I need to start this with a disclaimer: I’m not here to name and shame or put shit on anyone. I’m not here to attack my peers, but I can’t discuss what I need to without referencing my own anecdote database. I genuinely like the other people in these stories even if my style and choices are different to theirs.

OK, with that out of the way…

I had a good gig on Saturday night. I always do when I perform at my regular cocktail bar sets but, after the imposed break from comedy we all take in North Queensland when the rooms and venues shut down for a couple of months at year’s end, we always wonder what we’re coming back to.

Will there be an audience, or do we need to spend a month building momentum for live comedy attendance? Do I still have it? I don’t know if I still feel like a comedian or can channel that feeling when I’m holding the mic. I think we all have this instinctive fear that if we take out eyes off the road for a moment, we’ll be looking at an unmanageable situation when we restore our focus.

I needn’t have worried. It was a good room and I did well. Many laughs were had. But this is despite what happened before my set, not because of it. I closed the show, so I was last, and the act before me was someone I’ve seen at all the open mics in town. He had never performed in this venue before, never seen a show there, and quite possibly this was his first paid gig. I’ve only considered that in the time since, and it explains a lot of what happened.

Ok, so I’d better explain that this guy’s comedy sits in the genre of Edgelord. I really like the guy and he’s pretty witty, but every single joke is basically the same magic trick, which is “shock and awe.”

The aim is to sucker punch with something confrontational, like a challenging punchline to a misdirect joke. The reality is usually that the challenging bit usually reveals itself in the first couple words of the setup so people start groaning, getting defensive and running an algorithm where they’re trying to determine whether it’s even going to be OK to laugh when the punchline comes. Typically it’s not, but that usually doesn’t matter because there’s no threat of involuntary laughter – because most of these jokes are so focused on the shock bit that they forget to be funny.

The opener was offensive to Indians, and the Indian owner of the venue was literally just a couple of feet from the microphone. There was a bit about gay indigenous people with didgeridoos up their assholes making farts that sound exactly like the indigenous word for penis. There was something about a drinking game which involves taking a shot every time a Palestinian kid throws a rock on the news. And it kept going along those lines for the whole set, with everyone in the room holding their breath. Think I’m exaggerating? I wish I were.

I don’t want to attack this comic but something has to be said. When a comedian does this, it’s called “stinking up the room” with the toxicity and it kills the night, makes it almost impossible to salvage and increases the difficulty level for whoever’s unlucky enough to go after them. So yeah, if you’re one of those edgelords reading this you should probably know that your “free expression” is fucking everything up for your peers, and we’re not all thrilled about it.

Everyone from the audience to the other comics, and even the owner and his staff felt super uncomfortable. After he was done the MC came on to a hostile audience and had such a bad time he abandoned all attempts to “reset the room” and handed it over to me in less than a minute.

So now it was my turn. It’s a good thing that I’m a fucking awesome comedian because it could have been the kind of disaster night that angry audience members who’d paid good money for their tickets would go home and write horrible things on their social media about. If this had happened earlier, most of them would have walked by now and I’d be presenting to an empty room.

Did I mention I’m fucking awesome at comedy? I turned it around. Half an hour later audience members were saying it was an awesome night and they plan to return.

I’ve written about edgelords before and it isn’t the intent of this post but I’ll just reiterate a couple of points I’ve made over the last few years. In those few years I’ve seen the Townsville comedy scene go through some changes and one of the main ones is that almost all of the local open mics now are calibrated to be edgelord-friendly. These places often boast that they’re wild, crazy and uncensored. And the local roster of comics, mostly relative newbies, boast the same and mostly impress each other with how “brutal” their punchlines are.

I also don’t want to sound like a snob, because I’ve been an open micer most of my comedy life. I’ve sung the praises before of democratic venues that give everyone a chance to shine. But I’ve said it before and I’ll repeat it now: There’s zero quality control and a lot of nasty and shitty comedy at them, with almost no honest feedback or development mechanisms. That means you can get better if you judge your progress on stage time and confidence, but there’s not a lot in the open mic system to correct bad habits and absolutely nothing to teach anyone about being funnier and writing better material.

