"Nanette". If someone told me "here's a fairly interesting (albeit very navel-gazing) Ted Talk on the structure of comedy and the problems therein", i would at least have not felt cheated. Instead, half a dozen people told me that it was the best comedy special they had ever seen. I, living in a world where words have meaning, assumed that this meant that it might be the funniest, or at least most entertaining comedy special they had ever seen. Oh, how wrong I was.

Note to future self: if the content you are about to watch is referred to as "important", "vital", and "game-changing", but not the primary adjective you associate with that genre, e.g. "funny", steer clear.

I don't really have any problems about the content of the jokes that were told, and couldn't give less of a shit that most of the jokes were at the expense of straight men. It was just the fact that there was seemingly one "joke" every 5 minutes, and the remainder was a one-woman-show that I had somehow been duped into seeing.

But at least Hannah Gadsby had something interesting to say about the form and problems of comedy, even if she didn't have many jokes. I just hate the trend in comedy recently where every other special has to shift gears into sad life stories in the third act. There are a million goddamn places to listen to good storytellers talk about their personal lives, and a comedy stage is almost never one of them.

I've seen a lot of truly terrible live stand-up from people who have gotten the impression that stand-up is first and foremost a form of therapy, rather than, you know, an opportunity to tell jokes or make people in some way happy for a little while. It's all well and good to want to talk about your feelings in a serious way - just call it something other than comedy so I can know not to see it.

Also, fuck Radiohead, Hamilton, and every Marvel Movie.