Recently in stand-up comedy there has been a huge increase in the use of crowd work in clips posted by many popular comedians. While this seemed funny and original at first, it quickly turned into an oversaturated trend of comedians solely posting crowd work with little to no written jokes.

Crowd work comedy can get very repetitive when the formula of the joke is usually asking the audience member what they do for a living or who they came to the show with and then using their answer to poke fun at them or get a reaction. The jokes are predictable and humorless.

The problem is not crowd work itself, as it has existed in entertainment for quite some time and has been used properly by comedians. The issue with these routines is that crowd work is the only type of comedy comedians are doing nowadays.

It started with a few comedians doing it, but quickly many others realized how much engagement these crowd work videos got and quickly jumped on the bandwagon. Some even managed to blow up on social media using this format of comedy and have based careers on it.

One example of this is Tik Tok famous comedian Matt Rife, who secured his own special on Netflix without ever posting an actual written set.

This tasteless routine is very watered down, and when it is the only type of content that comedians showcase on the internet, it could make their comedy look one dimensional and unoriginal.

Oftentimes it appears as a crutch that comedians fall back on to keep the energy flowing and people entertained.

Additionally, audience members have started to get more wild and loud, hoping to end up in a highlight reel on a comedian’s Instagram page.

Comedians are so focused on trying to get a good clip for their page that they are not putting effort into their written jokes. Many of them do these styles of posts for their socials so they do not show their badly written jokes to their audience before they see it during a live show. While this could be a good strategy to not give away their set, it could also mislead audiences to think they are funnier than they are or only do crowd work..

Crowd work has become a huge part of comedy online and has made many people go viral, but it is overall bad for the industry. Using the same boring jokes over and over again does not help comedy or comedians grow long term.