Jacob Samuel self-produced his newest comedy special, Big Talk. <\/i>(Chelsey Stuyt Photography)<\/i><\/p>\n
Jacob Samuel\u2019s second comedy special, Big Talk<\/i>, premiered on YouTube last month and already it has racked up more than 20,000 views. The Vancouver-based comedian filmed the 52-minute special in front of live audiences at the city\u2019s China Cloud Studio. In addition to writing and performing, Samuel gets producing, directing and editing credits.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Much of the material in Big Talk<\/i> was worked out over five years, a period punctuated by Samuel\u2019s winning a 2021 Juno Award for best comedy album for his first special, Horse Power<\/i>. And that win was not the first time the comedian was recognized for his work.<\/p>\n At 25 years old, Samuel submitted some of his original single-panel cartoons to The New Yorker<\/i> magazine, which published some of them \u2013 a notable achievement, especially at such a young age. Several other publications have featured his humorous illustrations, as well, including the Jewish Independent.<\/i> He has published two books of single-panel cartoons.<\/p>\n Samuel has been performing stand-up for years \u2013 at clubs, on stages, television and radio, at festivals. He\u2019s a regular on CBC Radio\u2019s The Debaters<\/i>.<\/p>\n His drive to perform started early in life.<\/p>\n \u201cHonestly, I\u2019m still trying to convince myself I can competently tell a joke,\u201d he told the Independent<\/i>. \u201cGrowing up, my parents and their friends revered clever comedians. I always felt that being funny was a difficult thing that people valued. As far as I can remember, I have always been driven to get up and talk in front of people even though I wasn\u2019t naturally great at it \u2013 when I was young, I had some minor speech impediments.\u201d<\/p>\n As for his gutsy New Yorker <\/i>submissions, he said, \u201cIt seemed like a fun thing to try. I\u2019ve always had a certain misplaced confidence about going after things \u2026 I\u2019m not sure why. I think I was blessed with a certain level of obliviousness and an audacity to go for things that I found interesting\/exciting.\u201d<\/p>\n Samuel\u2019s new special shows off his rapid delivery and finely honed comedic timing, and the material supports his affable relationship with the audience. The jokes in Big Talk<\/i> run the gamut, covering the joys and challenges of welcoming a new puppy, the mental health benefits of knitting, the absurdity of the Honda Odyssey, being newly married (Big Talk<\/i>\u2019s jokes are \u201cofficially approved\u201d by his spouse), and other very funny bits.<\/p>\n Being successful requires more than just comedic writing talent and good timing.<\/p>\n \u201cBeing a comedian now is like running a small business,\u201d he said. \u201cI have a manager now, but I still manage much of my booking, touring, and sometimes I even produce my own shows. So, I spend just as much time doing \u2018comedy admin work\u2019 as I do writing and performing material. You can\u2019t really advance your career now by being exclusively an \u2018artist.\u2019 I maintain many comedy spreadsheets, which maybe sounds like an oxymoron.\u201d<\/p>\n Even after all the commercial elements have been satisfied, there are still obstacles to confront. Being an artist who is driven to perform does not mean there are no pre-show jitters, Samuel shared. \u201cThe fact that people are coming to see me now actually makes me a bit nervous because I hope I\u2019m as good as what they expect.\u201d<\/p>\n Big Talk <\/i>feels more personal than Samuel\u2019s previous work, while also featuring plenty of material about everyday human struggles and absurdity.<\/p>\n \u201cI still feel like my comedy is pretty observational but maybe I\u2019m digging more into my personal life subconsciously now,\u201d he acknowledged. \u201cI think maybe I\u2019m gravitating towards more personal material because that is what people tend to connect with more. Maybe I\u2019m getting more inspired to do personal material because, as I get older, I think I\u2019ve gotten a better sense of myself. I think it\u2019s a natural part of maturing, to go from observing the world around to becoming more self-conscious. Having said that, I still love observational comedy. I think my favourite type of comedy weaves both together.\u201d<\/p>\n The use of social media has its benefits, like building an audience, but it comes with costs, too.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cThe pressure to produce more content has grown exponentially…. Many of the comedians who are now gaining the most fans are just churning out content,\u201d said Samuel. \u201cSo, I do feel more pressure to do that, to keep up, but I\u2019m pretty good at keeping it to a reasonable level so as to not burn out. I need to make sure I\u2019m still having fun writing and performing, so I limit how much I\u2019m going to indulge those pressures.\u201d<\/p>\n But he can\u2019t completely avoid them, as social media has the power to make or break projects in this era.<\/p>\n \u201cThe benefits of social media are pretty enormous, in that you can gain an audience without having to go through any gatekeepers,\u201d said Samuel. \u201cThe risk is that you start \u2018creating for the algorithm only\u2019 and start trying to make content based on what you think will go viral as opposed to what you find funny. Then I think you just end up sounding like other comedians who are doing the same.\u201d<\/p>\n Asked about the potential impacts of artificial intelligence, Samuel said.