Maybe Crowd Work is All We Need To Know
The great western tradition of comedy started with stage plays in Ancient Greece that were part political, part religious, and part public spectacle. The plays were performed by actors on leave from military service, telling stories about humans and gods. Notably, the comedies focused on people rather than gods. The humor of Ancient Greek life arose from human folly, and the audience, a unified entity, sat close enough together in the theater to feel the ripples of its own laughter. The front row was reserved for the powerful class: politicians, military leaders, and philosophers. Ancient Greek plays invented—and promptly broke—the fourth wall, poking fun at the most powerful figures in their world, much like today’s comedians pull punches and work the crowd.
Who we get to tease has been a serious concern in the era of identity politics, which, thankfully, we seem to be exiting. Choosing which groups are suitable targets for mockery has been on shifting ground since Millennials came of age and online. The solution has been to amplify comics from diverse backgrounds, as long as those differences are evident in the comic’s appearance and material. If you have cerebral palsy, it must be addressed on stage. If you don’t, you must never joke about it. This approach mixes undiscovered territory—like how to go on a movie date with a deaf person—with the traditional: every girl still needs a rag to clean up after the deed. The bottom line is that we all want to be in on the joke, and nowadays a big laugh can come from a well-written punchline as easily as picking on the crowd.
But who or what are comics supposed to make fun of? Punch up at whom? Politicians? Men? In the era of cancel culture, many established male comedic figures were ousted—often for less than criminal conduct: Louis C.K., Garrison Keillor, Al Franken, Aziz Ansari. Cancel culture wasn’t a joke pointed at powerful comedians, it was a changing of the guard, a revolution without a Robespierre. New figures took their places temporarily, but years later, the survivors continue to release comedy specials explicitly taking aim at the same people who once tried to erase them and their ideas. Ricky, Dave and other comics are back and haven’t adapted to the new rules. They continue in their comedic ways, presenting uncomfortable ideas as jokes to probe public sentiment on what is OK to laugh about. And somehow manage without adding crowd work to the bit.
Enter the next generation of performers who’ve lived with the immediate consequences of social media from the start of their careers, navigating the politics of stage time in front of a viewership that could end a career before it begins. Who or what is safe to poke fun at? The identity politics era led many comics to talk about themselves so much that a new comic’s first set often feels like a non-consensual first date. Punch yourself in the face, sure, but then move on, eh? The safest target, if not oneself, is now: the audience. Ask any stand-up comedian working today, and he’ll have a gripe about comics who do crowd work:
"Crowd work shows a lack of joke-writing ability."
"The overuse of crowd work clips online devalues the art form, catering to clicks."
"Crowds now expect to be part of the jokes."
"The parasocial relationship of social media has ruined comedy."
Crowd work targets audience members to mock and ridicule. Big laughs come from breaking the tension around who holds the most power in the room. In today’s comedy landscape, where cancel culture is barely in the rearview, the most powerful people in the room are the audience.
With audiences now extended through online videos, viewers can comment, gripe, and even cancel a comedian over a joke, especially when seen out of context—like in a viral clip on X or TikTok that gets picked up by a news site. The only “safe” way to tell jokes seems to be to incorporate them in with the audience. Yet ironically, the audience isn’t even in the room anymore. Instead, those who might be offended—and who might launch a cancellation campaign—are often nowhere near the live performance. Comedians can’t see their offended faces, watch them walk out, or hear them arguing with waitstaff about paying for an "offensive" show. The audience is free to be offended indefinitely, as the performance lives online forever. At least movie stars have writers and PR teams. Comedians are a one-man show—writing, performing, and bearing the brunt of any backlash entirely on their own.
That’s why comics develop a sense of humor in the first place: to avoid the beatdown from the school bully by using humor. Today’s audience can do great harm, so the safest way to avoid cancellation is to let the powerful in on the joke. If they don’t think it’s funny, but the room does, maybe the guy in the front row just learned a little humility. If it falls flat, the comic can always retreat back into prepared material.
Crowd work has become the way to test the waters: Who is in this room? Do these people share my sense of humor? Can they take a joke? And the record of these interactions can show that the room was comfortable with the subject matter, laughing and complicit with the tone of the jokes that night.
Crowd work comedians can’t be blamed for using this open conversation style to advance their careers or get through a set. It reflects how comedy is consumed in our culture. Nor can anyone be upset that it’s a safe choice at the end of a puritanical era that toppled comedy legends for inappropriate comments as quickly as it incarcerated serial rapists. The audience, ultimately, is the only person who matters, and comedians aim to please, so it’s a clever trick to put the critics front and center and make them part of the show.
