Social media pros and cons: "It can make your career, or it can break your career."

[00:00:00] You Could Count The Punchers On One Hand But Last Week They Were Completely Ramped They Were Filled Up To The Gunholds They Were Cueing Down The Street They Said You Shouldve Been Here Last Week I Swear You Shouldve Been Here Last Week

[00:00:23] Oh Yeah You Shouldve Been Here Last Week Hello and welcome to the new episode of You Shouldve Been Here Last Week The Comedy Industry Podcast hosted by myself, Steve Gribbin and my fellow comedian Paul Ricketts

[00:00:43] Everybody sort of delves into a different corner of the comedy biz that we call show One of the persistent themes that keeps cropping up is the increasing use of social media and how it's now prerequisite in the comedic world

[00:00:58] But it can be of course a double edged sword and that's what we're going to look at today The double edged sword The Sword Of Damocles Hanging Over The Heads For Comedians Because one, you need social media now apparently, let's face up to reality

[00:01:15] You need it to be a success but it also could be the end of you Both things can happen From doing the socials The socials just sounds so sweet and innocent I just need something for the socials

[00:01:32] I know it does sound like an old fashioned social club doesn't it but it can be anything but But nowadays it is a way to drum up work or lose work depending on how good you are at doing it

[00:01:44] Yeah, I mean we ought to look at the fact that It's interesting because each different type of social media has its own I mean the easiest one if you like to argue over is Facebook as it has

[00:01:59] As was shown to a large extent during the two years of the pandemic If you go before that it used to be the message boards which were attached to certain websites If you go back to the days of Chortle Oh, I wasn't going to mention that

[00:02:16] There were lots and lots of bellends that were on Chortle but they had assumed names Sometimes I recognise the fact that there were some people arguing with themselves under different personas Just to try and get an argument going

[00:02:30] They would start having an argument with three of their different personas hoping for other people to join in But social media, okay there's people there under assumed names as well

[00:02:42] But we have no choice as comics but to go on to social media because one all the jobs have gone on there In terms of pro comedy you have to go on there to different forums to find work

[00:02:58] I mean somebody's likened that situation on Facebook to being very similar to the way that Dockers used to congregate outside the gates of the docks in times gone by In the form where we go yeah you, yeah you There is a certain element of that

[00:03:21] There's many Facebook forums where a promoter will say I need an act to do blah blah minutes for blah blah money Everyone put your name underneath this post so I can see how many people aren't working on that night I can't believe it, hey

[00:03:39] And everyone has to write their name yeah I'll do it And then suddenly halfway down or even a third of the way down of the 40 names Someone will go I can't believe there's so many good comics not working on this day

[00:03:54] As a promoter will go yes why am I paying so much And I think why don't you just give us an email so we can send our availability to them Or why can't we personally message them

[00:04:05] Why do we have to do this public in front of all our other fellow professionals Prove that we're not working that weekend Yeah it is not good, I mean the private email thing so it used to be phone

[00:04:17] Then that died out and then privately emailing I mean even that's very rare now You know it's very rare everyone puts everything on the end But I do like it as well though when sometimes somebody slips up and they don't put the money on

[00:04:31] And then immediately it's like people go what the money what's the date Although some people go what's the date even though the date is in that When is this if you just scroll up again you'll fucking see when it is

[00:04:47] Oh dear there's that aspect of it which is a bit weird as well I mean using it to a lot of promoters now saying we'd appreciate it If you share it on social media at least twice before the gig we'd very much appreciate it

[00:05:02] I don't know why twice Yes it's part of your job to advertise gigs that you're doing There's nothing else I can really say about that apart from it's not something I want to do Because I like the idea and I realize it's an old fashioned idea

[00:05:18] Which has been discussed on this show before that you just turn up get the money go home But you know there's more to it than that and I have to accept that I do accept that And I do now repost stuff about gigs I'll be performing at

[00:05:33] Do you know what does annoy me about that sometimes though when you do Because I do I do all the time but then you then have to look up It annoys me sometimes this is a very maybe it's a first world problem

