Comedian Ronny Chieng on Political Satire, Trolling Algorithms and Cerebral Dick Jokes

Speaker 1 I'm doing comics all the time. I have them every six weeks because this is a very

Speaker 1 constitutional crisis and

Speaker 1 tech leaders taking over things. So, yeah, it gets very bleak.

Speaker 2 Yeah, bleak.

Speaker 1 Hi, everyone, from New York Magazine and the Box Media Podcast Network. This is on with Kara Swisher, and I'm Kara Swisher.
My guest today today is Emmy award-winning comedian and actor Ronnie Chang.

Speaker 1 If you've ever seen him, his shtick is kind of like being this grumpy, disdainful foreigner who tells it to Americans like it is. And he also wants you to do better, wants all of us to do better.

Speaker 1 I love having comics on the show. I want to have them on all the time in this really difficult time.

Speaker 1 I also think that people like Ronnie are doing very pointed political comedy too, even though they often just say they're making jokes.

Speaker 1 He's a very smart thinker and that's why I enjoy listening to him.

Speaker 1 Ronnie's originally from Malaysia, went to school in Singapore and launched his stand-up career after finishing law school in Melbourne, Australia. He's a globalist.

Speaker 1 He's been a correspondent on The Daily Show for a decade and part of the rotating lineup of hosts on the show since last year. I think it's a great way to do that show.

Speaker 1 In January, he had the Herculean task of hosting during the first week of the new Trump administration when a list of executive orders was so long they didn't even have time to read them all.

Speaker 1 I wanted to talk to him about doing political satire in Trump 2.0 and about his recent Netflix special, Love to Hate It, which oscillates between cerebral, personal, and potty mouth, of course.

Speaker 1 There's always a dick joke, no matter how you slice it. And I want to talk to him about his acting career, which is going strong.

Speaker 1 He got a big break in Crazy Rich Asians, where he played a complete financial bro asshole. He did a great job.

Speaker 1 But since then, he's been in a number of films, including Marvel movie Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, and the recent Hulu series, Interior Chinatown.

Speaker 1 Our expert question this week comes from Crazy Rich Asians and Wicked director John Chu.

Speaker 1 I think we all need a smart laugh right about now, so this should be fun, so stick around.

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Speaker 1 Ronnie, welcome. Thanks for being on On.

Speaker 2 Hey, thanks for having me.

Speaker 1 Nice to meet you. I'm so glad.
I'm a real fan. I was just talking to you earlier about some of the things I've seen you, and you've been in tons of stuff, and obviously, the Daily Show.

Speaker 1 But before we get started, I'm heading to Australia in a few weeks for my book tour for the paperback of my book. I know you live there for a decade, and your wife is from Melbourne.

Speaker 1 Any suggestions, places to go, things not to say or to say?

Speaker 1 Should I just stay there? Should I just

Speaker 2 know you that well, but I predict you're gonna go there and be like, I should probably stay here. Um, yeah, very safe and very socialist country in a great way.

Speaker 2 Uh, when you go there, if when you do order coffee and they have the best coffee in the world,

Speaker 2 don't just say you want a coffee. You have to be specific.
You can't just say, give me a coffee. You have to be, it's the place where you have to go, espresso, flat white, or cappuccino.
What else?

Speaker 2 Yeah. So that, and don't ask for hot sauce.
Nobody knows what you're talking about.

Speaker 2 And don't be a black person. And you'll be great.

Speaker 1 Yeah, Aborigines. I've been there.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 Thank you. Thank you for those pieces of advice.
I've been to Australia once or twice before, but I love it.

Speaker 1 And the only person I have to deal with there is Rupert Murdoch, which I can handle considering who we're up against now. So anyway, thank you.
Thank you. No more time for travel tips.

Speaker 1 We got a lot to talk about. Let's talk about you.
You're a busy man.

Speaker 1 You've been part of a rotating group hosting the daily show for the past year. Your third Netflix stand-up special came out last year.
Love to hate it, which I loved.

Speaker 1 You've done a lot of acting, including recently the Hulu Series Interior Chinatown. That's your latest, which is awesome.
Let me just say also. So talk to me about your multifaceted career.

Speaker 1 What is your favorite hosting, stand-up acting? If you had to choose to do just one forever?

Speaker 2 Oh,

Speaker 2 I mean, I've been very lucky. Every job I do, I love doing it.
So, if you put a gun to my head and make me pick, I have to go with stand-up comedy just because that's how I started.

Speaker 2 That's where all my creativity seems to come from. That's where everything

Speaker 2 that happened to me started from me doing stand-up comedy. It's the most direct form of self-expression that I know.

Speaker 1 Do you like the interaction with the audience? Is that what it is about it? Or is it just you're more creative?

Speaker 2 The live aspect, there's really no filter. There's no very few rules.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 it's so immediate. You're in the audience and you got to figure it out in real time.
And

Speaker 2 there's no one giving you notes on what you think is funny/slash good

Speaker 2 and

Speaker 2 what you're saying to the audience.

Speaker 2 No one's coming in between that. So it's the most direct way of testing out your ideas.

Speaker 1 What's a joke you cut that you wish you hadn't?

Speaker 2 Oh, I got a ton. I cut for time, honestly, because

Speaker 2 I believe that the stand-up

Speaker 2 comedy special or album should not be more than one hour.

Speaker 2 So, like I said, when you're touring the hour, it just naturally grows because you keep adding jokes to it.

Speaker 2 So you start off, you know, we all start our comedy routines with trying to figure out five minutes, 10 minutes, and then it becomes 20 minutes, then it becomes 30, and the next thing you know, it's 45.

Speaker 2 And then you start touring 45, and then it becomes an hour, and then hour, 15. And so

Speaker 2 you eventually have to like,

Speaker 2 in my opinion, you got to bring it back to under an hour because I think comedy is one of those things where less is more. Yeah.
And

Speaker 2 there's a limit on how much comedy people actually want.

Speaker 1 So you don't want to be like the Joe Rogan of comics.

Speaker 2 You don't want to.

Speaker 2 Yeah, you don't want to do a three-hour comedy.

Speaker 2 I don't have the ability to pull that off.

Speaker 2 And I'm saying this versus music or musical or a movie, right? Where you can go to a concert for two hours. But comedy, you can't, comedy isn't the same thing.

