Michelle Wolf already seems sick of the viral-comedy ecosystem
Being a late-night host seems exhausting. Not only do you have to be funny, poignant, and informative, but you have to cram all of your best content into a shareable, 3-5 minute clip so that the majority of America will actually sit down and watch it. On the most recent episode of The Break, Michelle Wolf expressed her exasperation with this forced economy of eyeballs in an impassioned, viral-ready segment appropriately titled “Segment Time.”
“Since this is a comedy show in 2018, you know one thing for sure: This comedy segment is going to be sincere and angry,” Wolf says before launching into a consciously joke-light segment that relies more on reported facts and “Can you believe I went there?” moments than anything else, albeit in a tongue-in-cheek kind of way. At first, this may seem like a takedown of the kind of content John Oliver and Seth Meyers are churning out on a weekly basis—those must-see clips that usually end up being more informative and depressing than entertaining. But really, this is an indictment of the position Wolf and her fellow late-night hosts have been forced into.
“Trump is bad! The news is bad! Which means that I, a comedian, have to do the news’ job,” Wolf says during her perfectly rehearsed earnest plea to the audience. “Not because I want to, not because it makes me feel important or gives me a false sense that I’m making a change, but because they’re out there doing their horse and pony show and they’re leaving me, a comedienne, to wrangle those ponies.” Be sure to share this clip with your friends as a sobering reminder that, as Wolf puts it, “this is comedy now.”
[via Vulture]
Send Great Job, Internet tips to [email protected]