[00:05:44] But when you're doing that thing where you're retweeting something But then you don't you've never worked with the people before and you don't follow them You have to find their Twitter handle on or X as it is now

[00:05:57] And sometimes the thing that really annoys me is when it's not their name It's a specific like way you think it just put your fucking name Anyway so that's a bugbear of mine Yeah Yeah there's that there's that and then of course there's tweeting about it afterwards

[00:06:17] People putting pictures of the gig Yeah I mean Steve Day is very good I did a gig with him recently in Great Torrington And he did that thing he gets a whole audience to do that

[00:06:28] Yeah and then he takes a picture and he does it for every single gig he does And then immediately he's finished he goes great night tonight in Great Torrington You know which is good I think it's because I think otherwise it's almost as if

[00:06:42] You know the old if a tree falls in the forest no one's there to hear it does it happen So you know if a gig takes place and it's not on Twitter in picture form did it actually exist

[00:06:52] How do you know it's even a new picture you can be putting the same picture up every single time Nobody would ever know there'd be some bloke going wait a minute I've been going out to all these different company nights Because here I am in the picture

[00:07:06] Yeah that's right there's a bloke with a beard he's always there to the left Yeah promoters have asked me to do that while I've been on stage And you know I've got a crap phone so you're wasting your time To get me to do it with my iPhone 7

[00:07:22] But it's part of it I do pictures of the gig and I put them up And people then get annoyed saying well why don't you tell us you were going to be there Oh God

[00:07:34] Yeah but also that's part of the job now that you have to do social media posts telling people where you're going to be Because they're not going to go to your website like they did in the old days They want it in their feed

[00:07:45] And because the feed has become all encompassing and the algorithms become all encompassing we've got to play into that To go back to your what you were talking about earlier on about how over the pandemic

[00:07:58] I actually thought social media would be the saviour, would be the making of the pandemic Because we weren't allowed to go out suddenly here's this community that we're already part of That's going to keep us sane and of course turned out to be completely absolutely the opposite

[00:08:15] And the people I lost during the pandemic were mainly on Facebook I know that's one of your lines but I had to get it in What happened was because it was a pressure cooker environment and people were very you know very depressed

[00:08:32] Lots of people you know thought they might never work again etc etc And then it just showed itself in different ways and then people sometimes revealed themselves to be massive cocks as you have already said

[00:08:45] I mean I was just listening to the radio before and disabled one was on saying that the way people talked about people with disabilities during the pandemic was absolutely gobsmacking sometimes Yeah when you'd argue with them and say well what about people with disabilities?

[00:09:01] Well fuck them, they should die, I'm me, I'm more important than humanity I want to go and run my open night which I do once a week I'm quite prepared to see millions of people die for the right for me to put on 15 acts for no money

[00:09:17] And then if you argue with them they go here's a graph Yes but the person whose career actually got made from this is this there's a comic now who did a lot of stuff during the pandemic

[00:09:31] Mainly with graphs trying to prove that it was just a normal respiratory problem So then I started putting up graphs of how shoe sales had declined in the same period of time Of course it exactly fitted his graph

[00:09:45] And have tips since being in touch with you? No they haven't No they haven't, I mean it did start something and it's continued since then that comic on comic arguments on any political issue

[00:10:04] Especially in the most divisive times we've ever lived through in my lifetime there's plenty for people to argue about I mean it's interesting, we're talking as two older, we are older comics But you have to adapt to the new environment

[00:10:22] But one of the things I think is a big problem with social media is that people don't seem to think There's always a disconnect where people think oh it's not like real life

[00:10:32] Therefore I can say whatever I like and there will be no consequences in the real world And it's not like that, in a court case there's a famous court case with a Scottish comic Who was sending dick pics to people and the case against them collapsed

[00:10:49] Because the police said he won't get a fair trial because it's all been aired on social media And people were told to stop posting about it and it would ruin the ground prosecutions case But they wouldn't stop, they couldn't stop themselves

