The comedian provides a crash course in standup history – including Norm Macdonald, Tom Green and Adam Sandler * Get our weekend culture and lifestyle email I love the internet. As a comedian, I spend much of my downtime on the world wide web. It’s a fantastic way to distract myself from the inevitability of life. Has it ruined our ability to authentically connect with others? Sure. But that’s a small price to pay for a few moments of joy. Usually, I would encourage people to go outside and watch comedy live. But if you’re stuck at home and craving that dopamine high, here’s my list of funniest clips. God bless. Continue reading...

The stand-up comedian ripped into the AI cloud-based company’s employees – and got praised for it online Last week, John Mulaney looked out on a crowd of corporate Salesforce employees and told them they were “imminently replaceable. “You look like a group who looked at the self-checkout counters at CVS and thought, ‘This is the future,’” the comedian said. “If AI is truly smarter than us and tells us that [humans] should die, then I think we should die. So many of you feel imminently replaceable.” Continue reading...

Roasting can be really brutal, but at least if we inflict it on ourselves, we can get ahead of the joke A friend recently shared a comment someone had made about her online. Sophie was a middle-aged, never-was influencer, in this stranger’s estimation, who exploited her children and alienated everyone she met. As I debated whether “liking” the post would read as support or broad agreement, I noticed a strange watermark. The vicious words had been generated not by a bitter stranger, but an AI roast app. My demented friend had asked for this. Who would volunteer to be insulted? A wave of apps such as Roastai.app, Roastedby.ai, Roastik.com and er, Monica.im suggest the answer is loads of us. Every day, people upload selfies to the Reddit page r/RoastMe, begging to be taken down a peg or two hundred. “You look like a series of circles stacked on top of one another,” the users exult. “Why does your forehead start at the back of your head?” There is a cruel craft to it. One sedentary rapper recently got called “The Notorious BMI”, while someone else, who I don’t even think had strabismus, was accused of having “mortgage eyes – one fixed, one variable.” Continue reading...

The Gold Coast trio’s frontwoman shares her list of clips – including Creed, dogs, and multiple TikTok trends she wants to try with her bandmates * Get our weekend culture and lifestyle email I have such a love-hate relationship with the internet and TikTok. I honestly find myself doomscrolling way more than I’d like to admit, but I am a true sucker for a funny video. When you find something that makes you laugh so much it brings you to tears, it makes the hours of scrolling through unboxing and Temu haul videos worth it. Continue reading...

The performance artist and ‘sex clown’ shares her list of (mostly) wholesome clips: the cutest children, the best dog and the glitziest aerobics workout * Get our weekend culture and lifestyle email I am a person who believes in laughter. I work in live art. My main medium is performance. In art-making I revere legacies of border-riders, defiant sexualities, witches and rascals. I have been known as a sex clown and I am proud to invoke laughter. Some of the best laughing is out of absurdity. Laughter erupts and massages. Purrs and murmurs. It erodes calcified, rational, top-down thinking. It appears mysteriously, sometimes even when we think we should not laugh. My grandmother Betty used to say to my brother and I: “You’re laughing now, you’ll be crying in a minute!” We need our tears and hope; I wouldn’t be laughing so hard if it wasn’t so deeply serious. Continue reading...

The Twitch streamer and comedian curated her list by scrolling back to 2020 in her TikTok likes. Some call it objective research, others call it retina damage * Get our weekend culture and lifestyle email I am a comedian, Twitch streaming buffoon and getter of a journalism degree. People usually end their bio with a funny third thing but I am here for a serious investigation. When I was asked to write this column, I did the normal amount of research and read every single previous piece in preparation. And you’d never believe it but a lot of people will use this opportunity to platform fresh comedic talent, some of whom they personally know. It’s like nepotism but for uplifting talented friends who deserve a spotlight. It’s disgusting and biased journalism that only serves a greater good. There will be none of that here today! Not on my watch! Continue reading...

The comedian, screenwriter and actor’s list includes a Jurassic Park melodica cover and Kristen Wiig’s Liza Minnelli impersonation * Get our weekend culture and lifestyle email I’m a breakfast radio producer, so I spend countless hours scouring the internet for comedy gold. I’d love to say outside work I’m decidedly offline, joyously pursuing real-world activities such as jogging, baking and not being perpetually afraid of the news. But that would be a dirty stinking lie. Nope, this 21st-century gal is hooked! And if compiling this list has taught me anything … it’s that I’ve been glued to the interwebs for quite some time. So, in honour of my crippling decades-long addiction, let’s start with a few gems from back in the good old days of dial-up. Cue old timey modem sound! Continue reading...