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In Sly Tweets, a Rich Lode for Comedy
By JASON ZINOMAN
Published: March 15, 2013
The first time I noticed that Colin Quinn was doing something different on Twitter, he was attacking his former employer.
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It was late 2011, and “Saturday Night Live,” where he had been a cast member for five years, had broadcast a sketch about the Jerry Sandusky child sex abuse case. Mr. Quinn tweeted: “Yeah, real appropriate. Real classy. I’m ashamed I was ever associated with that show.”
As those who have followed his career know, Mr. Quinn (whose account is @iamcolinquinn) has never seemed like a stand-up with delicate sensibilities. But so convincing was his indignation that The Daily News ran an article on this ginned-up conflict.
It was not the first time the media had taken the bait. A few months earlier, when he made snide comments about Will Ferrell, The Hollywood Reporter wondered what Mr. Quinn’s “agenda may be,” and the comedy Web site Splitsider asked, “Has Colin Quinn’s Twitter been hacked?” Mr. Quinn regularly retweets people who criticize or mock him on everything from race to online piracy. Just as Stephen Colbert uses a fake character to satirize politics, Mr. Quinn’s Twitter feed, the only one that Louis C. K. follows, deftly manipulates an easily outraged online world.
No artists have exploited Twitter as thoroughly as comedians. The popular tweeters Rob Delaney and Kelly Oxford, whose sharp jokes earned Ms. Oxford a contract for a book to be published next month, developed their reputations online. Some comics, like Albert Brooks, seamlessly translate their sensibility to a new form, while others, like Mr. Quinn, use Twitter to experiment with new personae. Without cues like arched eyebrows or intonation shifts, jokes online can easily offend or confuse. What makes Mr. Quinn so canny is how he exploits that very risk, turning a cryptic point of view into a sharp comic weapon.
Trolling for anger is only one of his strategies. His Twitter humor is awash in sarcasm, playfulness (he likes to tell people not to watch a college basketball game on TV) and various riffs that go on for many tweets, like imagining his version of a late-night talk show. Onstage Mr. Quinn has a bruising, sneakily smart observational style in the voice of a working-class Irish Everyman. But on Twitter, you never know what character you will get from him.
It might be an elbow-jabbing insider (“FYI guys. Off the record? Between you and me? This can’t go any further. Can you keep a secret? Got a little ‘inside info.’ #financialtips”); a sentimental sap (“I guess the glue that keeps us all together as comics and comic fans is that tricky adhesive called ‘laughter.’ It really sticks, don’t it?”); or a dime-store poet (“Sometimes I look at the NY skyline and I thought: ‘What majesty has mankind wrought!’ ”)
A connoisseur of clichés, Mr. Quinn has an ear for hackneyed language. His tweets precisely capture the nuances of empty verbal tics, strained metaphors and expressions so tired they’ve lost almost all meaning. His deadly prose is so authentic that it has a life of its own.
“I know one thing,” began a series of tweets after the death of the Libyan strongman Muammar el-Qaddafi, “when it all boils down to it, I think we all agree, he did more good than bad, and that’s all any of us can expect. He made people smile and that’s something not most people in Libya can say. To me, it’s all about longevity and this man lasted. Like Tony Bennett.”
Mr. Quinn’s tweets particularly delight in the speech and conventions of bad comedy, imitating cheesy crowd work or two-bit humor philosophers. “I’ve always felt there’s too much emphasize on ‘trying’ in comedy instead of ‘being.’ ” he tweeted. “All laughter is discomfort. Silence is true comedy.”
His mock sincerity generally works best when the jokes inch so close to real sincerity that it’s hard to tell the difference. But he’s hardly the only comic trying this tactic on Twitter. Mike Birbiglia (@birbigs) has spun it out with an oddball simplicity in his weekly live tweeting of, yet again, “Saturday Night Live.”
Each week he obsessively comments on the show in a tone that is spectacularly, self-consciously banal. He transcribes lines and gushes (“Kevin Hart is a stone cold pro. I love him.”). At times a mocking tone sneaks in (“Kevin Hart’s Deniro is just closing his eyes”), but it’s hard to tell what he’s up to. Is he sending up the show? Himself? Online critics and fans? That his persona as a comic and a storyteller is already so likable and earnest makes it even more confusing.
Two weeks ago on Twitter, Judd Apatow himself appeared baffled if not downright annoyed, responding, “And?” after a tweet from Mr. Birbiglia quoted a bland joke. To which Mr. Birbiglia replied, “r u heckling me?”
Jenni Konner, who created “Girls” with Lena Dunham, chimed in, “This is getting weird.” Indeed it was. That’s what made it so wonderful. By adopting a tone that seemed almost intended to be misunderstood, Mr. Birbiglia is trying out a new comic voice that is willfully weird and strangely compelling.
So much of the funniest comedy is about a strong, singular voice coming from a specific point of view. But there are less traditional strains that are both more rooted in character and comfortable with, if not reliant upon, ambiguity. The vast audience and freedom of Twitter offer an opportunity for relatively traditional comics like Mr. Birbiglia and Mr. Quinn to branch out.
Their jokes online, often more rarefied than the ones they tell onstage, show that not knowing the comic’s perspective can be disorienting, even frustrating, but also quite funny. Was the spat between Mr. Birbiglia and Mr. Apatow genuine? Who knows? But struggling for a definitive answer matters as much to the humor as figuring out whether one of Andy Kaufman’s wrestling matches was faked.
Maybe Mr. Quinn said it best when he tweeted: “In comedy people are so busy trying to ‘go there.’ I come onstage and tell the audience ‘We are there.’ ”
Or maybe he didn’t.
bert kreischerVerified account
@bertkreischer
Colin Quinn is a genius
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