7 ms·

> At this point you’ve put in the time. There you go. There’s no way around that. Interesting how the internet is changing this rule. Bo Burnham [1] became a f

by munaf 13y ago

> At this point you’ve put in the time. There you go. There’s no way around that. Interesting how the internet is changing this rule. Bo Burnham [1] became a famous YouTube comedian at the age of 16. When he started touring, his shows immediately sold out and he got a deal with MTV for a TV show. Apparently this annoyed some comedians because he didn't pay his dues [2]. [1] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=obIGsb-IZMo http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=obIGsb-IZMo [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bo_Burnham#Uphill http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bo_Burnham#Uphill

erikpukinskis 13y ago
I wonder if this is a market saturation issue. As much ad i love Louie, an think it's innovative, the world is really pretty good on stories of self absorbed white dudes. If you want to get noticed in the line of succession that includes Woody Allen and Seinfeld, you've got a difficult shot you are aiming for. But good stand-up comedy for teenagers is almost non-existent. Good media for teenagers has been historically lacking, too old for cartoons but too young for adult TV. Add to that the tech savvy of kids, and whst we're seeing now is a that teenagers are in a kind of feeding frenzy of media consumption. It's like a content gold rush. In a few decades I expect those markets will saturate and it'll be harder to break in to them.
- omonra 13y ago
  What does LCK being white have to do with anything? I am starting to notice people mentioning white people's race - which I just don't get. If someone does not position/think of themselves as a "color X", why bring it up? Also - Woody Allen and Seinfeld are jewish comedians. While they are certainly white, it's probably as relevant as them being male or human. Ie a person can obviously have overlapping identities, but if one identity is shared with 15m people and the other with a billion, the former one matters more.
  - ladzoppelin 13y ago
    LCK is also half Latino which makes the "white dude" comment even more ridiculous.
    - LukeShu 13y ago
      Assuming that "white dude" is a race, not an ethnicity; then that has nothing to do with it. Race is culturally defined. If most people perceive him as being white, he's white.
    - JamesArgo 13y ago
      His father is a Hungarian Jew who immigrated to mexico at a young age. He has no Latino blood. Both of his parents were ivy league academics: so he had a big genetic advantage, but that's just life.
      - ladzoppelin 13y ago
        From Wiki: "C.K.'s paternal grandfather, a Hungarian, immigrated to Mexico, where he met C.K.'s paternal grandmother, who was a Catholic Mexican of Spanish and Mexican Indian ancestry". I am not sure what to make of your "big genetic advantage" comment however having educated parents can definitely be considered an advantage in some circumstances.
        Kudzu_Bob 13y ago
        Deafness does not adversely affect IQ, nor does blindness. Compared to those obstacles, having uneducated parents is a trivial disadvantage.
  - ams6110 13y ago
    The implication is if you are white, and especially if you are male, you don't deserve what you have, or your opinion doesn't count.
    - eruditely 13y ago
      This is the implication only if you're looking to shove vitriol into everything.
  - newnewnew 13y ago
    There's an idea taught by marxist academics that being white means living life on "easy mode"[1]. A lot of people on hacker news believe it because there is a high level of average education on HN. This belief is often used to denigrate the achievement of white people. In Wisconsin, the K-12 school system asks white students to wear a brand to remind them of how privileged they are for being white[2]. There are a lot of poor, underprivileged white people in the country, but racism is not logical. [1] Stuff like this is taught in class: http://whatever.scalzi.com/2012/05/15/straight-white-male-the-lowest-difficulty-setting-there-is/ http://whatever.scalzi.com/2012/05/15/straight-white-male-th... [2]http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/george-f-will-schools-push-a-curriculum-of-propaganda/2013/04/03/6d25550e-9bc1-11e2-a941-a19bce7af755_story.html http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/george-f-will-schools...
    - markdown 13y ago
      > There are a lot of poor, underprivileged white people in the country So your argument is that if a particular race of people had it a little easier than other races, there wouldn't be any poor people in that race? On the whole, the white male does have a slight advantage.
      - peterjancelis 13y ago
        Fair enough, but that advantage is well deserved if they worked to build it. Honestly, if you want to be on top in 10 years, spend your weekends toying with bitcoins, drones and/or 3D printers. These areas will give birth to the new Facebook, and it's mostly white males who are playing with them right now. Get into it now, don't come whining in 10 years when a Hollywood movie is made about it and it suddenly becomes cool.
        vidarh 13y ago
        > Fair enough, but that advantage is well deserved if they worked to build it. But the point is we didn't work to build it. Merely being born were I was gave me extremely high odds of being amongst the richest people in the world. At most you could claim my ancestors "worked to build it", but that's still a massive stretch - the main reason for the wealth I grew up around was oil and European imperialism.
  - tiredofcareer 13y ago
    > What does LCK being white have to do with anything? Even though in this context, absolutely nothing, Louis C.K. has discussed being white in his stand-up: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TG4f9zR5yzY http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TG4f9zR5yzY (NSFW audio) Interpretations vary, of course. I think he's underhandedly criticizing the discussion of white privilege; other people who saw that special with me disagreed.
    - pervycreeper 13y ago
      >I think he's underhandedly criticizing the discussion of white privilege; other people who saw that special with me disagreed. Arguably, it's that ambiguity that gives depth to that bit.
  - erikpukinskis 13y ago
    In the context of my comment, his whiteness and maleness are rough heuristics for the similarity of his product to Woody Allen and Seinfeld.
lifeisstillgood 13y ago
Not paying your dues is the way into the comedian inner circle true, so that will have a chilling effect on his career. What will be worse is that he has not paid his dues - learnt both the emotional resiliency of near continuous rejection and the ability to handle the hundreds of different situations that occur on and off stage. At 16 he may be talented and appealing to the right demographic, but most likely he will need to trust some mentor and learn those lessons we all need to - success is a limited subset of the phase space of life. Failing - everyone does it in their own way
dsfasfasf 13y ago
There are always outliers. Ignore them.

