In a world filled with trigger warnings and safe spaces, comedian Andrew Schulz is a breath of brash, vulgar air.
Andrew Schulz doesn’t care about anyone’s feelings. See for yourself on his YouTube series Views From the Cis, where he riffs on eating ass, floppy vaginas, and the usefulness of the word “tranny.” You can also listen to his debut comedy album 5:1:1, his podcasts “Brilliant Idiots” and “Flagrant 2,” or—better yet—catch him on his ten-city Matador Tour, now through November. We met up with the 35-year-old comedian to discuss his unorthodox strategy for releasing content, and why now is the best time for comedy.
Why did you decide to start releasing content the way you did?
First of all, everybody said no. I filmed my own special, doing sets in five different comedy clubs and the cab rides in between. The idea was, this is what a New York comic goes through. I knew the industry wasn’t going to let me in based on my name, so I captured what it is to be a New York comic and that still didn’t work.
I was really down. I was fucked up. But I had to find my own way in. So I started asking friends about comedy specials, ’cause you can learn everything about your industry by asking people who are not in your industry. Everybody would say, “I just watched this guy’s special. It was really funny, but I didn’t finish it.” I’m like, okay, boom, the special is too long. So I turned my one-hour special into a 15-minute special. Four clubs, one night—I called it 4:1:1. I put it out on YouTube and it got a good reaction. I sold out shows that very same weekend in San Diego. I was never a guy to sell out shows. So I go, “Okay, there’s something to this. Shorter is better.” Then I said, “Fuck it, I’m going to start giving away a new joke every week for a year.”
I’d looked at certain people, like this singer named Russ who would put a new song out every week. I looked at vloggers like Casey Neistat. I looked at the people who were winning in the new digital media age. Their success came from consistency. They put [material] out every day or every week. It wasn’t about one big event.
So, every week I put out clips on Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube. The clips started to go viral and then my YouTube guy was like, “Yo, something wild happens when people watch a video of yours—they end up watching two hours.” Netflix and Comedy Central can’t get people to watch one hour of stand-up. I’m putting my shit on YouTube and people are watching two hours.
You mean they go from clip to clip?
Exactly. When somebody puts a one-hour special out, that person’s saying you have to sit and listen for an hour. There are many things wrong with that, but what’s most wrong is the viewer is not in control. If you give them a three-minute clip, another clip is going to pop up right after, and they make the choice to watch it.
So you took advantage of YouTube.
YouTube is the future, except people are caught up in the traditional structures of media so they don’t understand it yet. They don’t want to believe that their industry is crumbling right in front of them. It’s like the person who won’t leave their house in a hurricane. They see the hurricane, but they don’t want to believe their house is going to be destroyed. That’s the industry right now, with all these agents and producers and everybody in L.A. The hurricane is here, but they’re staying in the house because they don’t want to live in a future where that house doesn’t exist.
It’s changed the way I view media. That’s why the greatest thing that ever happened to me was having all the networks say no, because adversity introduces you to yourself. I needed to be put in a situation where I could thrive, especially for the type of comedy I do.
Do you think there’s an attack on free speech within comedy?
This is the best time for comedy. This is where legends are made. Lenny Bruce, Richard Pryor, George Carlin—these people were made in times where there was massive restriction and the world needed them. It needed their voice. It needed their rationale, their takes on the world. It needed speech with that amazingly beautiful cloak of comedy that can protect undeniable truths, if done really well.
Everybody, including Judd Apatow, was mad about Louis C.K.’s Parkland shooting joke. Isn’t it “ape shall never kill ape” in the comedy world?
You could say somebody’s not funny. You could say a joke isn’t funny. But you can never say what someone should or shouldn’t do with their humor. Comics are the harshest critics of each other. It seemed like a convenient time to dogpile. And you can’t do that, especially if you’re a comic. Because it’s not about Judd, or Louis. It’s about the no-name comic. What Judd was doing was enabling outrage. He’s enabling this “cancel culture.” And the reason he can’t do that is because…comedy has been very good to him, and has provided him with amazing things in his life. So you’ve got to nurture that and allow all the different types of art that could come out of that, plain and simple.
We’re living in a time where dogpiling and outrage culture are so prevalent. Why do you think that is?
Everybody wants retweets. It’s selfish and self-indulgent. That’s all it is. It’s like if you’re not funny, you’ll just be an activist.
That seems like the new career move right now. These actresses who can’t get work anymore all become activists.
Absolutely. You know, it’s like one of those situations where you can’t get angry because this is what humans are, right? I’m not upset when humans dogpile. It’s in our nature to do whatever it takes to be accepted by our tribe, because being outside the tribe is dangerous and lonely and used to get you killed. There are very few of us that can see the right and the wrong in this tribal mentality. The idea that there are gray areas in everything is a hard thing for people.
There’s a reason why, when a dictator takes over, the first people to get killed are comedians, and I’m using the word “comedian” loosely. Comedians are philosophers. And the reason we get killed is because we might say some shit that exposes the hypocrisy of the new administration. The powers that be recognize the power of a thinker, so thinkers got to go.