Speaker 2 And I think

Speaker 2 I'm laughing because I think sometimes people, they just try to use comedy and music interchangeably because you have a microphone. That musician has a microphone.

Speaker 2 Why don't I just put you in that situation?

Speaker 2 No, the context matters.

Speaker 1 So let's start with the Daily Show a little bit. You've been correspondent since 2015.
I didn't realize it was so long.

Speaker 1 So you made it just in time for Trump 1.0. Congratulations.

Speaker 2 Thank you. It's all I've known.
It's all I've known.

Speaker 1 I know. You were hosting.

Speaker 2 Well, you were hosting.

Speaker 1 There was a little Biden interregnum in there.

Speaker 2 There was Biden, but he was still around. Trump was still around.
When Biden was there, it felt like Trump was still president.

Speaker 1 Right. So you were hosting the first week of Trump 2.0.
From a comedic perspective, how is the second coming, as you guys have dubbed it? He's calling himself a king, obviously. How is it different?

Speaker 1 Because, you know, you guys are doing pretty tough stuff. I love it.
It's like you're tougher than a lot of reporters, honestly.

Speaker 2 Oh, I don't know about that. I think so.

Speaker 1 I think so. So, talk a little bit about the difference.

Speaker 2 I mean, you know, you've coached it as from a comedic point of view, which I think is important. From a comedic point of view, what's different is

Speaker 2 people

Speaker 2 are quite normalized to ridiculousness now. And so a lot of the, the first time around, a lot of the jokes were like,

Speaker 2 guys, this is kind of crazy. The jokes now seem to be coming from a place of like,

Speaker 2 this is crazy and we've, we kind of,

Speaker 2 like, it's path of the course. Oh, yeah, it's crazy, but yeah, we expect this.

Speaker 1 Is it hard to find humor in some of the stuff? Obviously,

Speaker 1 the Gulf of America just kind of writes itself, certain things.

Speaker 2 Yes, things get dark. You know, I know what you're saying.
I think

Speaker 2 things do get dark. And our job, as far as I know, is that's why we get paid the big bucks is to figure out how do you joke about this stuff, you know?

Speaker 2 And it's a type rope, and it's not easy, and it's an art form, and it's not a science.

Speaker 2 And people want to know how you do it, you know. And

Speaker 2 my thing is like our job isn't to teach anyone how to do this. So I don't care if anyone ever figures out where the line is

Speaker 2 for comedy.

Speaker 1 My job is to, yeah, my job is to do the but is it harder given the stakes have risen so high with this guy? Because he's doing a very different presidency than he did before.

Speaker 2 So emotionally, yes, that's always in the background. But like,

Speaker 2 we can't focus on that to do the job, you know, and our job is satire and comedy.

Speaker 2 And I'm not saying that's a noble profession i'm just saying that's what we do so uh and i don't advocate anyone else do that follow our point of view but like i said we're comics we're kind of psychos we're making fun as far as i'm concerned our job is to make fun of the uh asteroid as it's coming in to destroy us oh okay

Speaker 1 we'll be making fun of it yeah until the end right till the end yeah so um you've advocated for an asian president as far back as 2019 because you said that asians can arbitrate in in the race war because they don't have skin in the game.

Speaker 1 Obviously, Kamala Harris is both Asian and black.

Speaker 1 Do you think your job at the Daily Show would have been harder or easier if she had won?

Speaker 2 Maybe harder, I would say.

Speaker 2 Harder or easier. You know, I mean, we had Biden for four years and there were still tons of jokes.
So,

Speaker 2 you know, I people ask about this. Is it easier with Trump and do you like it? I mean, let me just say, first of all, I would prefer to live in a country that is functioning and is good.

Speaker 2 So that's number one. I will gladly sacrifice any hypothetical jokes for that.
And second of all, it's like

Speaker 2 you, you find jokes in any situation, in any government. You can find jokes in any government, conservative, progressive.

Speaker 2 Humans are funny and crazy and politics is weird and the intersection of you know, people in power and the real life culture that we live in is always funny. So is it harder harder or easier? I mean,

Speaker 2 I don't think it would have been harder or easier. I think it would have been the same.

Speaker 1 But are you writing jokes with a particular audience or political sensibility in mind right now? Has that shifted? Or there are things too serious to make jokes about? I don't think so. Probably not.

Speaker 2 No, I think truthfully, if anything, we've become...

Speaker 2 We were always very joke focused and we never want to pander to our crowd. I think we've become even less pandering lately, if that's even possible.

Speaker 2 Because, like, we want, I don't feel like we're pandering before, but from what I can tell, we came in pretty hot with, you know,

Speaker 2 Biden's too old. This guy's too old, shouldn't be running.
Like, we're pretty, I think we call the balls and the strikes, right?

Speaker 2 The way they, the way we see them, and which I think is important for satire, you know, for satire, absolutely.

Speaker 1 So now you've got a new character, a double-headed Hydro Trump and Elon.

Speaker 1 Last year, you called Elon a loser who's trying to buy friends with million-dollar checks.

Speaker 1 What do you, how are you looking at this new character for for comedy right now?

Speaker 2 Uh, he's not that new, he's been hovering around, so uh, it's not like a Street Fighter, new challenger appears.

Speaker 2 I think he's been kind of, you know, he's been hovering around the thing for uh quite a while. He's been

Speaker 2 sure. Well, well, even before that, I think he was hovering since Biden.

Speaker 2 He's been here since the first Trump one, obviously, not to the same extent. But um, yeah, how do you see him? I mean, uh,

Speaker 2 it's

Speaker 2 yeah, it's another

Speaker 2 kind of

Speaker 2 mega figure

Speaker 2 who has his own

Speaker 2 orbit and quirks and weirdly intersects with everyone's life. And then he's also on the internet trolling.
So in a lot of ways, it's like covering a Trump a little bit, right?

Speaker 2 So that, I mean, yeah, if you ask me off the top of my head, that's how I would see it. It's almost like covering like a second Trump stature level figure, right? That has household name recognition.

Speaker 2 So you don't have to explain him like versus some other kind of MAGA figure. Sometimes you have to set it up a bit, right? Whereas Elon, everyone immediately knows what you're talking about.
And he's

Speaker 2 always

Speaker 2 just like Trump, you know, he's kind of using the same kind of trolly playbook. So a lot of stuff he's saying.
Sometimes you can't joke. his trolling because that's kind of what he wants.

