Interview · moment 12 of 17
Comedians Opening With Their Medication List
from The Big Booth (with Devan Costa) · #141
Audio-only archive episode — no video to seek.
4 minGuest
Tim and Devin mock the trend of comedians opening sets by listing their anxiety and depression meds, contrasting genuinely mentally ill comics like Maria Bamford with well-off performers using confessional trauma as a persona.
- 48:21Tim argues America is so good that people expect everything delivered without effort.
- 48:43Tim asks whether sociopaths are demeaned in this country.
- 48:56Tim admits he has sociopathic tendencies and people constantly tell him that's bad.
- 49:20Every comic now opens their set by rattling off their medication list.
- 49:43Tim describes a comic making four thousand dollars a week at a show no one watches, then complaining about anxiety and depression on stage.
- 50:13If someone took a list of top comics seriously and went to see him, he'd get on stage to tell them how anxious and depressed he is.
- 50:31Tim says he would immediately suppress those feelings if he had that kind of money coming in.
- 51:05How many regular people throughout the country can relate to a comic's therapy talk?
- 51:26Tim suspects white comedians without real stories use mental illness to claim victimhood.
- 51:37Maria Bamford is a genius because she has real mental illness.
- 51:47Comics claiming anxiety probably shouldn't be on stage at all.