Written by Robert Weihofen

George Carlin, Bo Burnham, Christopher Titus, Bill Cosby, are just a few of the comedy greats that have graced the stage in the long history of stand-up comedy. As the years go on though, as one who is trying to become a big time comedian, I have to wonder is the art of being a comedian dying? Every time I look up comedians to watch and learn more about the art and hone the craft it seems that the level of comedy seems to be dropping over the years. Highbrow and satire are what these comedians were good at and they did not stick to the so called “toilet” humor that many have seem to succumb to. There is also the factor that technology has made it easier for people to find comedians and archived shows.  Perhaps due to internet availability, along with a decrease in audience demand, comedy is increasingly slipping to lowbrow.

Love him or hate him, George Carlin was one of the greatest comedians of all time, using satire in most of his acts. Carlin would always have a bigger meaning behind what his specials would be about. He would typically take on the taboo subjects of society and was never shy to say what he really believed on any subject, spanning from politics to religion. Bo Burnham is the same way, using his musical ability to satire society today in many of his songs and making puns along the way. What these comedians do has been a dying art form, due to the fact that there is not the demand that there was back when stand-up comedy became big in the 1970’s and 1980’s. Even so, there are still many that try to make and a few that can make it big like Carlin, Burnham, and Cosby. It is so easy to use technology that we have now. People can just head to Youtube and find a show that was uploaded, instead of going to show.

When I have gone to open mic nights, I see a lot of people that try to rely on lowbrow “toilet” humor because no matter what, people will laugh at that those jokes. The problem is that those only go so far. There are only so many poop jokes that a comedians can deliver before they are just saying the same joke over and over again. So many people are trying their hand in comedy that the pool of talented performers is diluted leaving the ratio of good jokes to bad woefully low.  People are always going to laugh at the “toilet” humor,  but such debase humor degrading the art of stand-up. It is still an art form, but it is one that is losing its identity and quality of the past. If it is going to return to the high level form that it once was, there is going to have to be another crop of comedians like Carlin, Burnham, and Titus that break through and take humor to the level that is should be performed at.