Speaker 1 Yes, that's correct.

Speaker 2 Yeah. Right.

Speaker 2 So you can't go like, look how ridiculous it is that he said that because that's kind of what he was trying to do in the first place, you know, which is also like the Jesse Waters thing, right?

Speaker 2 Like he'll just

Speaker 2 say something outrageous. Our job at a daily show is satire and part of the satire is covering the news.
And so we'll pull up a clip of him and we'll watch him and he's saying something ridiculous.

Speaker 2 And then it gets so ridiculous to a level where you're like, we can't even play this because he's clearly just

Speaker 1 saying it.

Speaker 2 Like it's not, we're not making a joke if we play it. Because he's actually, he knows he's what he's doing is a joke.
So we're kind of like joking the joke. and what's the point of that?

Speaker 2 So, you know, that's how I see Elon.

Speaker 1 Is Elon a good character from a comedy perspective?

Speaker 2 Is he a good character? Damn, you

Speaker 2 really look at this from a narrative point of view. Uh, well, you're making jokes about him.
Is he, yeah, no, no, it's fair, it's a fair question. Uh, is he a good character for comedy?

Speaker 2 Uh, I guess, yeah, I guess he is. I mean, um, he

Speaker 2 he's always saying new stuff, and so that's good, that that's useful for a new satire show uh i don't i would again i would prefer not talking about him but uh he's made himself kind of the main character on the internet so yeah in that way the name the neighbor who won't leave you've been trolling him for quite a while in may 2018 he responded to a tweet from elon saying he was going to create a site to track the credibility of journalists by writing please buy twitter and shut it down just so you remember yeah i do remember that that was when i still used twitter and i guess that's uh remember when John Stewart was begging Donald Trump to run for president?

Speaker 1 Yeah, yes, that's right. Yeah.

Speaker 2 Yeah. So I was begging him to buy Twitter and shut it down.
And you know what? He actually, not only did he buy it, in my opinion, he kind of did shut it down a bit.

Speaker 1 Well, for a lot of people, although they're raising the valuation of it, he's trying to sell shares now.

Speaker 2 Oh, right. Well, I mean, you know, this is more your world than mine, but I do, I definitely feel that after he bought it,

Speaker 2 there was a bit of an exodus.

Speaker 1 So thank you, Elon, for destroying it every week we get a question from an outside expert this week it's coming from someone you know crazy rich agents director john chu hey ronnie it's your old friend john m chu

Speaker 2 um here's my question you've lived in multiple countries and cultures malaysia australia the us

Speaker 3 and how has that shaped your sense of humor um it's

Speaker 2 It's given me some perspective on America because I know from an outsider point of view, I have strong beliefs in what America does very well. And I can also see what America doesn't do that great

Speaker 2 because I've lived in countries, other countries.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 it also,

Speaker 2 I don't know, it gives me a lot of gratitude to be in America. So

Speaker 2 I guess that informs my comedy in the sense that I feel like all my jokes come from a place of,

Speaker 2 I think there's an undercurrent of of

Speaker 2 of like love in it but you love this place I love this place and also I love

Speaker 2 doing comedy I love doing comedy I think I and I I think that comes through in the because I've been to countries where you can't really do comedy I lived in countries where you can't really do it so I think that kind of also informs you know and I think it also makes me feel like I sh I my comedy should be a bit more edgier

Speaker 2 because

Speaker 2 I come from places where you can't say stuff that by American standards would not be considered edgy at all.

Speaker 2 So it makes, I think it makes me a little bit more fearless.

Speaker 1 So given things are going now, are you all afraid of retribution? Maybe satirists don't tend to do well in authoritarian regimes, as you noted.

Speaker 2 Sure.

Speaker 2 I mean, we can't play scared. So I don't really play scared.
I don't think. I don't think I've held any punches because I'm scared of retribution.

Speaker 2 I think we already had a Trump presidency. We, you know, we've run the experiment for eight years now.
We've been talking shit for eight years and he, you know, there's no retribution so far.

Speaker 2 So there's also that data point. And then

Speaker 2 also,

Speaker 2 yeah, I, I don't think he watches us.

Speaker 2 So that's, you know,

Speaker 2 so far, so good, I guess.

Speaker 1 So far, so good. Do you feel any pressure from corporation or anything else? Or is you feel like no? I mean, obviously, Jon Stewart talked about it at Apple and this was pre-this.

Speaker 1 Are you worried or is the group there worried in any way about that?

Speaker 2 Not that I know of. I've never, you know, I've been there.
I can't believe I've been there nine years now.

Speaker 2 I have never had a directive to go easy in the paint.

Speaker 2 I've never had someone, you know, from any anonymous source. I've never had a note handed to me from anywhere where it was like, hey, can you take it?

Speaker 2 I've never had that. And I, you know, I chalk that up to, we have good taste on the show, I believe.

Speaker 2 You know, I think the Daily show as an institution everyone who works there we it you know it's very experienced they're very they're great comedy writers you know and part of comedy writing as you know isn't just saying the worst possible

Speaker 2 you can you know that's being an edge lord like comedy is kind of like the art of getting away with it right saying something edgy and getting away with it and i think we're good at that and i i think that's reflected in the fact that yeah i've never had someone give me a note to be like hey can you not talk about that guy who shot that guy in the head in new york City?

Speaker 2 Like, we just go hot. We just go hot.
And that's why, that's also why I'm so grateful to be at in America at the daily show doing stand-up comedy where it's just like...

Speaker 1 Nothing's off limits.

Speaker 2 Yeah, you're in a room full of people just trying to make jokes.

Speaker 1 You don't want to be an edgelord, Ronnie?

Speaker 2 No, I don't want to be an edgelord. No, I think that, you know, and that's a real shame, right?

Speaker 2 I think a lot of comedy, I think what has happened is that there's been a lot of really funny, edgy comics who've managed managed to find a niche on the internet and

Speaker 2 power to them and they're very talented people.

Speaker 2 And I think unfortunately what has happened is that they've kind of inspired a lot of these copycat like people who watch what they do and they, because when you're good at it, you make it look easy.