That’s generally not an issue in open mics because of how free and open they are. Nobody’s paying to attend, and the comedians aren’t get paid either so nobody’s going to be say much if you’re not good. I’ve seen terrible comics take regular slots in open mics for literally years. They’re not getting any better and nobody says anything because everyone’s patience is a small price to pay for all that “anyone can say anything” freedom.

But our friend at the cocktail bar? Well, he probably didn’t know he’d be paid and didn’t realize that the audience members paid $25 each for their tickets. So he brought the same act he’d typically take to Bogan Billy’s Chuckle-Till-You-Chunder open mic night at the Punch-Down Pub and bombed hard, poisoning the room for everyone else in the process.

My biggest problem with edgelords, though, is one of the reasons they love dominating open mics, and that is that they don’t and won’t learn. Ever.

I’m serious. Bombing sucks but it’s a learning experience if you have potential and humility. But it doesn’t suck for edgelords. I’ve seen them bomb to a point where audiences audibly revolted, staff removed them from the shows, and other comedians and bookers tried to angrily educate them about how nobody wants to buy what they’re selling. But the edgelord never learns. Even when they’re wrong, they’re right.

I’ve witnessed a comic who bombed tell a comic who killed that they just don’t understand comedy. I’ve seen that happen literally hundreds of times at this point. They’ll reframe their bad taste unfunny shit as “darker” and imply it’s got more depth and nuance than anyone around them is capable of comprehending.

To those people, I would say that musicians aren’t good if they’re transmitting at frequencies outside of what we can hear. I’d also say that they’re selling some dishonest Emperor’s New Clothes bullshit, and the only people buying it are them.

But mostly I’d tell them to shut the fuck up and listen with an open heart, to consider the possibility that they might actually be wrong, because their skillsets and their careers won’t get any better until they do.

I’ve pulled out of most of those scenes, and as they typically fill up with toxic warriors they tend to fall apart of run out of steam after a while. They die from infighting and forgetting about what the audience of venue might have wanted from the whole exercise, while a couple of classy and curated comedy nights keep selling out and going from strength to strength with every passing year.

I hate to say the snobby thing, but there’s never been a bigger tonal divide between our curated gigs and our open mics. And this guy tried to bring his open mic toxicity to a curated and paid gig.

And that would be the end of that; I wouldn’t have much to say about any of it except that he engaged me in a conversation about it after the show. Actually, it was also a conversation about politics and had me literally asking “What the fuck are you talking about right now?” several times during the exchange. Look, I like this guy and he was drunk and I don’t want to make this post a big attack on him, but he raised some points that inspired this piece. So I’m going to examine those points.

I’ll quickly recognize that he didn’t feel good about the night, and everything he said was pure Cope. The first thing he said was that everyone else, me included, was bland and unchallenging. We were all lacking in substance and nothing provoked thought. He more or less said that we were all cowards afraid to articulate any kind of political or social gravitas, just pandering with people-pleasing crap.

This is another form of that Edgelord fantasy that their tasteless trolling shit is dark and deep, that everyone else is secretly jealous of their bravery and brutal honesty. It’s hard not to roll your eyes when childish trolling is marketed as philosophy, and failure is rebranded as “too smart for everyone.” Just fuck off, dude.

For the record I think my set was more than political enough, more than anyone else’s. I used the word “capitalism” about ten times because it was the through-line for my routine. I suggested the government’s war on illegal tobacconists was about tax and not about any of the reasons they claimed, -that they’re just protecting an extremely lucrative monopoly. I straight-out said that supporters of Pauline Hanson’s One Nation Party are fucking idiots.

I think I packed more than enough political content into what was only supposed to be a ten-minute set. I think I was honest enough that everyone in the room had a good idea of where I stand on social issues. On that basis alone I reject his claim that I only killed because I played it safe and avoided politics.

