By Cait Flynn
It’s hard to think of Rob Delaney without thinking about @robdelaney. The 37-year-old stand-up comedian is seemingly inseparable from his online persona. When you see his tall and muscular stature on stage you are reminded of his unforgettable former Twitter picture of him on a beach in a speedo. He claims 1.3 million followers, and has written almost 20 thousand tweets; each of them more absurd than the last. In 2012 he was the first person to receive the award of “funniest man on Twitter” at the Comedy Central Awards.
Rob Delaney’s presence on Twitter has given his followers helpful tips, important PSA’s, and has asked burning celebrity questions. He also has been known to mock politicians including a recent tweet at expense of the United Kingdom’s Prime Minister, David Cameron, which sparked possibly Twitter’s most passive aggressive feud between Cameron and one of the UK’s most beloved OBE actors, Sir Patrick Stewart.
Delaney also became a regular voice during the 2012 election, in a way that could only fit a website like Twitter. His phony retweets and bizarre narratives of Mitt Romney, gave him the dubious title of Romney’s “Twitter nemesis”.
All of this Twitter fame doesn’t escape Delaney, but he doesn’t exacerbate Twitter’s influence on comedy either. “Well Twitter is great and it’s a fun place to workshop jokes and stuff but the standup game hasn’t changed as a pursuit and as an art form hasn’t changed,” he said before his set, “Twitter does not improve people’s stand-ups and it doesn’t pay the bills,” said Delaney.
Before TCNJ’s Mixed Signals opened the show for him, Delaney was waiting in the dressing rooms of Mayo Concert Hall as kids flooded the building for a nearly packed theater. He was sitting relaxed in his seat wearing a grey T-shirt and black jeans. He had a fully-grown beard that would intimidate you if not for his overt and sincere friendliness towards everyone in the room.
The reason why you know Rob Delaney’s name may be Twitter, but the reason why that name has stayed at the upper echelon of the comedy game is because of his obvious talent and passion for stand-up. If at all possible, it is highly recommended you see Delaney on his latest tour.
His material strikes an odd balance between being profane and compellingly moral. His humor is so much more enveloping when it goes beyond 140 characters. “Twitter is fun, but stand-up is this intoxicating orgy, insanity, mayhem. I get high off of stand-up,” he said before the show.
His set covered his hatred of salmon (that included a joke about how salmon and the roof of a mouth look very similar, which may or may not ruin your appetite for salmon forever), the misplaced hatred of New Jersey that truly belongs to Long Island, as well as the nuances and irrationalities of modern-day misogyny. He complimented our dressing rooms and won over our hearts.
Before the show he justified a statement he had made to Slate Magazine concerning guys in their 20s. In the article he said “guys in their 20s are bad for young women.” Being that he was about to take the stage in front of mostly guys in their 20s. “I used to be one of those guys,” he said, “it’s a great time, and you have wonderful amount of opportunities to be a huge jerk in your 20s.
“Just try to think of other people, you know you want to do, and have sex on all of the people when you’re in your 20s. You want to eat all the food, and take all the stuff… and it’s like relax. There’s enough to go around”.
Speaking about his past self is almost a trademark of Delaney’s. He’s spoken openly about his past alcoholism and depression on Twitter and Tumblr. “It’s probably better to put [my experiences] there because the few people who could benefit from it could hear it from a different angel than they would normally,” said Delaney, “You know it’s not some, like, therapist their parents sent them to… it’s some moron clown.”
He recently made news by commenting on the overdose death of Glee-star, Corey Monteith. He spoke mostly about how nobody beats addiction; they endure through it and fight it on a daily basis. Writing, “Booze and drugs are elemental; they don’t care about the alcoholic/addict. They don’t love her, they don’t hate her, but they’ll kill her dead if she doesn’t stand arm in arm with her brothers and sisters and GET HIP to the skill set that will allow her to continue to draw breath in a world where booze and drugs exist.”
He said before his show, “Maybe the few people that my experiences in life could possibly help, maybe it’s good that it’s coming from a more oblique angle than that therapist I just made up.”