Speaker 2 And so you inspire all these kind of quite frankly untalented, like,

Speaker 2 angry, edge-lordy people who watch edgy comedy and they think

Speaker 2 they think, oh, that's what it is. I can do it.

Speaker 2 Comedy is just about saying the most fucked shit you could say in any given situation, but they miss the nuance and they miss the art and they miss the, you know, they miss the

Speaker 2 underlying ability. Yeah.

Speaker 2 And it's become this thing where people think comedy is just saying the worst thing, edge lords, basically. Yeah.

Speaker 1 We'll be back in a minute.

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Speaker 1 I want to do, speaking of your latest Netflix special,

Speaker 1 I love to hate it, we talked how you build your set in terms of time. Let's talk about topics.

Speaker 1 They run the gamut from you talking about carrying your jiz through Manhattan so you and your wife can freeze her eggs to MAGA and social media to revealing the last Twitter post your dad probably read before he died.

Speaker 1 It makes sense while you're watching it. Talk about conceptualizing a show like that.
It's beautifully constructed, I will tell you.

Speaker 2 Thank you. Thank you so much.

Speaker 2 I think

Speaker 2 I started doing stand-up comedy in Australia, and Australia has a very kind of British sensibility with comedy, which is they kind of favor that one man, one woman show format.

Speaker 2 I think I kind of picked it up because I was in Australia learning the craft and they would always try to to like have some kind of narrative thread.

Speaker 2 And I always kind of rejected that because I always thought just be funny, just have funny jokes.

Speaker 2 And then I kind of realized like you, if you have both funny jokes and a little bit of a narrative thread, you can kind of, you elevate everything.

Speaker 2 And so that's always in the back of my head when I'm doing an hour. But

Speaker 2 day to day, when I'm writing the hour, it is just what's the funniest jokes. And so I just keep writing jokes.
I see what's funny.

Speaker 2 I see what works in comedy clubs in New York City, which is, you know, as you know, in New York City, you need to be funny fast for a long time.

Speaker 2 You can't just tell some long story about your dad on Twitter. And you do these funny jokes.
And then, just like David Lynch says, you know, you go from to this ocean of consciousness.

Speaker 2 And then suddenly things just start connecting weirdly, you know, and then you start seeing the connection.

Speaker 2 So after you write the funny jokes, you put, you lay all of them out in front of you and you're like, oh, there's a little bit of a connection here. And then you start crafting in that direction.

Speaker 1 What did it turn out to be be from your perspective? What's the narrative you were trying to go for?

Speaker 2 It unintentionally became a story about having kids,

Speaker 2 thinking about having kids, and

Speaker 2 reflection on my father having me. And, you know, it kind of became a little bit of that.
It also became a little bit of a love letter to Hawaii, which I didn't intend

Speaker 2 because

Speaker 2 I spent a lot of time in Hawaii filming a TV show,

Speaker 2 two seasons of this TV show, Dugi Kimaloha on Disney Plus. And I became kind of, I really just connected with Hawaii a lot.
I felt like it was.

Speaker 1 I love Hawaii. It's my favorite place on earth.

Speaker 2 Yeah, it felt like the best of Malaysia and America in one to me. Yeah.
And they, Hawaii was very welcoming to me.

Speaker 2 And so I decided before I even wrote a single joke, I was like, hey, I want to film my next special in Hawaii. And I want to kind of capture that Elvis in Hawaii, kind of kitschy

Speaker 2 show business vibe. Yeah.
And so I had that

Speaker 2 Don Ho, all those guys. And I wanted to capture that.
And that was before I wrote a single joke.

Speaker 2 And then as I wrote the hour, I didn't even realize until two months before I filmed it in Hawaii that, oh, Hawaii comes up a lot in the special.

Speaker 2 I have a joke about MAGA Hawaii in it and how friendly they are. And then I have a joke about at the end about my father kind of seeing

Speaker 2 a photo of me and my wife in Hawaii. And the fact that I filmed in Hawaii.
Again, it's one of those weird

Speaker 2 universe things where suddenly everything comes together, you know?

Speaker 1 One of the things you do talk about is how men fall into self-help algorithm that leads them to following the kettlebell swinging guy. I love that guy.

Speaker 1 To Andrew Tate, to toxic masculinity, and then they end up storming the Capitol.

Speaker 2 Let me play a quick clip.

Speaker 1 I love this. This was fantastic.

Speaker 2 I'm not saying as a man, don't take responsibility for your own actions. Okay.
I'm just saying that YouTube algorithm is very alluring to straight guys.

Speaker 2 It sucks men in in a way that I don't think women understand. Like it really preys on that men's need to seek guidance from somewhere.
It's very hard to resist. It just draws you in.

Speaker 2 That's why fucking Mark Zuckerberg is trying to MMA fight Elon Musk right now.

Speaker 2 That guy fell for his own algorithm.

Speaker 2 Do you understand?

Speaker 1 This is a really good point. It's absolutely true.
The kettlebell swinging guy, particularly, is the gateway to hell.

Speaker 1 I'd love you to talk about it because I had this issue with my son, who, when he was 13, wanted to watch Ben Shapiro. I let him.
I said, I think he's an asshole, but go forward and watch him.

Speaker 2 Like a good progressive mom. Mom, exactly.

Speaker 1 I didn't want to be yelled at by Ben Shapiro, who later said I wouldn't let him watch it, but Ben, I let him watch it. He thought you were an asshole all on his own.

Speaker 1 But what was interesting, what bothered me and what I was making the point about, and actually Ben misconstrued it,

Speaker 1 was he testified before Congress that I was trying to censor my son but I wasn't anyway near there but what I was upset by was it went right to algorithms that were really problematic I was like what are you watching now what happened here and he was leaning into it he's a big kid and he just loved it and it moved him very quickly so talk about this this idea of what you were trying to get to first of all i love that that went all the way to Congress.

Speaker 2 Yeah, it did.

Speaker 1 Oh, no. I was like, take back your testimony.

Speaker 2 I let him watch you.

Speaker 2 Yeah, Yeah, I don't know.

Speaker 2 I don't have kids, so I can't speak to

Speaker 2 that.

Speaker 1 No, don't worry about that. But this is a really very interesting.
You're making a very important point about social media, of the way it goes down into

Speaker 1 Insurrection Alley, essentially.