[00:11:05] And I've read several post-mortems where I feel I have to say this It's just, I don't know, it does exist in the real world Well it is the real world you know It is, it's part of people's identities, their online identity for some people is even more important

[00:11:26] Than their identity in the real world Well you and I both know certain comics that behave like absolute dicks on social media But then when you read them in the real life they're alright But they seem to think that people will be able to make this thing, no

[00:11:47] If you're going to behave like a wanker then people are going to think you're a wanker Because you're never anonymous now So when I first started Stand Up, which is 15-16 years ago

[00:12:02] Then you'd go to the gig, do the gig, if you had an argument with some bloke You'd get in the car, go home Nowadays that's pretty much the same Apart from the bloke you had an argument with will track you down

[00:12:18] Have a message for you saying I'm finished yet, I'm finished with you And then you'll go oh my god Okay, you can say you can block these people But even, so the stalker issue does come into it But even with comics that comes into it

[00:12:33] Because I've had comics I've never met before I've got into arguments, this is admittedly during the pandemic And they started stalking me and trying to befriend me Once I defended this person for very very good reasons He put some racist stuff up on my page

[00:12:50] He started stalking me and coming at me under other guises All of them ridiculous You'd either pick really incredibly over the top Asian identities Or really incredibly over the top black identities Thinking I'm going to be idiot enough to go for Abdul Jabbar Jabbar II

[00:13:09] Or Leroy Winston, whatever No, leaving the picture is a dead giveaway And by the way, most of these do happen on either what used to be Twitter or X or Facebook Because it's very hard, I've just been thinking It's quite hard to argue with someone on Instagram

[00:13:33] Which is mainly a picture based Although you could just go, you know, Photoshop of two fingers And then you can go on and on and on couldn't it Just a big bell and then the end Because pictures on Instagram just go, shut the fuck up

[00:13:50] Conversely not only can comics get in touch with you through the ad and promote it etc But so can punters now as well So what happens after a gig is sometimes you'll have a great gig But then someone will say something really nice

[00:14:03] That's great, but the converse can also happen as well As you're on your way home from the gig I thought you were shit tonight You know, like two hours after the gig Because at the end of comic sets nowadays

[00:14:17] There's a great big long stream of you can follow me on blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah And then the idea that you have to do that even if you died on your whole Oh, I don't know

[00:14:32] But problem is though that we've just been talking People will, if someone's that much of a dickhead They will probably look you up behind you anyway And they also the other thing goes happens as well They look you up before the gig

[00:14:46] And it's only in the last couple of years that I've seen And it's a sad thing to admit that are we doing a bit And I can see the audience as soon as I start doing it nodding their heads going Oh, he's gonna do that bit

[00:14:59] Well, what's the online Well, I've been finding this recently about the thing that I posted on TikTok Captain Tom, which is now approaching a million views But I'm not imagining it when I come to do it and announce it

[00:15:12] People so I can feel that some people have gone. Oh, this is expectation Yeah, that's the bit we came for It's really weird. It is a weird thing I mean, imagine that multiplied a million times

[00:15:24] You sort of like, you know, if everything you put on there is successful Which is a different kind of fame, isn't it? From the from telly fame It moves you a bit into that Monty Python area where it doesn't really

[00:15:36] The audience know your sketch better than you do And that you're performing and they're mouthing along to it This is the bit we came to see And that is interesting about, you know, talking about people getting in contact after the gig as well I, you know, joke pit

[00:15:55] Remember joke pit from the pandemic They're still going Oh, God. I mean, they're still going strong, but they were they were really popular Lots of comics went on it Anyway, I It's that classic thing of you They keep messaging me saying you have a new review

[00:16:12] And all it is, it's not a review as in they say They have to rate it out of five stars And then say, would you recommend to friends? And then if they want, they can put a comment And the last few

[00:16:24] It's like that classic thing it shows you I went through it and then I had like two four star one five star Well, several five stars and then right at the bottom I had a one star

[00:16:36] So it just goes to show that if you just if that's all you're going to do I mean years ago I went on there once and just you know that really weird time when social media was just starting So about 10 15 years ago just typed my name into Google

[00:16:54] And then I saw all sorts of shit which I wish I'd never seen, you know There were lots of nice things but also there's the horrible things as well Which kind of have a more powerful you see them written down, aren't they?