Speaking of politics, I also got a barrage of right-wing nut-job talking points and claims that are patently untrue. I was told that the Hate Speech laws which have just passed parliament are the end of comedy and free speech. I heard the claim that it’s perfectly legal to burn the Australian Flag while there’s guaranteed prison time for burning the Aboriginal Flag or Muslim Flag.

I was told that pandering people-pleasers like me who didn’t oppose “what’s going on right now” are letting comedy and free speech down. I was told other dumber shit I won’t go into here. Some of it’s too stupid to repeat.

My response? I reminded him that he doesn’t know me very well or he’d realize I’ve spent literally decades being politically active and outspoken. I told him that I value free speech as highly as any comedian, but think that most people don’t understand free speech well enough to get into debates about it, and that the people who crap on about free speech the loudest are the ones who actually give it a bad name.

I told him I’ve heard that crap about the flag regularly for about four decades now, and while I promise to fact check it again it hasn’t ever been true so far and I doubt that it is now. He said it’s absolutely the truth and I haven’t been paying attention to what’s going on in the world.

For the record, I fact checked it just now. Burning the Australian flag is not specifically a criminal act. We have no flag desecration laws though it’s generally not approved of.

The laws about burning the Aboriginal Flag are exactly the same. The laws for burning all the flags is the same in this country – not cool but not a criminal act.

All the flags, that is, except the Muslim Flag. Because there’s no such fucking thing as a Muslim Flag.

Now consider that I only mentioned that claim here because all of his others are too stupid to repeat and you’ll see why I’ve stopped arguing with idiots about politics. It’s depressing to think that ten years from now I’m probably going still have someone hitting me with “truth bombs” like this, that have been around and debunked since before the turn of the century.

OK, I’m trying not to be mean and I really do like this guy. He’s a nice guy. As it happens there’s a quite a few comedians who I really like and enjoy, even though I think many of their ideas and opinions are misguided.

But lets look at that next claim: Pandering.

I was the most offended at that allegation. I’ve seen pandering in comedy and I fucking hate it. I know what it’s like to see another comic win over a room with nothing more than shameless pandering, and I resent it as much as anyone. I’ve seen some comics emply it successfully but most of us don’t like it and we don’t value what it produces.

What pandering produces is something we call “clapter.” When an audience applauds they’re signalling approval and agreement. It’s a voluntary response and easy to get. All we have to do is say something they like and we get “clapter” in return.

Bad comics like approval and believe that applause is an excellent thing to get, certainly much better than silence. Bad comics believe that getting people to applaud a lot is a win. That’s understandable. Applause looks like a win from a distance, especially if you don’t know much about comedy or aren’t very good at it.

It’s very easy to get applause. Most of the time, literally all you have to do is ask for it.

Laughter is a lot harder to get, so it’s a lot more valued by actual comedians. Laughter is an involuntary response that doesn’t come from approval or agreement and often comes in spite of not having approval or agreement. You can’t get laughter by asking for it. Laughter is something you have to work for. You only earn it by being good at what you do.

You probably weren’t there on Saturday night so you’ll have to take my word for it, but I made people laugh consistently for 25 minutes, there was only applause at the end and there was nothing that resembled Clapter.

Where would be get pandering from? Unless you mean “customer satisfaction.”

Yes, customer satisfaction. I’m very aware that appearances in this room are paid gigs, perfoming to people who paid for their tickets to see us. It’s in the back of my mind every time I perfom there. I feel obligated to try and give them value. My aim is that even if nobody else turned up or everything else went wrong, I still made sure they got their money’s worth.

That’s my goal. There’s no guarantees. You can provide perfect customer service and still not be able to 100% expect customer satisfaction. That bit is out of our hands. All we can do is our best. And I believe that, while we’re paid to, we’re obligated to try.