Speaker 2 Yeah, I can't speak to a 13-year-old boy growing up in America's experience, but I can speak to being a man in this time. And

Speaker 2 I think that there hasn't been a good way for men to talk about

Speaker 2 things that they're feeling, you know, truthfully feeling deep inside. And

Speaker 2 then you keep bottling it up, and then you feel eventually you feel wronged because you feel like you never got a chance to say this stuff and no one explained to you or gave you a fuller picture or even acknowledged when you were right, you know, sometimes.

Speaker 2 And so, and then that leads them down this dark path to, you know, because they're looking for it from somewhere. They're looking for either advice or acknowledgement or

Speaker 2 commiseration from somewhere. And they just they feel like they're not getting it from enough sources.

Speaker 2 And, you know, rightfully or wrongfully so, right? But that's how they genuinely feel. And then they, they unfortunately find it on the internet.

Speaker 2 And the internet, it just is not a good place to look for those things for, you know, for guys or for women. But again, I'm just going to speak from a guy perspective.

Speaker 2 And like you said, I think it's, it's, to me, it's become so obvious that

Speaker 1 you do excellent attacks on social media. I've always like he totally understands.
I mean, you're not a reporter, but you're writing about things reporters write about because

Speaker 1 you really, I can't tell whether you hate it or love it. That's the thing because you said you were off Twitter.

Speaker 2 I am off Twitter.

Speaker 1 What do you do on social media now?

Speaker 2 So now besides watch the kettlebell guy. Yeah.
So, yeah, I'm, I, I'm off Twitter and Facebook and Instagram. As in, I still have accounts, but I'm not, I don't, I don't have notifications to my phone.

Speaker 2 You know, I honestly, I just kind of use it to make money now in terms of I need to sell tickets, I'll use it there.

Speaker 2 And I understand what I use it for now. You know what I mean? Like I make no pretension about what it is.
I'm here to make money on social media. So I'm here to advertise.

Speaker 2 For marketing. For marketing, yeah.
And as long as I don't get sucked into it, I feel like that's the best I can do.

Speaker 2 Do I hate it?

Speaker 2 I do hate it a lot, but you know, I'm lucky because

Speaker 2 I feel like I was the last guy to slip into old media

Speaker 2 like i'm the last person who managed to get past the goalposts yeah because i get to work on a daily show which is very old media i sell tickets which is the oldest form of show business

Speaker 2 um

Speaker 2 and uh i'm lucky to get cast in tv shows and stuff like that so i was lucky i'm so grateful that i'm in a position to be like you Mark Zuckerberg, you can delete Instagram. I'll be okay.
I'm okay.

Speaker 2 Actually, I'll probably be happier.

Speaker 2 But, you know, I've also seen the benefit from all my friends, you know, my fellow stand-up comics who they put clips on the internet.

Speaker 2 And that's the only way they were able to build a following and sell tickets. So, you know, that again, again, that's the love-hate that you just perfectly described.

Speaker 1 Although it can lead to, as you said, a lot of bad comedy or bad singing or bad anything.

Speaker 1 Sure. I think your sound

Speaker 1 is interesting from a technical point of view. You have these really long, smart buildups.
You make analytical arguments and still manage to land the punchline.

Speaker 1 Let me play another moment on Love to Hate It. It's long, but that's the point.
Let me play it.

Speaker 2 For example, MAGA, make America great again.

Speaker 2 They have a point. America is not doing so great right now.
Right? Our kids' math scores are down.

Speaker 2 Our children's science scores are down. When judged according to international metrics,

Speaker 2 healthcare systems are not doing so great. Wealth gap disparities increasing exponentially.

Speaker 2 There was an implied promise to a generation of Americans that if you do certain things, work hard, go to college, be a good person, you would have certain outcomes.

Speaker 2 And those outcomes didn't materialize for majority of people because baby boomers entrenched in decision-making positions lowered the capital gains tax

Speaker 2 so that their net worth essentially compounds year after year.

Speaker 2 And post-World War II, U.S. leadership traded the domestic manufacturing industry for national security by making the U.S.
dollar the default international trade currency.

Speaker 2 which gave America the ability to impose economic sanctions on foreign countries through a U.S. financial banking system, but consequently increased the value of the U.S.

Speaker 2 dollar astronomically, which made it impossible for anyone to manufacture anything in America.

Speaker 2 Although the logic at the time

Speaker 2 was that Americans were supposed to upskill en masse away from the menial manufacturing jobs, but everyone here is too much of a dumbass to stay in school, so we just traded domestic manufacturing to Asia and the rest of the world at the expense of working-class families.

Speaker 2 But if you don't read enough,

Speaker 2 it comes out as, let's go, Brenda.

Speaker 2 And it's like you have a point, but you don't have the vocabulary to describe your reality because you didn't read enough. You got to keep reading.
Beyond the hashtag, there's a book behind the word.

Speaker 2 You got to keep going.

Speaker 2 You can go at your own pace, but you got to finish the required reading. Otherwise, we can't have a conversation.

Speaker 1 This is a terrific joke. This is a tremendously well-constructed joke.

Speaker 1 Would you mind talking about it for a second? Because I thought this was, I love this joke. You're obviously doing a sort of a college lecture thing,

Speaker 1 but making it into a very funny and truthful.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 2 Yeah. I just thought it was, it's actually an argument.
It's quite a centrist argument, actually.

Speaker 2 It's a call for like, hey, can we talk about actual issues and not just yell slogans?

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 also,

Speaker 2 there's also this idea, I think, of like

Speaker 2 people want five-second five-second explanations for everything,

Speaker 2 you know, especially in government or whatever, right? And not everything's a five-second explanation.

Speaker 2 Some of these like are long, technical, like multi-factorial issues that, you know, require undergraduate degrees to learn.

Speaker 2 So, so a bit of it is kind of like an argument or maybe a weeping at the death of respect for expertise, you know, where everyone kind of like wants simple answers or believes they know everything.

Speaker 2 And also the, you know, like, as you mentioned, the, I thought it was pretty funny to just keep talking about this as long as I could. Yeah.
Yeah. See how long I could, I could pull it off.

Speaker 2 And not, you know, I think it's a perfect job. Oh, thanks.

