When Art Becomes Content, Artists Become Nothing
I have had two profound, brief, existential crises in the last 6 years regarding what I am doing with my life. The latter one occurred during my very failed run for Congress earlier this year. When I was out canvassing for the 500 signatures I would need to get on the ballot I was struck by the rudeness of many people (as I have joked, holding a clipboard is the universal sign for “bitch not worthy of common decency” – it’s like the opposite of cauliflower ear) and the ignorance of basic politics on the part of many others, even in affluent, educated parts of the district, which is a lot of my congressional district. I felt relief and joy at the many good exchanges I had, but I would be lying if at least once a day I did not have a Jesus on the Cross moment of doubt thinking, “Are these people I want to represent?”
Comedically, and much more familiar to many of my fans, was my experience during the pandemic, where I had an explosion of fame and virality for my impersonations that was quickly submerged in a much bigger wave of fame and virality by someone lip syncing the subject of my impersonations. I then came under attack many times on social media for not showing proper deference to the talent of lip syncing (and to show I am not picking on one person, even after having a more recent burst of millions of views (look up “Trump reacts to Bad Bunny” – hit 2 million+ views on 3 different platforms, I have seen new Trump lip syncers surpass me by factors of 10 in followers and views). And the thought, even more profoundly upsetting, after spending my adult life honing and prioritizing my comedy, to reach a relative summit in my career only to think, “are these the people I have been trying to win over and entertain?” Little did I know it would not even be that good again.
The Dream is not coming true.
There comes an uncomfortable time in an artist’s life (and let me pre-emptively stop you from being the 1,000,000th person to try and rationalize never adjusting your expectations or contemplating quitting because “Rodney Dangerfield did not make it big until (insert age around age of person you think you are cheering up)) where you have to accept that you have peaked or plateaued or, more bluntly, your dream is not coming true. I have come close. Really close. Multiple times in my career (killer late night debut in 2007, 10x guest on Adam Carolla when he was the big thing in podcast, a regular segment on The Dan Lebatard Show, going mega viral in 2020 and making more money from comedy in a 2 year stretch that I ever made working for law firms in a 3 year stretch, getting a role on Billions, releasing a great special on Amazon Prime, are some of the highlights that made me think I actually might “make it.” Especially in light of the fact that almost all of things occured without the benefit of industry help. I would have probably quit working as a lawyer during this time both because all my needs were more than met with comedy earnings, but for the fact that in 2009 I made the mistake of thinking “I was close.” Three years of road gigs later the only thing I was close to was $0 in my bank account. But for all my complaints, valid and hyperbolic, about the awfulness of the entertainment industry and the overall sycophant scab character of a majority of the comedy community, I never comprehended that the audience itself might become contemptible. And yet, as we turn art into content we have guided an audience, already nourished on smart phone slop, into one that no longer values art and merely consumes content. And that is when a dream becomes a nightmare.
Art Becomes Content
My blog used to be the biggest thing about my comedy career. I complained as early as 2011 about how comedy was becoming a place where there was no middle class )and how that comedy could be viewed as a canary in the coal mine of American society). But now algorithms dictate whether anyone is aware that I put out a video, a special or a blog post. And as I accumulate more fans followers across all platforms, my views and engagement continue to shrink, so there is an almost exponential disconnect between building a fan base and having people see and hear what you produce.
I put out 8 stand up albums in 18 years. Most of my fans have not listened to any. I was doing this for artistic pride and fan consumption, before there were algorithms to feed. We now have a comedy ecosystem where A.I. bots will never be necessary to perform comedy, because most comedians are now willing participants in the algorithm. Why buck the system when you can get more views and potentially more dollars? Because why should art be about something greater than commerce and clicks?
I know this may seem contradictory – J-L, you seem to want it both ways – you want people to consume your art, but then complain when people deliver what will be consumed. Yes. That is the problem – art is in an algorithm death spiral and the only people with the power to push back, artists, cannot or will not. But perhaps I should explain what small incident drove me to this final breaking point.