[00:17:06] Of course it is. I mean, Google in your own name is fraught with danger anyway When I did it and last time I did it I found out that there was some site In America that had rated how much money I was earning through comedy

[00:17:20] There's a picture of me as well as a clip and it estimated that I was earning four million dollars a year I wish that was true And the idea that this website is putting this out

[00:17:33] So there's people even my family going oh poor so you're on four million dollars How can we get in this shit for Christmas? You're on four million dollars That's fucking brilliant isn't it? Four million dollars a year There's people in Northampton that have taken that seriously Paul

[00:17:53] I know Turning up to the road vendors centre and going oh what's he doing here? He should be playing lost figures Yeah that's what I should be doing on four million dollars a year

[00:18:05] But it's still out there if anyone wants to search for my name track that down Apparently it's still there Hopefully the amount has gone up I mean we have touched on that thing about people arguing online and stuff like this

[00:18:19] There's been a famous case recently we won't go into the names really But it is a double edged sword because yes it's a great tool for self-promotion But also people can have meltdowns on there can't they? Before we even get into that there's one I saw once

[00:18:34] And it's something I'm surprised I haven't seen again since A comedian who broke up with his partner And it all happened live on social media with her posting He's outside the door now and him posting as well Let me in let me in

[00:18:50] Why are you doing this on Facebook? Well everyone needs to know what you've done to me And then people chip in and go get rid of him And he goes you're not her friend you don't even know her Yes we do we know what you've done

[00:19:06] That's brilliant yeah I remember the actual thing as well And I felt for everybody in it but I did I did because no one wants that stuff done live But we're in a situation now where if we're going to have mass shooters setting up a live feed

[00:19:24] A break-up is the bare minimum of things we should expect in the future To get back to your point If you're a political comic or make announcements on politics full stop On social media it is fraught with danger now because it's a very combative space

[00:19:45] Whether you do it or not you know stuff I used to put up years ago I now think do I need to do that? On certain issues I would rather and I hate to say this Keep my opinion to myself

[00:20:02] That's a sad situation because what happens is that the actual discourse now is so horrible Especially on Twitter or as X as it's known A lot of times when you see posts like that you never find people going Oh well you know that's very reasonable but you don't

[00:20:21] Because people just go you're a twat Yeah how can you say that? I hate you, how can you say that? Vegan cheese you bastard Yeah it's me the same voice I always use for everybody else I hate you Yeah it's always you isn't it? It's always you

[00:20:39] It is, it's always me Pointing the finger I hate you I have never heard of the block button I've just got to give you my opinion No but I hate blocking people that's the thing I love blocking people that's great

[00:20:55] I want to keep a breadth of opinion on the groups of people that I interact with online I don't want the echo chamber, I don't want that So I am still friends with some people whose discourse I despise Growing by the day with some of them

[00:21:14] But I still keep them there But I don't know it's just yeah I think you do have to be more careful There's been many examples of that we can point to in the recent past Yeah you can lose your whole career out of this

[00:21:30] Or stuff that you thought was private There's another thing to go back to what we were saying before I've also seen people lose their careers because ex-partner goes on social media And starts putting stuff out there and it all blows up in the performers face

[00:21:46] Social media is so good policemen It's also another thing Yeah and everybody thinks they know everything about everybody's lives Or they can make a judgement on it The only thing I want to make the statement on now is

[00:22:01] The whole idea that cancel culture is a lefty liberal thing Is the biggest load of bollocks Because people on the right really know how to cancel They've had more experience of it A lot of the time they've had the power to do it More than lefties ever have

