Joe Rogan: Malcolm Gladwell is Wrong About Stand-up

I wanted to tell you, I got beef with Malcolm Gladwell. Really? You spoke to him. Yes. You need to connect us. What do you have beef with him about? I love him, right? Okay. You listen to his stuff all the time. And then he did something with some guy, and I think he was a little tipsy, but he was talking about how he could do stand-up, doing stand-up is easy. He really said that? He really said it. I wanted to send you the clip. Oh. And I just wanted to be like, Malcolm, come on, fam. He said that? Yeah, or something. I have to find it. He was like, doing stand-up is nothing but, and he intellectualized it. It's a certain set of thing in the room with people drinking, and he tried to like, and I want him to feel it. I want him to... That's like a guy who watches a fight and thinks, I'll fuck that dude up. Yes. And when he said that, I was like, Malcolm, you, come on, Malcolm, come on, man. And it's like, I couldn't watch him anymore. I was like so angry. Yeah. And I watched a few clips of him here, and I was like, man, I miss Malcolm. But he needs to know, you can't be... If he really said that, he just doesn't understand what it is. No. He might just not understand what it is. I want him to, I want him to, I want to take him to a black room, I want him to go on stage, like the realest room, you know what I mean? Go do your thing, man. Go do your nonsense. I just want to see it. Just see him bomb. Just feel it. Just crackle, feel the heat coming off his body. Yeah, you can't. Yeah, yeah. Ooh. Yes. You can't. And it's like, and to me, it was like, man, you wrote a book about 10,000 hours, and you sitting there going, I can do this. It's like, come on, man, don't do that. It seems like, but this is what I've been saying about standing up for a while, is that if you talk to someone, a lot of people have been funny in their life. Most people have said something funny. Of course. And everyone can talk, right? Yes. So all you're doing up there is talking, and you say something funny. It seems like I can do it. Yeah, but you're doing it. Seems like I can do it. Yeah, but you're talking and saying something funny to people who know you and love you and know your quirks and your ticks and all that stuff. Right. You're in front of strangers. Right. Who may or may not be in that audience. Well, that's the difference, Eugene. I don't know if you've ever seen this, but there's a lot of people that are maybe podcasters or they do other things, and then they're doing stand-up occasionally in front of their crowd. Oh, yes. Yes. And they think they're doing good stand-up, but then they'll go on in the store and they'll get sandwiched into a lineup in the OR of murderers. Yes. And then it's ugly. Yeah. It gets ugly because reality sets in. Fast. Because if they're all there to see you and they're all your fans and they paid money to hear you talk, they just want to see you. Like, hey, there's the guy from the show. Yes. Yay. Yay. And they've probably never been in the comedy club. So if Malcolm is doing these speeches and he's doing these speeches in front of these large audiences, he's probably said some funny things. Yes. So he probably thinks that he can do stand-up. He's a funny guy, but when he got it, he was like, oh, man, I need to find dude. I need to talk to him. It's not what it is. I don't think people understand what it is. No. It's a very weird art form because I think it's only truly appreciated by people who've done it. Like, truly appreciated in terms of what's actually happening. Yeah. And it took me years to realize that what was going on when you're killing is a sort of a form of hypnosis. The audience is letting you into their mind and they're letting you think for them. That's why when you have clunky shit or you blow yourself up or you have a distorted perception of yourself or you have too many words, it's like annoying, it's frustrating, it's hard for people to absorb, you lose some of that grip that you have on them. Yeah. But when someone has an economy of words and they lock in and their jokes are tight and then they keep going and going, you're lost. You're lost in their thoughts. You just let those people carry you. I love it. My favorite thing is to sit in the audience and love someone killing it. Just go along with them like, ah! It's so fun. It's so fun. But to break that down to just sentences and words and you say this and you say that, it's not that. It's not that. There's so much more to it. So many elements. That brings me back to Malcolm Gladwell, man. Malcolm, you're crazy. We'll see you in these comedy streets, fam. No, let's not. Malcolm, I'll put you up on one of my nights. I really wanted to talk to him. I want you to go on right after I was... Yes, yes! Yeah, follow me, son! Or open. Am I even uglier? Oh, my gosh. Yeah, man. That was warm up. I was like, for real, ask my wife. I couldn't listen to him for a minute. And that was my man because he had these podcasts when he was dissecting stuff. But he's a brilliant guy. Fantastic. And sometimes brilliant people overestimate their