Phones Are Making You Unfunny w/ Jimmy Carr

Tom Segura (0:00)

Sunday, October 19th at The Hall at Live Casino in Hanover, Maryland. I will be throwing it down. It's one of my favorite spots to go to. Get tickets now at tomsegura.com/tour and I'll see you there.

Jimmy Carr (0:13)

Wow, that 80s music is like, people don't give it enough credit.

Tom Segura (0:15)

Dude, and then like somebody throws on like a mixtape or something, you know, a playlist of that. And you're like, oh, this is like the best shit. And then, you know what the funny thing, I have kids, young kids.

Jimmy Carr (0:24)

And they love it.

Tom Segura (0:25)

Well, you're like, and you're like, oh, I want to interest in the music. And then you realize everything that they're like, this is good. It's like 40 or 50 years old.

Jimmy Carr (0:31)

Well, you know what? The interesting thing about that for me is there's a guy called Mark Fisher, who's like a theorist on music. And his thing was culture is downstream of technology. So we don't see it like that. Cause we sort of go, well, no culture is just kind of naturally, it's a wellspring from somewhere. It just comes from the ether. But you go, no, it's downstream of technology. So someone invented a keyboard in the mid seventies in Germany, and then you get Daft Punk, and then you get all of that eighties pop. So they'd be using this new music. So there's an amazing kind of flourishing because of this technology that came along. Or then the ability to loop causes like a lot of the R&B and rap stuff that we have is kind of what causes that. And it's slightly like, there's a weird theory now that the 21st century is just the 20th century on better screens.

Tom Segura (1:17)

That's kind of a good theory.

Jimmy Carr (1:18)

Like what's new, like we're old dudes. So obviously we're gonna say that. We're gonna say there's nothing new, there's nothing going on.

Tom Segura (1:23)

This is too good to waste this though.

Jimmy Carr (1:26)

We're probably taping, aren't we?

Tom Segura (1:27)

100%. Oh, okay, then that's a good one. I was like, what the fuck, don't waste that, that's too good.

Jimmy Carr (1:35)

No, it's an interesting, there's a Polish philosopher called Życzak that talks about it a lot. Like just the idea the future's been canceled. Because you think about like Hollywood now, what's the last movie that was like important?

Tom Segura (1:46)

Global Impact.

Jimmy Carr (1:47)

That you could make a joke about on stage. And everyone gets the joke. Because not everyone needs to have seen The Sixth Sense, but everyone got that that's what the movie was.

Tom Segura (1:54)

I know.

Jimmy Carr (1:55)

The Matrix, Fight Club, whatever those things were that people just went, yeah, that's a language.

Tom Segura (1:58)

When we talk about comedy a lot, you know, like about comedy movies, it's like when you want to say a reference that everybody goes like, yeah, you realize that you're like the hangover. And then you're like, oh, that's like 20 years old now. You know what I mean? Like, what's the last comedy movie that if you say it and you go like everybody, like you go Borat, everyone's like, oh yeah, yeah. And you're like, yeah, it's 20 years old. Like it's not a recent thing.

Jimmy Carr (2:25)

Well, I wonder if it's that our technology has changed, that we're not going to the movies anymore, to the cinema. That's, you know, it's tailing off. You know, the Oscars is becoming less relevant. And if you see the numbers on it, like, yeah, what's becoming more relevant. So the idea that the phone is the technology now. So people are consuming things on the phone. So actually, if you put up crowd work all the time, it suits people because it's little bite-sized chunks. And actually it's not as good as the real experience. Like coming out and seeing a comic live, there's nothing like that.

Tom Segura (2:55)

Nothing like it.

Jimmy Carr (2:55)

You don't laugh in the same way you laugh. I think someone sent me the stats. It was like 30 times more at the same stimulus when you're in a crowd. Cause it's like when you're performing, obviously the illusion is, I'm on stage in Dallas last night and had great fun. And the illusion is, oh, he performed on stage. No, 1600 people performed in the audience. I suppose it's more obvious with music, but if you go and see Taylor Swift or Oasis or whatever your thing is, and you see the people in the crowd singing along. And like Bruce Springsteen at the top of the show goes, how are you doing? Everyone goes, yeah. Try that in Starbucks. See how far you get.