Over the course of my comedy career I have seen the comedy world change for the absolute worst, unless you consider nothing but crowd work and roasts to be the final Enlightenment phase of humor. When I began, comedy specials were events, any video could go viral if it was good and you had some luck, and people bought albums both on-line and at shows. There were some trade-offs for the increased exposure, and in some cases, the wealth that the Internet provided. More free streaming, more reach. More subscribers, fewer ticket buyers. I did not even want to join Cameo in 2020, for fear of looking like a loser and opportunistic. Cameo is now the single biggest source of income I have had in my life that is not named My Mom, or a Manhattan law firm. But I still might look like a Z-lister for being on it. I have tried, with mostly failure, to shift my audience of 400,000 total fans followers to a cheap Patreon ($3/month) and to encourage people to sign up for my newsletter (free) so they do not miss big show or special announcements that algorithms with undoubtedly hide from them. It just seems at this point that fans followers view me mostly as a pleasant distraction. This is not personal to me obviously, but it is tough to deal with when 2/3 of your career was based in a live performance, artistic integrity still a thing-era. I reach more people than ever, with less and less of an interest and investment in art. My art is their content. If you just started doing comedy 5 years ago, this may seem great. It isn’t. And that brings us all the way to May 11-12, 2026.
With the Knicks playing well, led by Jalen Brunson, I figured it was a good time to re-share a joke of mine. I compared Jalen Brunson to a secondary character on The Wire named Prop Joe. The original had done well in 2022, so I shared it to Threads. It garnered a solid amount of views and reactions and got me to pick up a few dozen new followers. That was on May 11th.
My joke
On May 12th a friend alerted me to someone using the joke on their page. The insult to injury was that, despite being unoriginal and having 70% fewer followers, his post had eclipsed mine in shares/views/etc. in 20 fewer hours on the site. And it was someone who had commented on my original post with several laugh emojis (Yes, he includes a picture of the character with his – no one ever accused joke thieves of wanting their material to be less accessible.
“They’s joke”
One of the things I have hated about Tik Tok and Instagram, is I will see a video and find it funny. I will like it and sometimes follow the creator. And then over the next month I will see the same video done by dozens of people. I will not know who the original creator is (that would be the person I would want to praise and follow) and instead, I will be left in a swamp of joke theft, oh excuse me, content creation. I, like may artists of my generation, live with the moral burden of have some respect for art and some personal integrity, which seem to be deeply irrelevant to today’s content landscape. But watching this individual steal my joke, after commenting, and then stripping it of its authorship and acting like it is just some anonymous joke in the ether, is fucking disgusting. This obviously happens thousands of times a day on the Internet, but I have never had the good/bad fortune of catching a patient zero doing the damage. By today there might be 50 people sharing it, innocent of the mens rea for theft, because to them it is just “out there.”
I have seen my work turned into A.I. animation (with attribution post fact, but no permission sought or granted beforehand) and grow a channel to double my subscriber base in 1/10th the time it took me to where I am. The art into content assault is so complete that nobodies, frauds and clout chasers will steal it in front of you because artists are no longer supposed to be burdened with pride or integrity and audiences, like they do with their food, their fashion and everything else in 2026, no longer care how their art is sourced, because they no longer consider it art. It is content. It used to be said one man’s trash is another man’s treasure. Now it is the case that any man’s treasure will become everyone’s trash.
I currently work a day job that I am very proud to work. I am an eviction prevention lawyer and it is a job I sought out because it was a place of need in our society, but also I wanted what I do to mean something. My comedy work used to make me feel that way, but it does not anymore. And experiencing theft in almost real time was a deeper degradation than I was prepared for. And I would be lying if there are not moments while I am working where I feel a resentment, like I have the talent and the reach and the volume of art that I should be touring and not sitting in a courtroom. But then I realize, the comedy world I want to succeed in is a thing of the past. I still entertain a lot of people and make decent money from my talent, but that is where it seems to end. And then I get back to trying to help someone who is real.
