stand-up comedy and social media
A powerful tool for some montreal comedians
Renzel dashington at The Comedy House in Montreal (Photo: Lucas Sodano)
About two years ago, I was doing photography for a group of comedians in Montreal. At the time I did not have any sort of experience with a camera and I did not really know what I was doing, but the opportunity fell in my lap and I agreed to work for free and took it as a learning experience. My job required me to film and take pictures at their shows and create content for social media: clips of some of their jokes and promo videos, that sort of thing.
Even though the pictures and the videos I took did not turn out so good, It was a good introduction to photojournalism. I learned a lot from that experience and not only on the technical aspect. Having the privilege to follow these artists for a couple of shows was such an insightful experience. I noticed right away that the vibe backstage was very light hearted and relaxed. So much so that it kind of made me wish I was a comedian and a part of their team too for a moment. It was evident that they had been friends for a long time and that they came up as comedians together. They were joking and laughing with one another, but were still focused on their goals and what they had to do. It was very interesting to see these comedians in a different setting and witnessing their workflow. I was used to seeing them on stage doing their thing, being funny in front of a crowd. Now I got to see them brainstorming ideas, talking about business and administrative stuff and chilling on a couch preparing for their show.
One of the things that struck me was how serious social media was for them. When I heard comedians Oussama Fares and Charles Brunet talk about the content they were going to publish like new ideas for sketches or what jokes they wanted to convert into reels, I understood it was an integral part of a comedian’s work and essentially what took them from small comedy clubs to larger venues like Le National. They all seemed very confident in their vision. They seemed like knew where they were going and their level of focus was striking to me. This experience was very revealing to me. I got to see how creating and posting content, building an audience and promoting your work and upcoming shows seemed crucial if you have any hope of making it in the industry nowadays.
Stand-up comedian and activist Renzel Dashington also relies on his Instagram profile to promote his work. Posting funny and sometimes controversial reactions to current events and videos, doing Instagram lives, and using his tribune to speak up on racial issues have been a significant part of his career. On top of all of this, during the COVID pandemic he hosted a show on the platform that ran for over 200 episodes, each of which could last between 1 to 2 hours . As a member and co-founder of the collective Bad Boys du Rire, Dashington often includes promotional footage of his stand-up work at the end of his short videos. He has been doing stand-up comedy in and outside of Montreal both in French and in English over the years and has become very popular because of it, especially among Montrealers. Renzel has over 30k followers on Instagram and his show C.Koi le Baille during the pandemic has generated 3.5 million views.
Others like Montreal-born and New-York-based comedian Daniel Tirado, mainly post clips from their live shows. While their social media presence is not as significant, these clips of selected jokes still go a long way and are used as teasers to invite people to go see the whole performance. Therefore, they are still able to do self-advertising for free, even if they are not as active on social media as comedians like Renzel Dashington.
I, for one, have benefited a lot from these comedians’ active presence on social media, especially during the COVID pandemic as my brain’s need for entertainment and distraction was at an all time high. I have had the chance to discover many talented comedians on Instagram and Youtube, without having seen them live (yet). I believe we have entered a new, fascinating era of entertainment that is revolutionizing the industry of stand-up comedy from the comedy clubs to the marketing and booking agencies. Montreal has been known for decades as a hub for stand-up comedy, thanks in great part to Just For Laughs, which to this day remains the biggest comedy festival in the world. JFL was the main road that comedians could take to make a living from their art and gain fame.
The city is also praised for its comedy clubs like Le Bordel, The Comedy Nest and the Montreal Comedy Club (Comedyville) and for its renowned appreciation of stand-up comedy. L’école nationale de l’humour has also been, since 1988, a very important institution for French-speaking comedians. They offer comedic writing, improvisation classes and even social media or podcasting lessons which speaks of the impact that these new media are having on the industry. The school was the main channel for new comedians to enter the industry.
Although it used to be almost the only way to success and sort of established a certain level of gatekeeping, we are finally feeling a wind of change. Years ago, before YouTube and social media, it was a lot harder for new comedians to make it in the industry. The only other way to get any sort of recognition for their work was to perform in comedy clubs and needless to say it is not always so easy to stand out, let alone get booked in these places. Today, it is a different story. New comedians can launch their careers from home before even performing live in front of an actual crowd. Platforms like Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, Youtube, etc. allow them to post reels of their performances, create sketches and perform live comedy from home while interacting with their fans.