Speaker 2 And I actually was, I never clipped it, you know, I never clipped that bit from my special because I thought it wouldn't work on social media because it's so long-winded.

Speaker 2 It kind of needs context, you know, to have it. But someone else clipped it and put it on the internet and then it started going, you know, viral.

Speaker 1 It really did. That was the one that really jumped out to a lot of people.

Speaker 2 Yeah. But they did, like, I saw like they clicked their own version, but it was like the shittiest resolution.
The subtitles were spelled wrong. Someone sped it up.
It was like 1.5 speed.

Speaker 2 And I was like, that's all right.

Speaker 1 This is awful.

Speaker 2 But for some reason, that, you know, we spent, you know, for me as an artist, I spent so much time crafting the look and the timing. And then this person totally fucked it up, but it went viral.

Speaker 2 And so I'm like, all right, well, I don't know what to do about it. Well, it worked.
It worked. You know, someone told me that on the, this is how bad I am with social media.

Speaker 2 Someone told me that the fact that it looks janky makes people trust it more. That's correct.
Because it looks like it wasn't like a marketing effort. It looks like someone clipped it.

Speaker 2 And I'm like, I guess there's logic to that, but, but, you know, goddamn, this looks like shit.

Speaker 1 Right.

Speaker 1 Right. It reminds me that you went, it's so interesting because you're talking like a lawyer a little bit, which is interesting.
You went to law school in Australia, even passed the bar there.

Speaker 1 I know it was a massive career shift and you said it was going from corporate to the circus.

Speaker 1 Does your legal background help you at all? I mean, are you worried that

Speaker 1 it going over their heads or do you just have a dick joke in your pocket for an emergency?

Speaker 2 No,

Speaker 2 I think that

Speaker 2 I kind of refuse to dumb it down for the crowd.

Speaker 1 You don't, which I love.

Speaker 2 Because I think you, one, I think people are smarter than you, people give them credit for sometimes. And also, I think you attract the audience that you want, right? So that's two.

Speaker 2 And then also, yeah, you're right. Like you kind of undercut everything with a classic, just whatever dick joke you pull out just to make the make the broccoli

Speaker 2 sugar, which is becoming a very disgusting analogy. Yeah, put sugar.
Yeah, don't, don't put a dick joke on it. Yeah, you put sugar on it.
So, yeah.

Speaker 2 And so there's that, right? You pull it out of your hat, right?

Speaker 2 But also the legal stuff, the legal background, I didn't think it helped, but my wife always kind of points it out to me, like the longer I've been doing comedy, the more it's like, oh, my style has developed this kind of like, I feel like I'm making arguments.

Speaker 2 You know, sometimes when you're doing stand-up comedy, you are arguing for

Speaker 2 a, sometimes you're arguing for a very preposterous or depraved point of view. And so I guess the legal background helps you in forming a coherent argument.

Speaker 2 It also helps in eliminating the irrelevant, which I've noticed a lot in not just creative. Creative, a lot of it is, as you know, right? A lot of creativity is cutting out stuff.
That's correct.

Speaker 2 Okay, we don't need that. We don't need this editing.
And I think legal background helps with that, right? It helps you eliminate what you think you don't need.

Speaker 2 And quite frankly, I think sometimes when I talk to people about politics or even, you know,

Speaker 2 when you argue about politics, sometimes it's like you hear people bring up stuff and you're like, wait, all that stuff is kind of irrelevant. That's what we're talking about.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I think it does help because you are, you do, you cut away the crap, even if you like the joke.

Speaker 1 You know, I used to die when I cut out lines from stories and I'm like, oh, that was the right thing, even if I like the line.

Speaker 2 I think the great comics, they all have this kind of logic to them. Right.

Speaker 2 And I think people who don't study law, I think they, they kind of hate the idea of the, of the legal system and the legal industry for many reasons.

Speaker 2 But I think if you actually study law, you realize that this is the product of many, many people over decades or centuries figuring out the logic of things.

Speaker 2 So there is a logic to it that end of the day that it's quite stable. And so just being able to think logically is, is, I think, something that you get out of legal training.

Speaker 1 Who are your influences? Who are the ones that you think are?

Speaker 2 Oh, yeah. I mean, when I was coming up, it was,

Speaker 2 I love Bill Burr. And he actually EPs my specials now.
So I'm glad to call him a friend and mentor. And

Speaker 2 love Dave Chappelle. I loved everybody in New York City who was gigging, Todd Berry.

Speaker 2 I mean, if you were doing stand-up comedy, if you were a headliner at a comedy club, I loved you.

Speaker 2 Because I was watching these professionals, you know, like, man, I was like, damn, this is amazing, you know?

Speaker 2 So I was influenced by everybody. Seinfeld,

Speaker 2 yeah.

Speaker 1 You did sign for this thing doing this three

Speaker 1 deal Netflix special. This was your third.

Speaker 1 Will you stay with a streamer? Are you looking? What is what is that

Speaker 1 economy like now? You have to have these streaming shows.

Speaker 2 No one's ever asked me that.

Speaker 1 Well, I'm a business lady.

Speaker 2 I think the business side, it's very interesting you should mention that because

Speaker 2 the power keeps shifting about who is the number one

Speaker 2 for comedy. You know, it used to be HBO.
HBO was like the dream to do it. It was like, oh my God, if you get HBO special, that means you are it.
You know, and Netflix came along.

Speaker 2 Comedy Central was in there for a long time. Netflix has come along.
You know, I can't tell who's number one. I think Hulu has just entered the chat with Comedy Special.
So

Speaker 2 I don't really know where the industry is going.

Speaker 2 And then now, right, people are just putting it on YouTube now, entire specials. Why even bother? Yeah, why even bother?

Speaker 2 You know, well, I, you know, you can get paid on streamers, whereas YouTube, you're kind of going off your own back. So I don't know.
I don't know where the power is.

Speaker 2 I think it really depends on one, who's offering you. Because you can only accept offers that are made.
So are you getting the offers? And two, what your personal

Speaker 2 relationship to your fans is, you know, like some people are more men and women of the people. And so we're on YouTube, you know, we're underground.
And that's cool, right? That's very cool.

Speaker 2 And then some people are like, well, on Netflix, you know, we're the Netflix comics, you know, and, but, but, you know, all this is not up to us.

