Joke Thievery via Social Media

I have noticed this trend for a while now - joke stealing via youtube, facebook or twitter. For those of you who don't really understand what a joke thief is....it's pretty self-explanatory.

Comedians have their thoughts and they deliver them onstage. Many hope to make it "big" and become the next Louis CK (and if you don't know who that is then please stop reading this blog) with original material and make it as a touring comedian or get on tv. Some people like to take shortcuts with this though and take material that they have heard or read and either deliver it as their own or try and get a following on facebook or twitter by posting a joke they just heard and presenting it as their own.

I am one of the few "comedy police" and I have caught a few people doing this over the past couple of years. I saw a guy post two jokes on twitter that he heard from the comedy club the night before and post this as his own on Twitter. I let him know that it was not his joke and I alerted the comedian who's joke it was as well. Now - regular folk do this and there's not really much you can do about it. BUT this was another comedian posting this - and that is unacceptable. I caught the guy doing it again as he saw a comic a couple weeks ago at the club from the US, and I just happened to work with him and know his material, so I sent him another message letting him know to stop. His action was to unfollow me on twitter and defriend me on facebook. The only thing I could do was to send a tweet to ask comedians to keep an eye on him to make sure he wasn't doing it again.

The joke stealing will get worse - especially on Twitter. It would be so easy for someone to click on a hashtag (ie #disappointingactionmovies) and just write down all of the punchlines that are written on this, take the best ones, and write a joke about it. You have thousands of people trying to be funny on this hashtag and I KNOW there will be people there to take advantage of this.

Comedy Police has no authority. We cannot make arrests. I'm not really in the "comedy circle" that alot of guys are. I live in Kingston so I'm not even in the main city (Toronto) so all I can really do is just post on people's status updates and let them know that they have taken something that is not theirs. There's nothing else really to do. I could go ahead and post a guy's name on my blog and say "watch out for this guy" but that would just alert the two people reading my blog and that would also make me look like a jerk.

I was talking to a comedian and he said, "you shouldn't be posting your bits online anyway" (and he also said that he was guilty of posting someone else's status as his own and didn't see what the problem was). I can't speak for everyone but I don't post "bits" on Twitter or Facebook. They are just thoughts - and some are pretty funny. That's how you kind of build a mini fan-base. So if someone takes my Tweet, and instead of retweeting it and just reposting as his own, he is taking my thought and saying it is his. That, in a word, is stealing. You have to give the guy who wrote it recognition.

I have spoken to a few people about this but I get the feeling that I might be one of the only ones that thinks this is bad. Maybe it's that paranoia thing again (and no - still haven't heard from my buddy) and most importantly - maybe some comedians just don't care. I know some do of course. There are other "comedy police" out there that are trying to keep the integrity of stand-up comedy in check.

It's only a matter of time before someone makes it big by calling himself "Larry the Hashtag Guy".

Oh - and for the record - I think it's terrible to tell a "street joke" on stage. I have had this debate before where a comic said, "You have to do what it takes to keep them laughing. If your closing joke doesn't work - tell a street joke". My thought of this is - if you couldn't keep them laughing with your own material - maybe you shouldn't have been on that show. There are some audiences that are bad of course - but if the ship is sinking just go down with it and have a little pride.

Here's something from Patton Oswalt's site from when he had some material stolen from him: http://www.pattonoswalt.com/index.cfm?page=spew&id=143

Unfriending is the new thing

I've been defriended on facebook and unfollowed on Twitter twice for something that I had said in separate occasions.

The first one was in August and about this:

We went to Dave Paterson's wedding in August. Most everyone was there on time for the wedding with the exception of 4 people that we could count. Todd Van Allen and his girlfriend Agata along with David T. with his girlfriend.

They missed the entire ceremony. Now, that doesn't sound too bad. Preferably, if I was given the choice to go to a wedding and then have a meal afterwards or just have the meal afterwards - I'd probably just choose the latter. I'm sure most people would. The problem was that Todd was the MC of the wedding - so typically the MC shows up for the ceremony portion. He also had the video camera to record the wedding....so that was also just a wee bit of an issue.

They showed up afterwards and no one really looked happy. Of course - when you approach comedians you're really not going to get much sympathy. David & his girlfriend made Todd & Agata late because....well.....we don't know. David said that it was his fault and his girlfriend blamed him too but we never got a story. No story? No sympathy. Quite funny actually - but after seeing Agata and that she was upset about missing the ceremony Jason Blanchard, Andrew Evans and I turned it into a bit of a "roast David T." night.

It was all in good fun. Any chance we had we took a verbal jab at Mr. T. He was not taking it very well whatsoever. Our thoughts were, "it's your fault, you upset one of our friends, man up and take it for a night". Our jokes were about missing or being late for the wedding - all directed at Mr. T. I admit that it must have been a bit much as it went on for 7 hours (well - 6 hours as he missed the first hour - remember?).

The icing on the cake was when Todd turned to our table during the dinner as he was MC and announced our table to everyone saying something like, "here are the stars of Canadian comedy - you won't recognize a single one from TV". To which I replied "Some you won't even recognize from the ceremony".

Anyhoo - I guess this kept Mr. T. mad so he kept drinking and he was talking during all of the speeches so.....we continued this afterwards.

To make a long story less long - by the end of the night Mr. T. said that he was going to slash our tires and punch me in the face. In which I thought he was joking. Apparently he wasn't.

At around 1:30am, when Kathleen (my wife for you new readers - or reader I should say) and I were already back in our hotel room (we have two kids - we NEED sleep) he sent me a Facebook message apologizing and saying that he would never take a swing at someone. He also sent one to Kathleen apologizing as she was there the whole time as well. We laughed and went to sleep - it was a fun wedding.

That was Saturday night. On Monday I get a call from Mr. T and he told me that he actually WAS going to punch me. Now - I still don't actually believe this. He doesn't look like a fighter. If he did take a swing though he would have knocked me flat on my ass because I definitely wouldn't have expected it. Plus - I'm not a fighter either and I would most likely lose (I've got this weird fear of losing my two front teeth).

He was looking for an apology for what I said on the weekend. I let him know that I wouldn't apologize as he made one of the bride & groom's friends miss the wedding. Our jokes (wasn't just me remember - Andrew & Jason too - although I'm sure he didn't send an e-mail saying he was going to punch Jason or we would only refer to Mr. T. in the past tense) lightened the mood and if he had to take a few jokes in order to make this happen - so be it.

I even said "what are you going to do - defriend me on facebook and unfollow me on twitter?". And guess what happened.

I don't take offense to this - it's just a funny new thing with social media. "YOU'RE NO LONGER MY FACEBOOK FRIEND". Ahhh! I guess when Facebook reconnects you with everyone from high school you forget that you've actually grown up.