You can do all that indulgent edgelord shit, try to shock and alienate your audience at the open mic. If you want complete “artistic freedom” then hang around open mics and do your transphobic muslim abortion rape jokes to your hearts’ content. Knock yourself out. Nobody’s going to fire you or demand a refund.

But if you get paid, you get obligations. When people are paying to see you it’s not as cool to treat them badly and make their experience bad. Your peers won’t think it’s cool either, if you soil the event’s reputation or stink up the room and sabotage your coworkers.

Part of his “pandering” rant was patting himself on the back for “taking risks” when everyone else was playing it safe.

There are two components to this deluded self-congratulatory Cope claim:

First, “taking risks” is a synonym for gambling, and you should do your gambling on your own time. That’s what open mics are for. When people are paying you the gambling is with their money, their time, their attention and their patience.

When someone pays to see you, the appropriate thing is to give them something of equal or better value in return. It’s not cool to take their money and gamble with it instead. We should thank people for helping us achieve our dreams. There’s no honest way to frame offending and shitting all over them as some kind of noble stance.

Second, I don’t think I or any of the other comics were “playing it safe.” Invoking involuntary laughs from a room full of strangers who paid to see you isn’t anything even remotely like playing it safe. All the other comics were, with varying degrees of success, putting themselves – their reputations and egos – on the line as they sincerely did their best to entertain everyone.

You know what I think “playing it safe” looks like? Hanging around low-stakes open mics, doing lowest-common-demoninator shock material only designed to amuse other edgelords while you all congratulate yourselves in some kind of Beavis and Butthead circle jerk, where predictably negative reactions from the audience and management don’t matter because you’ve all decided they don’t understand comedy.

In an environment like that you won’t learn, can’t learn, won’t improve or develop, won’t accept honest feedback, won’t progress with anything resembling a career and will only go around in circles forever. Because absolutely nothing’s at stake. It’s the definition of playing it safe. You just think it’s dangerous and transgressive because of all the shitty rape jokes.

I want to make one more point here. It’s my main point actually, the one I refer to in the title of this post.

Get a voice. Develop some opinions. I’m not referring to the bullshit talking points you repeated at me, or mistruths you found on Reddit that you think is the truth everyone else either doesn’t know or is afraid to say. I mean a real point of view. Because you think you have one when you’re holding a mic, but you fucking don’t.

Why yes, I will back that claim up. Buddy, nobody who endured your set got “the truth.” You didn’t put anything on the line except your reputation as a professional (which, I’ll admit, is not nothing). Nobody who was there knows how you really feel about anything.

Because what you did wasn’t showing us your challenging and controversial point of view. You weren’t trying to show us who you are. You were trolling, which is the opposite of that. You were trying to evoke a response, not bare your soul. Who knows how a troll actually feels about anything? They weaponize insincerity and are more interested in making you lose than getting you to appreciate how they feel.

You more or less confessed to this when you dragged out the tired old “equal opportunity offender” argument. It goes “I’m not against xxx… I offend the left and right just the same.”

When people offer this argument they say it as though it were some clever new argument that their detractors never considered before, even though we’ve been hearing this insincere shit for literally decades. It’s a clever-sounding way of saying “I don’t have any actual conviction or point of view. I’m just a troll and I piss everyone off.”

You might fool someone with the equal opportunity offender argument but it’s got a lot of empty calories. You might gaslight someone out of the idea that you’re transphobic even though you literally just delivered a transphobic message, but the “I troll everyone” claim won’t convince anyone you have a point of view. And you can’t claim to be a dark and brutal truth teller if you don’t actually have a truth to tell.

Which is why I urge you, urge everyone who wants to call themselves a comedian, to develop a point of view. Work out what your truth is. That’s the whole fucking point of this exercise, and if you can’t see it you won’t get far.

And I’m sorry if I came off as ranty or insulting in this post. It wasn’t my intention, but I naturally have some responses to what went down and what I was told in the hour+ that followed. And having reflected on several aspects, I boiled it all down to “Stop trolling and find a truth to tell. People won’t listen until you have something to say.”

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