by munaf 13y ago

erikpukinskis 13y ago

I wonder if this is a market saturation issue. As much ad i love Louie, an think it's innovative, the world is really pretty good on stories of self absorbed white dudes. If you want to get noticed in the line of succession that includes Woody Allen and Seinfeld, you've got a difficult shot you are aiming for. But good stand-up comedy for teenagers is almost non-existent. Good media for teenagers has been historically lacking, too old for cartoons but too young for adult TV. Add to that the tech savvy of kids, and whst we're seeing now is a that teenagers are in a kind of feeding frenzy of media consumption. It's like a content gold rush. In a few decades I expect those markets will saturate and it'll be harder to break in to them.

omonra 13y ago
What does LCK being white have to do with anything? I am starting to notice people mentioning white people's race - which I just don't get. If someone does not position/think of themselves as a "color X", why bring it up? Also - Woody Allen and Seinfeld are jewish comedians. While they are certainly white, it's probably as relevant as them being male or human. Ie a person can obviously have overlapping identities, but if one identity is shared with 15m people and the other with a billion, the former one matters more.
- ladzoppelin 13y ago
  LCK is also half Latino which makes the "white dude" comment even more ridiculous.
  - LukeShu 13y ago
    Assuming that "white dude" is a race, not an ethnicity; then that has nothing to do with it. Race is culturally defined. If most people perceive him as being white, he's white.
  - JamesArgo 13y ago
    His father is a Hungarian Jew who immigrated to mexico at a young age. He has no Latino blood. Both of his parents were ivy league academics: so he had a big genetic advantage, but that's just life.
    - ladzoppelin 13y ago
      From Wiki: "C.K.'s paternal grandfather, a Hungarian, immigrated to Mexico, where he met C.K.'s paternal grandmother, who was a Catholic Mexican of Spanish and Mexican Indian ancestry". I am not sure what to make of your "big genetic advantage" comment however having educated parents can definitely be considered an advantage in some circumstances.
      - Kudzu_Bob 13y ago
        Deafness does not adversely affect IQ, nor does blindness. Compared to those obstacles, having uneducated parents is a trivial disadvantage.
- ams6110 13y ago
  The implication is if you are white, and especially if you are male, you don't deserve what you have, or your opinion doesn't count.
  - eruditely 13y ago
    This is the implication only if you're looking to shove vitriol into everything.
- newnewnew 13y ago
  There's an idea taught by marxist academics that being white means living life on "easy mode"[1]. A lot of people on hacker news believe it because there is a high level of average education on HN. This belief is often used to denigrate the achievement of white people. In Wisconsin, the K-12 school system asks white students to wear a brand to remind them of how privileged they are for being white[2]. There are a lot of poor, underprivileged white people in the country, but racism is not logical. [1] Stuff like this is taught in class: http://whatever.scalzi.com/2012/05/15/straight-white-male-the-lowest-difficulty-setting-there-is/ http://whatever.scalzi.com/2012/05/15/straight-white-male-th... [2]http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/george-f-will-schools-push-a-curriculum-of-propaganda/2013/04/03/6d25550e-9bc1-11e2-a941-a19bce7af755_story.html http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/george-f-will-schools...
  - markdown 13y ago
    > There are a lot of poor, underprivileged white people in the country So your argument is that if a particular race of people had it a little easier than other races, there wouldn't be any poor people in that race? On the whole, the white male does have a slight advantage.
    - peterjancelis 13y ago
      Fair enough, but that advantage is well deserved if they worked to build it. Honestly, if you want to be on top in 10 years, spend your weekends toying with bitcoins, drones and/or 3D printers. These areas will give birth to the new Facebook, and it's mostly white males who are playing with them right now. Get into it now, don't come whining in 10 years when a Hollywood movie is made about it and it suddenly becomes cool.
      - vidarh 13y ago
        > Fair enough, but that advantage is well deserved if they worked to build it. But the point is we didn't work to build it. Merely being born were I was gave me extremely high odds of being amongst the richest people in the world. At most you could claim my ancestors "worked to build it", but that's still a massive stretch - the main reason for the wealth I grew up around was oil and European imperialism.
- tiredofcareer 13y ago
  > What does LCK being white have to do with anything? Even though in this context, absolutely nothing, Louis C.K. has discussed being white in his stand-up: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TG4f9zR5yzY http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TG4f9zR5yzY (NSFW audio) Interpretations vary, of course. I think he's underhandedly criticizing the discussion of white privilege; other people who saw that special with me disagreed.
  - pervycreeper 13y ago
    >I think he's underhandedly criticizing the discussion of white privilege; other people who saw that special with me disagreed. Arguably, it's that ambiguity that gives depth to that bit.
- erikpukinskis 13y ago
  In the context of my comment, his whiteness and maleness are rough heuristics for the similarity of his product to Woody Allen and Seinfeld.

lifeisstillgood 13y ago

Not paying your dues is the way into the comedian inner circle true, so that will have a chilling effect on his career. What will be worse is that he has not paid his dues - learnt both the emotional resiliency of near continuous rejection and the ability to handle the hundreds of different situations that occur on and off stage. At 16 he may be talented and appealing to the right demographic, but most likely he will need to trust some mentor and learn those lessons we all need to - success is a limited subset of the phase space of life. Failing - everyone does it in their own way

dsfasfasf 13y ago

There are always outliers. Ignore them.