Comedy fame is fleeting by the tweet
Toronto’s @Seinfeld2000 account among the platform’s breakouts
It was on a whim and a slow day at work that Jason Richards first dragged Seinfeld into the surreal with a parody Twitter account about only slightly more than nothing.
At the time, @SeinfeldToday had recently become a sensation by tweeting modern technology-based plot lines for the classic sitcom: George surfs Tinder, Kramer plays Candy Crush, Elaine watches Netflix, etc.
To Richards, a Seinfeld fan, the account was irritat- ingly unfunny and ubiquitous. So the Toronto native acted on “unkind instincts” and created @Seinfeld2000, his own bizarro-world @SeinfeldToday that explored the same concept from the point of view of a “total imbecile” who’s tragically obsessed with one question: Imagine if Seinfeld was still on TV today?
“I remember very clearly thinking, ‘I’m going to do this for two or three days, max,’ ” Richards said. “I’ll blow off a little steam and then I’m going to get on with my life.”
Yadda yadda yadda — three years have passed, and Richards has amassed more than 300,000 followers on Twitter and Instagram.
That places the 33-year-old in rarefied air among the many funny people building followings online.
Where Twitter was once a fertile frontier for undiscovered comic talent — with Rob Delaney, Kelly Oxford and Megan Amram converting retweets into stardom — it has gradually become harder to break out.
“Now that it’s not new any more, the chances of being crowned a ‘Twitter sensation’ are slim,” said comedian Ted Travelstead. “The field gets glutted the longer it’s around.”
If the rate of breakthroughs on Twitter has slowed, what’s motivating funny people to keep pouring hours into jokes they’re giving away?
Richards always considered @Seinfeld2000 a niche pursuit, with its intentionally terrible spelling, irreverent cultural commentary and cynical perception of the Seinfeld universe (where “Jary” is an emotional black hole, “Gerge” a remorseless murderer and “Kram” a frothing racist).
So the account’s growth has been, to quote Seinfeld’s Jackie Chiles, outrageous, egregious, preposterous. Richards was profiled by the New York Times, found famous fans in Aziz Ansari, the Weeknd and Ezra Koenig.
It has also created a startling number of spinoffs, including a video game, interactive story, T-shirt line, ebook, musical collaboration with How to Dress Well and a lineup of custom emojis.
When he started, Richards was a TV producer and freelance journalist (he’s contributed to Rolling Stone, GQ and the Star) funnelling a “depressing” amount of time into @Seinfeld2000: about an hour per day, including weekends, holidays and vacations.
From all this, he’s profited only “mildly,” but that’s not the point.
“People say, ‘Dude, you’ve got to monetize this.’ But once you do, it really kills it.”
In this particular economy, exposure is the biggest payoff.
Toronto actor Michael Lake has an audience of just under 7,000 followers for his wry observations. He doesn’t spend much time labouring over his jokes and doesn’t tweet expecting a reward.
“(Gaining) recognizability definitely happens for a lot of people, but I think it’s such a quickly moving site that Twitter fame is fleeting.”
For more established comics, the potential payoff is even less palpable. Comedian Jeremy Hotz says he mostly tweets to advertise appearances, only leaking jokes he can’t use for anything else.
Even stars of the platform are irreverent about its value.
“Twitter is a procrastination tool when I should be doing something else,” said comic Michael Ian Black, who has 1.8 million followers. “The more I’m on Twitter, the more I should be doing anything other than being on Twitter.”
Perhaps the hopeful comedy breakouts have left Twitter to climb Vine, where Andrew Bachelor, Nash Grier, Brittany Furlan and others have found stardom six seconds at a time.
But the funniest tweeters have specialized in a type of joke that might not have another home. What other use would Richards find for a Home Alone poster photoshopped to in- clude the Seinfeld gang?
Well, opportunity did finally knock for Richards — or it burst, Kramstyle, through the door. He’s recently been split time between Toronto and L.A. to work a position he owes in part to @Seinfeld2000: an account he still regards as a one-joke lark.
“I’m blown away by where it’s led,” he said, “especially given the fact that, at its heart, it’s really so dumb.”