There's only one rule in stand-up, which is that you have to be funny. Yet 99 per cent of comics look and talk exactly the same.
Interpretation
Stand-up comedy requires humor, but many comedians lack originality despite this rule.
In this quote, Bo Burnham highlights the fundamental requirement of stand-up comedy: to be funny. However, he observes that the vast majority of comedians tend to imitate each other in style and content, suggesting that true originality and unique humor are rare in the comedy scene.
In practice
In a conversation about comedy, one might say, 'As Bo Burnham pointed out, every comedian must be funny, yet many fail to bring anything new to the stage.'
I think it would collapse my heart if I was super famous. I don't have the nerve for it, I'm too anxious. I don't know how you're not obsessed with how people perceive you, because they're real people, you know? You can convince yourself that they don't really know you, and that's true, but how can it not hurt your feelings?
I've found nothing but support and generosity from older comics. I think comedians are a lot nicer than the stigma is, at least from my experience.
My career was exploding at the same time that social media itself was expanding. But when my online videos were taking off, I didn't think, 'Oh, great! I'm going to be able to parlay this into a career!' I just wanted to be a comedian. I just wanted to perform live.
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Life, to me, doesn't feel like a straightforward story; it doesn't make sense for me to get up there and just tell a story. Life feels like what my show feels like: chaotic and strange and disconnected.
If the Earth could be made to rotate twice as fast, managers would get twice as much done. If the Earth could be made to rotate twenty times as fast, everyone else would get twice as much done since all the managers would fly off.
I wish to be cremated. One tenth of my ashes shall be given to my agent, as written in our contract.
It can hardly be a coincidence that no language on earth has ever produced the expression, 'As pretty as an airport.
When I asked Fischer why he had not played a certain move in our game, he replied: 'Well, you laughed when I wrote it down!'
The Welsh are all actors. It's only the bad ones who become professional.
She looked at nice young men as if she could smell their stupidity.
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