What’s Going on in Austin? Out-of-Town Transplants Bring Unwelcome Attitudes to a Thriving Local Comedy Scene

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This 7 days comic Peng Dang posted a online video of podcaster Tony Hinchcliffe unleashing a racist tirade about him during a present previously this month in Austin, Texas. Dang, who had opened for Hinchcliffe, afterwards claimed he was stunned and upset by the rant, and that he experienced to stage outdoors for the duration of Hinchcliffe’s established. Hinchcliffe—a author for Comedy Central’s roasts, host of the well-known podcast Kill Tony, and regular opener for Joe Rogan—has because been dropped by his company. He was also taken out from two displays he was scheduled on this week with Rogan at the Creek and the Cave, a club that just lately reopened to Austin just after shutting down in New York Town.
Like almost everything in comedy, this incident did not come about in a vacuum. Until not long ago Hinchcliffe was based in Los Angeles, where by he could be viewed frequently at The Comedy Retail outlet. His existence in Austin displays an ongoing migration of comics led by Joe Rogan, the millionaire super-spreader who famously relocated to the town earlier this yr. News broke final thirty day period that Rogan programs to open a comedy club in Austin’s A single Earth Theatre, which he will run with former Comedy Keep booker Adam Eget. Rogan has explained on his podcast that he hopes to turn Austin into a comedy utopia.
The detail is, numerous Austin-centered comics would argue that the town previously is a comedy utopia, with a crucial, diverse scene total of gifted artists who routinely go on to excellent things. Some in the scene—especially all those who laid minimal all through the pandemic even though others moved in and performed stay shows—view the arrival of comics from Los Angeles and New York City as a potential resource of division in the inclusive community they designed, if not but a true 1.
To aid unpack all this context, I called up Austin comedian Carina Magyar. Below is a transcript of our discussion, lightly edited for clarity.

Past week in Austin, I obtained to deliver up Tony Hinchcliffe. This is what he explained. Pleased Asian (AAPI) Heritage Month! pic.twitter.com/9XG6upit2a
— Peng Dang (@pengdangcomedy) May perhaps 11, 2021


Paste: Just to start off with this week’s information, could you say a little bit about what went through your head when you viewed that Tony Hinchcliffe video clip?

Carina Magyar: Shock. In the feeling any individual would be stunned seeing any person go on stage and say people words and phrases. I was not amazed, realizing every little thing I know about Tony. It sort of confirmed my worst fears about what type of energy was coming to the scene. I believe Peng is excellent and I was just really hurting for him. And then also noticing the viewers wasn’t going for it gave me this sliver of—they weren’t not likely for it, there wasn’t any booing, but it was type of like the home temperature died down. And I was actually examining the audience, mainly. “How did that go more than?” ‘Cause the Austin I know, that would not fly. And it felt like it didn’t fly, but in a way that an viewers could handle—you’re not gonna boo any individual who you consider is renowned. So just the quieting down to me was the equivalent of booing. So I was like, “Okay, which is excellent.”

Paste: For people today like me who may well be unfamiliar, can you say a little bit about what the Austin comedy scene was like before the pandemic?

CM: This was a insane, bursting-with-expertise scene. Loads and a lot of exercise, loads of huge names coming out of it. Or just about to be huge. We had pumped out, in the three a long time foremost up to the pandemic, a lot of names that were being on the cusp of or are just now setting up to hit national consideration. They are likely names you know just one way or a different, but I’m chatting about Lashonda Lester, initial of all, who sadly handed absent proper when her Comedy Central exclusive was taped. Then names like Kath Barbadoro, who’s gotten a massive adhering to in podcasts out in New York. Vanessa Gonzalez, who’s been on HBO and Comedy Central with specials these days. Daniel Webb, who just filmed out at the Rose Bowl and is accomplishing all sorts of major things with Margaret Cho and all these names. Maggie Maye, just title following identify. Martin Urbano, Jake Flores.
All of these folks came out of Austin’s comedy scene, and it was no accident that they have been, without the need of exception, folks of colour, girls, and queers. That was the sort of scene that we were being fostering and building. Not in any strange engineer-y way, it just transpired to be a pretty vibrant comedy scene exactly where you could arrive and lower your tooth. And it was not dominated by offended, straight white males who tried out to run you off the phase. That just wasn’t who was scheduling, it wasn’t who was killing. Not to say we [don’t] convert out a lot of super gifted straight white men doing comedy here. For certain we do. But they’re not interested in cultivating some sort of, “Hey, we’re gonna be tremendous aggressive and racist and misogynistic and that’s comedy, deal with it.” Which is some thing that we know circulated in certain pieces of the LA and New York scenes, notably all over, you know, Creek and the Cave, Legion of Skanks, or Joe Rogan’s orbit. So when we observed all of these coming to town, there was some apprehension for confident.