Speaker 2 This is up to the free market and the streamers have to make offers.

Speaker 1 There is an appeal to doing it yourself on YouTube. I can tell you that.

Speaker 2 There is. There is.
But there's also an appeal to making money on a streamer.

Speaker 1 Right, that's true. That's also true.
Which they do them. Right now, I think Netflix is ascendant.
I think you're correct.

Speaker 1 Are you signing a new deal?

Speaker 2 I hope so. I hope so.
Yeah,

Speaker 2 I hope they have me back. You know, Netflix stuck their neck out for me.
Like my first special, no one wanted it. My very first one, Asian Community Destroys America.
I was shopping around.

Speaker 2 I was asking people to come. And I say this with no bitterness because I get the game, but nobody really wanted it.
And so I kind of gave up on trying to make one.

Speaker 2 I was like, I'm just going to tour live. If anyone wants to ever buy it, I'll do it, whatever.
And then Netflix, they stuck their neck out. I was like, hey, we love it.
Let's do it.

Speaker 2 And they've supported me ever since. And honestly, for me, having Netflix in my corner has allowed me to turn down many shitty offers that I would hate to do.

Speaker 2 And I get to do that because I'm like, oh, end of the day, I can do it with these guys. I have my

Speaker 1 shittiest offer.

Speaker 2 Oh, you know, people come in and be like, hey, can you do, you know, we want you to go, you know, look silly and be goofy and sell this product, like advertising, goofy advertising stuff or like bad commercial, like come in, come and do a standout spot for these rich assholes.

Speaker 2 Yeah, it basically just empowered me to be like, guys, I'm okay.

Speaker 2 I don't need unlimited money. Yeah.
Netflix is taking care of me.

Speaker 2 I'd rather do that. Like, meaning that if you want to, yeah, meaning if you want to hire me,

Speaker 2 you have to kind of be on my, meet me on my terms.

Speaker 1 And, you know, yeah, Al Pacino was on Dunkin' Donuts.

Speaker 2 Yeah, I'll do Dunkin' Donuts, no problem.

Speaker 1 You'll be Dunkin' Donuts, no problem.

Speaker 2 Okay.

Speaker 2 We'll be back in a minute.

Speaker 4 Support for this show comes from OnePassword. If you're an IT or security pro, managing devices, identities, and applications can feel overwhelming and risky.

Speaker 4 Trellica by OnePassword helps conquer SaaS sprawl and shadow IT by discovering every app your team uses, managed or not. Take the first step to better security for your team.

Speaker 4 Learn more at onepassword.com slash podcast offer. That's onepassword.com slash podcast offer.
All lowercase.

Speaker 1 I want to finish up talking about your acting career. You got your big break in Hollywood with Crazy Rich Asians.
John Chu, who directed it, sent us a question.

Speaker 1 So I was still waiting for him to get to Crazy Rich Agents 2. We'll see what happens there.
He's the best. He is the best.

Speaker 1 Last year, though, you were in

Speaker 1 Hulu Sears Interior Chinatown based on a book by Charles Yu. It's really a stereotypical or even non-existent

Speaker 1 about that, a stereotypical, even non-existent Asian representation in Hollywood.

Speaker 1 The main character is Willis Wu, who wants to stop being a background character and becoming a main character like Kung Fu Gai.

Speaker 1 You play his best friend, Fatty Choi, who goes viral as Angry Asian waiter.

Speaker 1 Talk a little bit about this.

Speaker 1 I think this is wonderful. Talk about the character and how the storyline ties into the set.

Speaker 2 Yeah, I'll give you guys the quick pitch on the show. Like, who cares about me? The show is brilliant.
The show is so smart. It's so meta.

Speaker 2 It's like Twin Peaks meets law and order, I guess, because in the show, all these characters are on a TV show and they just slowly start to realize that they become self-aware that they're on a TV show.

Speaker 2 And that's not just, you know, the main characters are these two Asian guys, Jimmy Oyang and me, Willis Wu and and fatty choi but then there's also a law and order show happening in the show uh with um these other characters and they also start to figure out that they're in a tv show so everyone starts kind of like becoming self-aware and uh it gets it gets weirder but there's a great social message behind that which is kind of like people who feel like background characters

Speaker 2 in their lives, you know, and I think a lot of people in America feel that way.

Speaker 2 I mean, I think this show was written, obviously, the surface level is about Asian people feeling like background characters in America a lot of the time, because we're not really active in politics or entertainment, and we don't really have influence the way white people and black people have.

Speaker 2 So sometimes you feel like, oh, we're just here to, you know, vote for people.

Speaker 2 Sometimes someone will say hello to us in Chinese and then we're supposed to vote for them or, you know, whatever it is. And

Speaker 2 so it speaks to that. But honestly, it speaks to anyone who feels like a background tech character here, you know, black, Native American, American, Latino, you know, gay, whatever, lesbian.

Speaker 2 If you feel like a background character sometimes, I mean, that this show is kind of about that, you know, and it's very smartly written. Taika Waititi directed the pilot.
He did. Amazing.

Speaker 2 And it was a dream project to do. It shot beautifully.

Speaker 2 And I think the ending is very satisfying, I think. Yeah.

Speaker 1 So the book Interior Chinatown came out in 2020, for people who don't know. That was after Crazy Asians.

Speaker 1 But since then, your Marvel movie,

Speaker 1 Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, came to me.

Speaker 2 I can't call it mine. I can't call it mine.

Speaker 1 And everything everywhere all at once, one big at the Oscars. And of course, you now co-host the daily show.
Do you think things have gotten better in terms of Asian representation or any different?

Speaker 1 Not, because there's a big push against DEI.

Speaker 1 I find it really interesting when a movie like, say, A Black Panther does well, they're like, oh, look at that. And I'm like, it's not a DEI movie.
It's a great movie.

Speaker 2 It's just a great movie.

Speaker 1 So

Speaker 2 that's the problem. It's

Speaker 2 Yes, yes. So has it gone better?

Speaker 2 It's gotten, I mean, a little bit better, sure. I mean, undoubtedly.

Speaker 2 I think the main problem is that this argument about diversity in Hollywood specifically is a bit of a, I feel like it's a bit of a misnomer sometimes because it's not about diversity in terms of statistical how many Asians do we put in how many movies or whatever.