Lots of comedians are also invited to podcasts such as Sous-ecoute, hosted by stand-up comedian Mike Ward, or Le Podcast des Personnages, where French-speaking comedians come up with a character and keep up the performance for the duration of the episode. Some of them even launch their own podcast and then post clips from it later on their social media platforms. Quebec has a very significant scene when it comes to comedy and the number of stand-up comedians has exploded thanks to these platforms. The province is home to over 300 French-speaking comedians and according to Alexandre Vigneault from La Presse, Quebec has seen a 144% increase in the number of comedy shows in the last 20 years. In 2024, Patrick Rozon, CEO and artistic director of Zoofest, mentioned that Montreal hosts around 140 comedy nights.
However, this rapid increase in the number of performers poses a new problem: saturation. An incredible number of comedians are now competing for the spotlight and there are only so many comedy clubs in the city. Perhaps we need to open new clubs, create more events and festivals to generate more opportunities and exploit this comedy boom.
To better understand the situation, I explored the subject in-depth with Renzel Dashington, a Montreal-based comedian of Haitian descent who uses the internet in many different ways. We talked about his experience as a comedian, how the internet has impacted his career, what changed from when he started, and where he thinks the industry is going.
I met with Renzel (@renzel.dashington) at Cafe Pista on Saint-Laurent on a cloudy friday afternoon. I get there early to set up and prepare for the interview. Many Montrealers will agree that finding an accessible coffee shop that is not perpetually full of people can be a challenge. Cafe Pista is spacious enough and mostly attracts the occasional student who goes there to study and write essays. A soft playlist and the noise of the baristas making coffee makes for an ideal background. I set myself up in a little spot with a sofa and a coffee table. Renzel walks in shortly after and orders a coffee and a muffin before sitting down with me. Our initial conversation subjects were about his one-man show Activiste malgre moi, about the different venues in Montreal and about the industry in general before getting into the subject of the internet and social media.
Renzel Dashington has been working in show business for over 20 years and before being a stand-up comedian he worked in the music industry as a manager, producer and executive producer. At the beginning of his career, he worked a lot with Corneille, a popular Canadian singer from Rwanda who debuted his career in the 2000s. He also dabbled in television production behind the scenes. Renzel has been doing stand-up for seven years now. While he has mainly been performing in French, he has recently been working more in English and mentioned that he aims to tackle the British scene.
When asked about the way comedians use social media, Dashington said: “It depends because people use it differently. Most of them are bad at it.” I can see where he’s coming from. When I was doing research for this article, I found that on many comedians’ Instagram pages or TikTok accounts, they only posted a couple of clips from their shows and open mic performances, but that was about it. Only a few of them harness its full potential. His explanation for that was also interesting. “What people don’t know about comedians, especially in this era in comedy, most comedians are not good with people. We are general weirdos” As someone who is not too good with people either, I can understand how hard it can be to cleverly use social media to reach out to the public. It takes a lot of work and skills to use this tool to your advantage as an artist.
For Renzel, social media is like a gym in some ways, especially so during the pandemic. It allows him to try out new material, test jokes and interact with people.
“I use the internet to talk to people,” he says, “because there’s some things, thoughts, ideas that will probably never exist on stage. So, it’s almost as if it’s a draft.” He leans forward in his seat. “I discovered this during the pandemic. I did three hours speaking to myself. Like I was at an open mic and gauging laughs with a 30-second delay. I was working through ideas.”
He explains how performing on Instagram Live changed his relationship with silence, which can be a comedian’s worst fear. Even for the audience, silence in a stand-up comedy show is often awkward.
“At first, the hardest thing is silence. Because either you’re talking or people are laughing. In my mind, that’s how it works. So when I spent all this time during the pandemic doing a lot of Lives, talking with myself/to myself and punching, my relationship with silence changed totally. My relationship with saying something and letting it land, letting the moment take its time, because sometimes people understand things differently and then that creates other moments. So I owe that to the internet.”
This period allowed him to work on his one-man show and be able to extend his stage time.