Paste: How else have you witnessed it transform throughout the pandemic?

CM: What took place was all the regional comics went into hibernation out of safety worries. The pandemic in Austin was viewed as, collectively, a vital sacrifice. And I would say that, financially, no city I can believe of in The united states took a deeper breath and a larger monetary threat going into quarantine than Austin. Because our full economic climate is based mostly on tourism and are living functionality, right? Not our overall economy—obviously we have a whole lot of tech right here and things. But the total explanation any person even thinks of Austin is since of stay general performance and tourism. And all of that shut down. And all of these venues that we loved, all of these comedy venues, tunes venues, and bars that had been beloved in the scene shut. Men and women missing work opportunities. None of these comedians could make money. We ended up making an attempt to assistance each individual other out. It was just this whole devastation financially to the full scene, both music and comedy.
And then, about a yr in, all these individuals from LA and New York started out relocating in and throwing exhibits, using up venues that nobody experienced at any time accomplished comedy at in advance of and putting on dwell comedy reveals prior to it was harmless to do so. Although all of the Austin comedians have been nevertheless diligently being house. You can picture that bred a specified stage of contempt, shock, and anger. Not due to the fact we understood any of these people—we experienced no plan who they were. But just because, like, “What the fuck are you doing? We’re all using this out like we’re supposed to.” So that was variety of 1 prevailing frame of mind, or at least that is the one that I was most familiar with throughout the quarantine.

Paste: What do you make of this narrative that emerged of Rogan and his ilk bringing a raise to the scene?

CM: I really don’t have nearly anything in specific private versus Joe Rogan. I’m mindful that he’s transphobic, so I just prevent him. I do not really care. Maybe he’s a nice dude, I don’t genuinely give a shit. I will say the exact detail I claimed onstage about that, which is Austin constantly experienced a status as a location the place Hollywood folks can go and not be bothered. ‘Cause we can all acquire items in stride. Everyone’s just kinda like, “Oh interesting, Sandra Bullock’s below.” “Oh interesting, Matthew McConaughey’s below.” But you see him on the street and you never mob him, everybody’s cool. Everybody’s chill.
So it is a minor disconcerting that there was such a hullabaloo. “Oh, Joe Rogan!” Why? Who cares? It’s just an additional dude who moved to town. We’re utilized to it. Be awesome, you know?

Paste: Looking ahead, what are your hopes for the Austin scene put up-pandemic?

CM: I imagine there is a great deal of space for every person. This has constantly been an in-and-out city, in which men and women shift below to get a specific issue out of the Austin comedy scene, get it, and then move to more sector-primarily based cities like LA or New York or no matter what. I really don’t experience any, like, animosity to the individuals who moved right here in the course of the pandemic. Arrive right here, yeah! Consider edge of stage time, make far more, add your point to the scene, and do what you are going to do with it. I just hope that all people realizes, as extra and extra of the longtime Austin comics start coming out now that we’re all vaccinated and performing demonstrates, that there is a respect and a continuity and not like a unexpected division in between the new and the aged.
When I moved below in 2010, the Austin comedy scene was potent. A whole lot of people moved in this article from 2010 to 2012—I came up with all people names that I just outlined. We all arrived in, we all commenced, we achieved the old timers, we established our very own crew, we developed ourselves up and now we’re setting up to transfer absent. Just do that, male. Which is what we’re for. That’s what this complete town is for. And if it keeps that society, and if men and women respect the audiences and what the audiences want to hear, and really don’t try out to transform this into what ever they are utilized to from LA or New York, then Austin will keep what was so distinctive about it that created people today want to shift listed here in the very first place.

Seth Simons is the writer of Humorism, a publication about labor, inequality, and extremism in the comedy industry. He’s on Twitter @sasimons. Subscribe to Humorism to get posts like this in your inbox.