16 COMMENTS
Be proud of your day job, J-L, you make a difference to vulnerable people. You are not responsable for the scummy values of the internet
Merci buckets 🙂
100% HIlary– disguested by the values of America/internet/billionaires — makes us all want to give up, but we CANNOT!
J-L you are brilliant and I look forward to your posts every day on fb. All your political take offs are spot on, but of course tRump is my favorite, Mitch McConnell next, and RFK last and least (that’s personal, he’s a threat to humankind). I also watched your Melania critique, never expecting to watch the whole thing but I did! She’s positively loathsome.
Thanks for doing your important lawyer work helping people, it’s great you have many talents. Keep up the good work, respectfully your fan.
haha sorry you made it all the way thru Melania. and thanks for the kind words!
Bloomfield could use more live events, better candidates for public office, and smart folks who will work for the benefit of people. We need urban planning, business development, and folks who understand how to protect tenants and bind affordable housing seamlessly into the fabric of our town.
You of all people can easily understand and explain to constituents that algorithms control apartment pricing and that is the new monopoly—helping landlords use data to coordinate rent increases and keep prices artificially high.
And somehow, I am sure that you can deliver all of this with a knock out punchline too.
Downtown Bloomfield vibe and its business economy could use more live events.
As always you make a better pitch for me than me 🙂
That’s what friends are for.
Hey J-L, just wanted to say thanks for the blog. I really value your commentary on this as an artist myself trying to find my own way to negotiate the new content landscape. Believing in the true value of art does feel quaint these days. I’m not that optimistic either but I appreciate your writing and podcasts on the changing times.
Thanks very much for reading!
Thank you, J-L, for this most person and poignant truth-telling. I can’t imagine being as talented as you are and seeing it all get consumed, subsumed, stolen, repackaged, etc. by audiences that feel used to (or entitled?) to take in free material without any regard for the person who created it. It has to be heart-breaking, angering and frustrating beyond words.
I think you are right, though, that your legal work involves actually helping real people where the rubber meets the road in one of the most important areas of their lives. And that is what you are doing RIGHT NOW — IN THIS MOMENT. And, apparently, doing it well. My point is: the moments in our lives change, evolve. Ways I used to be, things I used to do decades ago now are hard to even remember, because the meaning of my life, as I age, has so many newer moments that I went with and reap the rewards from now. That will be happening to you, all independent from whatever-the-f-the-comedy-world-evolves like. And the political world? Well, I’d advise anyone I care about to steer clear of it strongly at this present moment. Yes, I know what is needed by way of “the opposition”, etc., blah-de-blah, but it is choosing to dive into a toxic swimming pool and then being upset about the poisons…
It is time to step back and feel absolutely proud and wonderful about what you’ve produced comedy-wise (and I WILL find you on Patreon and subscribe). I showed my wife examples of your work as a brilliant writer-writing-in-the-moment-at-the-same-time-as-downloading-imitating DJT (simply hilarious writing, simply spot-on impersonation). You can rest assured that there is actually no one in your league with this kind of work, lip-sync-stealing or not. I would advise to not look at numbers any more — unless you believe in the virtuous rightness of the way these numbers are generated — and to live in the perfect moment of your live. Create as much new stuff for comedy as you want and distribute it to the people who love you. Be non-involved with the others. Maybe some big-wig will find you and “hitting it” is in the future. Maybe not. But they will find a happy, peaceful you as the guy behind it all.
Thank you for all you’ve done, and are doing. Hang in there.
Thank you for the kind words and sorry for guilt tripping you into Patreon LOL
It would be pointless in me trying to betray your emotions of the reality of what our society has devolved to; that the most important currency in our nation today (attention), has been drilled, fracked, depleted, and left caverned with very little left to offer in educating, promoting critical thinking, expanding science, and appreciating humanities and art. I wish I could pull myself out the slump I have about our future for the next little while, but it sure feels like we are entering a modern-dark age in everything where idiocy, superstition, and self-enslavement will continue to extinguish our light and knowledge. For what it’s worth, thank you for holding the line for so long, and as long as I can patron you.