perceptions. They overestimate their ability to break something down. Yes. I've had conversations with people about fighting that way, where people say, if anybody ever came up to me, I would do this and then I would do that. Like, they say that. I'm like, oh, okay. This is hard for me to hear. I'm just going to let you talk because really, I want to just tackle you right now and choke the life out of you. You see what you do? Wait, I wasn't ready. I wasn't ready. But people have this idea because a person moves in a way that's similar to the way that they can move. They think, I could do that. I left weights. I'll fuck that guy up. They have these ideas and they think, oh, he's out there talking. I'm a brilliant guy. I'm smarter than them. I understand things. I write. I'm always performing because I'm always talking about this. I stand up. It would be easy. I literally yelled. I was like, Malcolm, what did I do to you? I take it so personal. Why are you attacking my big man? Before I criticize him, I'd have to hear his exact quote. Yeah, I got a sentence. Have we found it? He was feeling salty. It's him and another guy. He was talking about jobs that are really hard and he picked standup comedy and there's a couple of quotes. That guy defended standup comedy very well, it seems like. Is this something that you... I couldn't figure out where exactly was it. Is it quotes? It was a podcast they did somewhere, like an interview. Okay. So you saw it in quotes? Right, right, yeah. Can I see the quotes? It wasn't very clear. It wasn't very clear. Oh, okay. But basically, give me your synopsis of it then. He thought people were too drunk, so it was really easy. Yes. The room was set up for them. They're coming to see them, so it's easier. He just doesn't know, like... He's got a very singular... He must have been one or two standup shows and it's like, oh. Well, he's right sometimes though. He's right sometimes. We've all seen shows where people are laughing at bullshit. I didn't want to hear from him. Right. Well, he doesn't know. It was a show and you went on and Jassil Nick went on and Diaz, maybe Louis C.K. dropped in. Right. Dave Chappelle did 10 minutes. Malcolm, go. Malcolm, get up there. Good fucking luck not having a heart attack. Right, right, right. Have fun, man. Go, go, go. But he's also right in that we've all seen mediocre thoughts get passed off and the audience laughs. Yes. Like, there's certain clubs. I don't want to mention any names, but you can go to them any night of the week in Burbank or in North Hollywood and you can see... You're missing locations. ...dog shit comedy and people are laughing. They're laughing and it's like real clunky, low rent. What if that's the only... What if that's where he was? Like in those rooms? It could be where he was. Straight B-roll. But I mean, there's a difference between talking about any sport, right? You could watch someone do it poorly on a playground or you could watch someone do it exquisitely as a professional. Yes. And you go, oh, oh, here it is. Gladwell stated, comedians deal with people in a tightly controlled setting... Tightly controlled setting, I remember that. ...and that he cannot imagine an easier set of circumstances for navigating a social situation. Than that of a stand-up comedian. They go to Vegas, they go to the Comedy Cellar, they control their environments. Oh man, I was like... This is... What is this article that's shitting on it? What's it from? Malcolm Gladwell fails stand-up comedy 101. Yes! Who wrote this? See, that's how it felt. Was the person who wrote it? Somewhere up here. Fuck. Does this have their name anywhere? I had it from... Really? The guy is the dot com, NathanTimill.com. NathanTimill.com. Is Nathan a comic? Yeah, well, he's right. Nathan's right. Yeah, I mean, he's... Malcolm's right in a sense. He's right in a sense. But what he doesn't understand is there's a mind wrestling that's going on before you actually go and do that. And to sort of diminish the difficulty of that, it just shows that you haven't done it. That's what it felt like. Yeah. And so I was like, damn, I can't listen to this, too. Because he said it in the same exact voice he says everything else is. So when he's breaking down something, I really want to hear him dissect. He's so brilliant in so many different ways. I couldn't shake it. I was like, oh, fuck. Yeah. That 10,000 hour shit. He wrote Outliers, right? That's him, right? Yes. Yeah. That book is amazing. When it talks about the Beatles, like people think the Beatles came out of nowhere. Those motherfuckers did thousands and thousands of shows. That's what's up. It's just numbers. Yeah. It's just numbers of passion and focus and just that being what you really want. Yeah. It's not just numbers. It's numbers of passion, numbers of focus. Yeah. Yeah. He's wrong. He's wrong. But I get it. I get why he thinks that. Yes. It is a tightly controlled environment, but it's so easy to bomb in that tightly controlled environment. But that's what I'm saying. He has no idea. But that's what I'm saying. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.