“Pre-pandemic, [...] I was working on my hour, I was like, ‘I don’t know how I’m going to do this,’ because like the stamina and just... you know you can do an hour but you lost people like half an hour in.”
But, the comedian explains, coming out of the pandemic, he feels comfortable performing for an hour without losing the audience because of social media.
Renzel is also an activist who uses his social media platforms to speak out on racism and give a voice to the people who need it. Among other things, every year he participates and organizes the Marathon sur le profilage racial with Radio-Canada and Clinique Juridique St-Michel, which is a 24-hour live event where racialized people come speak on their experiences regarding racial profiling. Oftentimes, in the industry, people recognize him more as an activist instead of a comedian. People also tend to dismiss his work in comedy because of his activism and this has impacted his career, which is unfortunate. He was even surprised to hear that I first heard of him as a comedian rather than an activist. He has been working tirelessly to help people while simultaneously working on his career as a comedian. Renzel explains that this has also had an impact on his ticket sales and that social media has helped him navigate through that in some ways.
“The thing the internet has afforded me is to organize. For me, it was also a learning curve because I'm also an activist. I talk about black issues, human issues, I get seen a lot through that. A lot of people know I'm a comedian, but actually, their experience of me was of anything but comedy. So I was filling up rooms, but I feel I wasn't filling up rooms as much as I should have for the amount of people who know me. You know, like the Bad Boys du Rire thing. When I started we were doing about 5-600 a month and years later we’re doing like 900. I feel we should be pushing people out the door because we're doing 3000 a month.”
After almost an hour and a half, we concluded what had been a very enriching discussion. I thanked him for taking the time to meet a young media student trying to put his first article together. He told me he was glad to do it. From what I understand, it was not the first or the last time he gave his time to students and young people. After he left the coffee shop, as I was gathering my gear, I was thinking about everything we discussed and I felt like, while this confirmed many ideas I had about the industry, our conversation also changed my perspective on some aspects. Having the opportunity to talk to someone who is directly involved was very insightful.
After our interview, and just as I was about to put the finishing touches on this feature article, what Renzel qualified as a ‘protection umbrella institution’ in Montreal for comedians, Just For Laughs, announced that they were cancelling their 2024 edition and filed for creditor protection. This raises uncomfortable questions about the active evolution of the stand-up comedy scene in Montreal. Just For Laughs has been one of the most important institutions for the industry and a worldwide festival where many popular comedians like Kevin Hart have made their debuts. This is definitely a tough loss for the city, but it is gonna be interesting to see the direction that the industry will take after this. I think this can be a good opportunity for comedians with ambition like Renzel Dashington and his collective Bad Boys du Rire to rise up and take the spotlight. I think comedians like him have the potential to change a lot of things and higher levels in the coming years. It would be very exciting to see a collective such as Bad Boys du Rire take more space in the industry. We also need to keep a close eye on Renzel Dashington as a comedian, because I think he will be doing exceptional work over the next few years and we might soon see him perform in other countries like the UK or the US.
Sources:
Noakes, T. C. (2022). How just for laughs made montreal the comedy capital of the world. Cult Mtl. Retrieved 2024, from https://cultmtl.com/2022/07/how-just-for-laughs-made-montreal-the-comedy-capital-of-the-world-jerry-seinfeld-rowan-atkinson-mr-bean-margaret-cho/.
Renzel Dashington. Gala Dynastie. (n.d.). https://www.galadynastie.com/nommees/renzel-dashington
Destrempes, M. (2019). Les bad boys du rire : quand l’entrepreneuriat et la diversité culturelle se rencontrent. Le Journal de Montreal. Retrieved 2024, from https://www.journaldemontreal.com/2019/04/12/les-bad-boys-du-rire--quand-lentrepreneuriat-et-la-diversite-culturelle-se-rencontrent.
Indongo, N. (2024). Le Bad Boy du Rire: Renzel Dashington. cbc.ca. other. Retrieved 2024,.
Notre histoire. École nationale de l’humour. (2021, May 18). https://enh.qc.ca/a-propos/historique/
About Us. Just For Laughs. (n.d.). https://www.hahaha.com/en/about-us
Sodano, Lucas. Personal interview, 23 February, 2024