Perhaps the #2 pick in the draft means all Utah Jazz affiliated heroes are about to win?
After feeling like a private equity firm came in and scrapped the most valuable parts for four years, it was hard to be hopeful — but here we are. Like Churchill in an hour of despair, you find the one data point of hope in this whole chaotic universe and resuscitate me while I’m scrambling to find my DNR papers— Thanks J-L! Maybe, there’s a glimmer of hope for comedy, too, as I hope for the Jazz to start have meaningful play and wins again.
This was a brilliant account of meta-frustration and mega-disappointment in a dystopia that has encroached upon us all, gradually, like the proverbial boiling frog. The readers’ comments that follow are insightful and testament to the fact that as you build a real community all is certainly not lost. I will try here to add a few of my own insights without offering them as a series of trite, mindless consolations.
Consider your pain and how broadly and acutely it resonates. Consider all the frustration you will never hear. After 30 years of professional and quasi-professional writing, including 11 published books ranging from “indie” to major publishers, a memoir I co-wrote hit the NYTimes Bestsellers list spring of 2015. Three weeks. I was a spry 52 at the time, had paid the dues of perhaps a half dozen less serious writers, and was poised for a career break or notable opportunity on the heels of this achievement. Instead–deafening silence. Except for some of the crappiest lowbrow offers for tell-all hit piece books and now, all these years later, a pending settlment of not to exceed $3,000 from AI juggernaut Anthropic for feeding my work along with hundreds of thousands of others into their algorithmic grindhouse. In between, the rise of AI memoirs and other “books” and hearing self-congratulatory accounts by friends, non-friends, and those with generally little artistic talent about the work they’re generating by spitting into a microphone while sitting on a toilet.
Like you, I keep going for some reason. We were promised some sort of meritocracy when we were kids (longer ago for me). There was not much of one then, and what was left of it by, say 2010, has been nearly obliterated. Here’s what keeps me going.
This situation sucks, but it’s a First World problem. I can eat and feed my family. Not trivial. We’ve all seen the unspeakable hell of those who can’t, and as people of Faith (whatever that may be) we have an obligation to make a dent in that hell.
This life is in large part a test. But we don’t know exactly when the tests are coming, how they will evolve, or what these tests will do to our psyche. This doesn’t absolve the culprits (where they exist) one iota but playing the hand we’re dealt is the most honest and thorough crucible for a man or woman. In my disgust I try to look ahead to how I will look back on how I handled adversity–real or perceived.
What is the success I am owed? There are only subjective answers, including those we provide for ourselves. It’s natural when achieving a notable tangible commercial plateau to anticipate continued rising fortunes. Yet nearly every creative person has at some point been handed something entirely different. So, who crumbled and who forged ahead absorbing and digesting the pain to produce even better artistry?
It’s been a privilege working with you, and I think you already have all the above points more or less covered. That said, as your chronological senior I see a combination of more gold and more shit both on their way, and I hope and pray you regard it all with some emotional distance and a sense of irony. While it’s a stupid world and getting stupider, it’s also getting wiser to a lot of the scam, grift, and hustle of the corporate and personal greed machine. I think you are a prophet of sorts in this pushback, and to state the very trite yet very true, prophet and profit are very different and getting more so every day.
You are needed. That’s the most important thing of all. Wake up every day and recognize that. You’ve been given rare gifts, and please, please continue to use them wisely and generously without unduly burdening yourself. None of us will ever entirey solve the fecal-tech Rubik’s Cube we’ve been handed. But as the human desire for genuine, real, empathetic expression grows (this is inevitable as the masses are starved of it), you will increasingly find yourself at the center of an organic movement back to meaning and originality. If you don’t happen to get rich off it, it doesn’t matter much in the end.
This essay was generated by me and caffeine, not AI.
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