\u00a0\u201cIf you asked me this a year ago, I would say I was not at all afraid of AI. It seemed that it would write jokes that were very basic, crude and pretty unfunny. However, since then, it\u2019s gotten a lot better. I think AI can be useful in comedy but I\u2019m also pretty worried about it. I was playing around with AI a few weeks ago and it\u2019s getting pretty good at writing comedy that is formulaic or follows a basic structure. I\u2019ve heard of some other comedians using it to see if their idea is creative enough \u2013 if the AI can think of it, then it\u2019s not. It could also be useful as a brainstorming tool. I think AI will change comedy, but I don\u2019t think it will put comics out of business because people crave human connection. Will it make comedy worse or better? It could go either way.\u201d<\/p>\n AI is not the only complexity these days.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t think any topics are beyond the pale \u2026 but some are a lot harder to make an audience laugh at than others,\u201d said Samuel. \u201cWhen people complain that certain topics should not be joked about, it\u2019s often that the jokes they\u2019ve heard about that topic just were not clever or nuanced enough.\u00a0I think the more intense and heavier the world is, the more important comedy is\u2026. Comedy is a great way to cope with uncertainty, but I\u2019m also concerned about the increasing amount of comedy that is just feeding off of and confirming disinformation and catering to specific groups\u2019 political views rather than challenging them.\u201d<\/p>\n Asked about what it is like to be a Jew in comedy, particularly during the events of the last couple of years, Samuel said, \u201cI\u2019m not sure I have a great answer\u2026. I don\u2019t think it\u2019s really impacted my career. It has impacted how I feel about being a Jewish performer. I do think that it\u2019s more important now to talk and joke about being Jewish. I definitely feel like a form of antisemitism that was previously contained has now been unleashed in several forms. My only response to that as an individual is to find more ways to joke about being Jewish on stage and not to shy away from talking about being Jewish.\u201d<\/p>\n Big Talk <\/i>is dedicated to the memory of Samuel\u2019s mother, who passed away in 2021.<\/p>\n \u201cIt probably wouldn\u2019t surprise people to know that my mom was my biggest supporter,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019m sure she would\u2019ve become a full-time press agent for this special. When I published my second book of cartoons, in 2017, she managed to get a copy to the prime minister somehow (true story). Justin Trudeau sent me a signed letter about it \u2013 he was more popular then….<\/p>\n \u201cMy mom made a significant professional contribution to Canada\u2019s Jewish community,\u201d added Samuel. \u201cShe was the executive director of Toronto\u2019s Jewish affordable housing agency for two decades and was very proud of her work and the impact it had on helping people access affordable housing.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen I won the Juno Award, I was in the midst of dealing with my mom being very ill. It was the most difficult thing I\u2019ve ever had to deal with. Although I don\u2019t talk about it explicitly, I developed most of the material for this special in the wake of losing my mom. Building this act was something I could work on to process my grief. There\u2019s also something about losing a family member that makes you want to take action in life. It definitely contributed towards my drive to produce this show as an actual comedy special and take the risk of self-producing and self-releasing it.\u201d<\/p>\n Big Talk<\/i> can be seen on YouTube, which is \u201cthe only place to watch [it,] unless someone reading this owns a streaming network and wants to make a deal,\u201d Samuel said.<\/p>\n As for the near future, Samuel has another \u201cspecial\u201d to produce.<\/p>\n \u201cMy wife and I are expecting our first child very soon,\u201d he shared. \u201cSo, I\u2019m going on a hiatus from touring and performing for a few months. After that, I will probably be back on the local circuit, likely with some new material about how relaxing it is to have a new baby.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Jacob Samuel self-produced his newest comedy special, Big Talk. (Chelsey Stuyt Photography) Jacob Samuel\u2019s second comedy special, Big Talk, premiered on YouTube last month and already it has racked up more than 20,000 views. The Vancouver-based comedian filmed the 52-minute special in front of live audiences at the city\u2019s China Cloud Studio. In addition to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":47294,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[787],"tags":[5278,4333,6002,8835,9499],"class_list":["post-47293","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tv-film","tag-comedy","tag-jacob-samuel","tag-social-media","tag-stand-up","tag-youtube"],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":8}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47293","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47293"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47293\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/47294"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47293"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47293"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47293"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}