The truth about comedy crowdwork clips

They’re bad for the audience, the comedian, and comedy in general – also, you should make them or risk getting left behind.

How to feel about Comedy’s Crowd-Work Clip Civil War? There’s a good piece in Vulture about it from Hershal Pandya.

Comedian Megan Gailey nails it: They’re bad for the audience, the comedian, and comedy in general – also, you should make them or risk getting left behind.

[Megan] Gailey believes crowd work is supposed to be ephemeral and that trying to recapture its magic on social media is a doomed and pandering exercise. “We’re playing to the lowest common denominator, and I don’t think that’s beneficial for the audience or the comedian in the long run,” she says. But even though she doesn’t post crowd-work clips on social media herself, she understands the need for comedians to participate in the game. She’s resigned herself to this reality and recently contracted a professional to go through her backlog of stand-up material to cut together short clips for social media. “I’m probably a hypocrite,” she concludes.

I’ve already written about this topic extensively here:

• My Instagram Reel just went viral (1.3M views). Here's why that sucks.

• The algorithm is the new industry

• Why “the creator economy” sucks for creators

But here’s something I’ll add: