DELRAY BEACH – With the COVID pandemic pretty much over for everyone other than government officials, Zoom comedy shows have also nearly disappeared.
Thank goodness for small favors.
The demise of Zoom comedy doesn’t necessarily signal the death of online comedy, however. Virtual reality comedy shows appear to be growing in popularity.
Comedian Rodney Ramsey helped create the Unknown Theater, a virtual reality comedy venue that exists within the metaverse. In it, comedians don VR headsets and perform live sets in front of comedy fans viewing through their own VR headsets. The metaverse technology remains in an early stage, and Ramsey is already complaining that Meta promotes the events of larger advertisers ahead of his weekly shows.
In some ways the audience feedback at these VR shows appears to be an improvement over Zoom shows, but there’s still plenty of development work to be done.
Will stand-up comedy eventually find a foothold in the metaverse? Probably. There are some advantages, including a lack of travel, the ability to perform at any time, and a means to test new material. Will comics, most of whom crave live audience feedback, prefer virtual shows to live ones? That seems doubtful – but not impossible.
Strap on your headsets, folks.
Today’s admittedly light Stand-Up Spotlight also includes dates for Nate Bargatze’s Austrailian tour and a list of the top stand-up comedy specials on HBO Max.
Make your own funny today.
STAND-UP SPOTLIGHT -March 22, 2023
Comedians are trying to make the metaverse cool, but it won’t let them
Rodney Ramsey typically dons a VR headset to tell jokes, but one day in January, he was on a stage in a virtual world called ProtestLand leading a rally to stop Meta from burying his stand-up comedy shows.
ProtestLand is a small world in Meta’s metaverse playscape, Horizon Worlds. (Ramsey and his partner-in-comedy, Simon Josh Abramovitch, hired a creator to help them build it.) A monolithic, Barad-dûr-esque tower represents Meta, complete with a giant Eye of Sauron-like Meta logo perched at the top. Legless Horizon avatars mill around a stage, holding the kind of pithy signs you’d find at a real-life rally. “Is this the meta VERSE or the meta WORST?” reads one.
U.S stand-up star Nate Bargatze is coming to Australia
Nate Bargatze has been one of the breakout success stories in stand-up comedy of recent years, making a big splash across Netflix and YouTube with his down-to-earth persona and killer delivery.
Hailing from Old Hickory, Tennessee, stand-up comedian Nate Bargatze has been critically-acclaimed across the U.S media and will be bringing his latest show to Australia for what promises to be one of the highlight stand-up tours of the year.
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The Best Stand-Up Specials on HBO Max
Maybe it’s a Sunday night and you’re looking for something funny to watch. Maybe you just got dumped and are looking for a little comedic relief. Maybe you are a budding, up-and-coming comedian and want some much-needed inspiration. If you’ve got an HBO Max subscription, there’s something for everyone in this list of top stand-up specials on the streamer.
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