[00:22:24] Cancelled culture, whether you believe in it or not And I'm still a bit like that about the whole thing But yeah it is not one sided politically No and also it can often be that the biggest edge-lords in the world

[00:22:40] We go on and on about wokery and snowflakes Turn out to be the biggest snowflakes you've ever seen in your life When anybody pushes back on what they've said You can't take it anymore Black people are lazy And then they get piled and they go Stop it

[00:22:57] So it does work both ways as you say But the thing is we have touched on this in interviews with lots of people That social media is here to stay It's not going away, it's not going anywhere And people are going to have to keep using it

[00:23:14] Maybe there will be a different form of it A different form of social media, I don't know I mean because Axe is not I don't know the way things are going Whether Axe is long for this world You've gone from Twitter to Axe

[00:23:28] Does that sound like it's become a softer or wonderful space? Oh no, I can vouch for it Nothing, Freetyburg Axe, Axe, Axe is a harsh little letter The new one is threads, isn't it? She sounds beautiful We can all weave a beautiful new world together

[00:23:49] And then Blue Sky There's another one called Blue Sky You know more about this than me You really do And also there's the other one where everyone The other side, isn't it? Reddit and Telegram and all the rest of it

[00:24:05] There are more message boardy type social media spaces Well let's face it, there's loads of it There's loads of it and due to demographic and age You get drawn to one or t'other That's quite funny You just reminded me to be nostalgic for message boards and chat rooms

[00:24:23] Remember chat rooms? Yeah And you know comics would be And then Sontown has left the chat room In tears Social media is only a reflection of what's going on in society anyway I mean it's, okay you could argue it's driving it as well

[00:24:41] But it reflects trends that are going on in society So all the arguments that are taking place on there Are the arguments that are taking place in In the metaverse as opposed to the metaverse I just, and I hate to say it

[00:24:55] Nostalgic for the days when you'd have stupid opinions And he said to you in a pub And then you'd walk away from the person And figure well he's a bit of a Or she's a bit of an arsehole

[00:25:06] And then you go back to your seat and sit down You know they weren't your friend They weren't going to constantly send you messages You didn't have to interact with them You didn't have to then interact with them Because they brought their friends to attack you

[00:25:18] Because you disagreed with them About six months ago when people thought that Twitter was actually going to collapse I said oh it's a real shame you know Because people just have to go back to shouting each other at bus stops

[00:25:28] Because a lot of it is that kind of discourse The fucking aliens are fucking coming over here And then they scream at you And then you're supposed to go oh you know That's exactly what it is A lot of the time

[00:25:45] And then three opinions come along at once Yeah and you think well I like all three of them Which one do I get on? Get on board Be careful kids that's what we're saying isn't it Be careful out there Be careful, it's like the sea

[00:26:01] It's a cruel mistress Like the sea, like the earth Okay I think that's a good point to end isn't it Yeah yes it is So if you've enjoyed watching this podcast on social media Please get in contact with us On social media

[00:26:20] In all the forms you possibly can So email, YouTube Whatever Send us a message Subscribe, like, follow Well there's also Please if you did enjoy it tell your friends Form a sort of like a book club A podcast club Get together every single week

[00:26:42] And just talk about this podcast Sit in a room with your headphones on Because that's how you enjoy your podcast You don't want people to actually hear it as well Do it on your own But in a group of people All listening to different podcasts

[00:26:56] And when you've finished listening to your podcast Leave that room without speaking to anybody In fact do it while waiting for a bus in a bus station That's what pretty much I've just described Yeah if I don't share it Be selfish, just keep it to yourself

[00:27:10] Just scratch it on the wall in Byro Of the toilet With the big drawing of a knob Yeah It has to have three bits of spunk coming out the end Otherwise it doesn't count for me I'm traditionalist If you draw a knob on the wall

[00:27:26] It needs at least two spunk coming out the end And it's useless without a phone number underneath as well Which I will try That's engaged again Anyway Thanks for listening And watching Bye See you next time