of guys like Sam Kinison, Andrew Dice Clay, and Rosanne Barr).
The cow says "Moo." The dog says "Woof." The Timothy says "Thanks, valued customer. We appreciate your input."