Speaker 2 It's about like authenticity and storytelling, like making good movies. And part of that is having Asian people in decision-making positions, you know, as producers or executives.
Because as you know,

Speaker 2 right, that's the layer that is like, you can be all diverse as you want here and whatever, but when you hit, you, you, as, when you're making something, you go up the chain of decision-making, eventually you hit this layer where suddenly everyone is like, we can't cast this person, obviously, because this person, you know, we need this, or we, you know, we need a gay Asian here.

Speaker 2 And then you're like, oh, this is where the, this is where the problem is. You know, the problem isn't down here with the creators.
The problem is in that decision-making layer in Hollywood anyway.

Speaker 2 Right. So absolutely.
Yeah, because

Speaker 2 you can, you, they can give people kind of like cursory

Speaker 2 decision-making power, but then really it's not there.

Speaker 2 And so I think that affects the storytelling because you, you have people who are, either they're trying to tell diverse stories, but they fuck it up because they they put the diversity before the story.

Speaker 2 And then everyone looks bad. The project doesn't go well.
And then we're worse than we were when we started, right? So I think that is the main problem to me.

Speaker 2 It's not casting, you know, on camera is one issue, but the executive level and the producer level is the other issue.

Speaker 1 Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.
And it does. It's a story matters the most of all.
That's what always succeeds.

Speaker 2 Yeah, because we all want good stories. We don't want to just make shit for the sake of it, just because there's a bunch of Asians or whatever, you know, we want to make good shit.

Speaker 2 So how does that happen? That happens because decision makers are able to have taste and tell what's good and what's authentic and not force inauthentic decisions onto good stories, right?

Speaker 1 Right, absolutely. In that mind, I'm just wondering, what do you think the next step for you in terms of main character energy?

Speaker 1 Your next stint hosting the daily show is coming up in March.

Speaker 1 If you could get your own show, what would it be? I know, I think it's working rather well with all of you shifting, honestly. I know there was a big search for a king, but

Speaker 1 not a queen, it would have been a king.

Speaker 1 But what, how do you like that? And would you like your own show? Or is this kind of group thing better, do you think?

Speaker 2 Yeah, I love the daily show. I think the group thing keeps anyone, one person from burning out, which I think is important.

Speaker 1 It's a significant problem. It's a significant problem.

Speaker 2 I think it gives a different perspective every week, which I think is interesting.

Speaker 2 I think the truth of the matter is also that nobody really knows, as in the general public, I don't think they actually know who's hosting.

Speaker 2 So, meaning the way the show is consumed now is segments on social media.

Speaker 2 No one is watching the whole show through. So, as far as anyone's concerned, like Jon Stewart is still hosting it.
And in many ways, he is. He's hosting the whole show.
We're just helping him out.

Speaker 2 You know what I mean? So, the way the show is consumed

Speaker 2 has played a factor in terms of we don't have that linear television. Here's the host and we're watching the show appointment viewing, right? Now we're just watching clips.
Right.

Speaker 2 So it almost doesn't have that bigger impact.

Speaker 1 Do you think that era is over? Would you want your own show? What would be different?

Speaker 2 When you say you want your own show, yeah, I would love to do my own show, but not a talk show. I would love to do a scripted narrative or a scripted movie.

Speaker 2 I think, you know, because I get my rocks off doing to the camera satire from the daily show.

Speaker 2 And we're never going to top that. This is the institution.
It's the Harvard Business School of comedy and satire.

Speaker 2 So I think the only other thing that what's more interesting to me is cracking scripted narrative and having social messaging through scripted narrative, which I think actually goes down better, you know, than someone to the camera kind of outrage, evisceration, lecturing, because that kind of, you kind of preach to the choir a little bit.

Speaker 2 You're better off doing a scripted narrative show that you tell a story that has a more impact in it, that makes people see other points of view, right?

Speaker 2 So, to me, that's for my own project, that's probably what I would aspire to, you know.

Speaker 1 Yeah, also an area under pressure, too, in a weird way, but at the same time. So, last question: We talked about your career as an actor, a stand-up, a host, television, late-night comedian.

Speaker 1 If you could add another pillar, what would it be? I know you sell socks with your face on them.

Speaker 1 Do you

Speaker 1 want to do a fourth thing?

Speaker 2 No, I'm okay. I'm trying to figure out these dumb jokes in a, I'm trying to tell these dick jokes in a bar.
That's all.

Speaker 1 Dick jokes in a bar. That's all you do? Just a simple dick joke in a bar, guy.

Speaker 2 Dick joke in a New York City dive bar. Yeah.

Speaker 1 So you wouldn't want to do anything else. Would you go to politics or anything else?

Speaker 2 No, no.

Speaker 2 I'm trying to literally get this jokes to work on the.

Speaker 2 Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 Yeah. That's all.
That's all.

Speaker 1 Okay. Then I'll leave it at that.
I really appreciate it, Ronnie. You're a wonderful and creative thinker, and I really appreciate all you do.

Speaker 2 Thanks for having me on. Thanks for speaking to me.
And yeah.

Speaker 1 On with Kara Swisher is produced by Christian Castor-Rousselle, Kateri Yoakum, Dave Shaw, Megan Burney, Megan Kunane, and Kaylin Lynch. Nishat Kirwa is Vox Media's executive producer of audio.

Speaker 1 Special thanks to Kate Gallagher. Our engineers are Rick Kwan and Fernando Aruda, and our theme music is by Trackademics.
If you're already following the show, you read past the hashtag.

Speaker 1 If not, go listen to a dick joke in a bar or maybe on Pivot from Scott Galloway. Though, wherever you listen to podcasts, search for On with Kara Swisher and hit follow.

Speaker 1 Thanks for listening to On with Kara Swisher from New York Magazine, the Vox Media Podcast Network, and us. We'll be back on Thursday with more.

Speaker 4 Support for this show comes from one password. If you're an IT or security pro, managing devices, identities, and applications can feel overwhelming and risky.

Speaker 4 Trellica by OnePassword helps conquer SaaS sprawl and shadow IT by discovering every app your team uses, managed or not. Take the first step to better security for your team.

Speaker 4 Learn more at one password.com/slash podcast offer. That's one password.com/slash podcast offer.
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