Maybe it's that you are...scared?

Why you will be seeing a lot more of me on Instagram, Tik Tok and Youtube

If you want to watch Fool Proof a special I recorded at Soho Playhouse in May of 2023 it is right here to rent or buy on amazon prime. FOOL PROOF: A Tragedy Special

Hi there reader…I had on my to do list for Monday and now Tuesday to write the best update and mission statement of all time and cover what I have been up to the past few months and what my plan is the next few months…but I think this will now resemble more of a blog post / journal entry than a beautifully crafted essay. And therein lies the rub I have been dealing with ever since I started doing comedy and writing in 2010. I only ever want to share the stuff that is really really really GREAT and CRAFTED and HONED. And to be honest, there is nothing wrong with that but it has lead me to an interesting crossroads, basically, I don’t have that many people to share those well crafted honed things with, because I have not really spent a ton of time cultivating an audience the way a lot of modern comedians do, through podcasts, Tik Tok or Instagram or Youtube.

It is not like I am sitting around doing nothing, I have 5 full complete comedy specials. I have been to Edinburgh Fringe 3 times. I just finished a year on tour with After Endgame that culminated with an amazing sold out off broadway run. I am out there doing stuff. But then it comes time to work on an instagram reel and my heart sinks and I get down because it’s not what I thought I signed up for. The one thing that I have always loved is writing here on Substack and the messages and comments I get when I publish something, so I am going to be writing here a lot more.

But this was the realization I had a few days ago, after I finished my most recent show. Part of the reason I have been avoidant to share things on the internet is out of fear. For years I have made excuses like ‘oh my comedic style is not good in short form clips’ and then I just clipped out one of my favorite jokes from The 30 Year Old Virgin and put it up on Tik Tok and Instagram and it did incredibly well, 25,000 views + 600 new followers in a day with a ton of comments, one of them said ‘This is Mike Birbiglia level delivery. Well done. Solid Bit.’

I put out my second comedy special Diary of a Bald Kid, it’s on Amazon Prime, go check it out. And I made a profile for it on Letterboxd an app where people can review films, here is one of the reviews from a user named John

‘1 star. Wonder how much the crowd got paid to have to laugh.’ Well, John ACTUALLY, people paid $15 to attend the special taping they were NOT paid. But I am sure the cameras put a little extra pressure on them to laugh, I will give you that.

My haters and my lovers

But I am no longer scared to put myself out there. I really have not been for a while but I have been busy! (did you see that excuse just leak from my fingers involuntarily).

So I will be writing here on substack a whole bunch and also…I am going to be putting out every single bit of comedy I have ever made between now and October 13th, that is my 40th birthday.

That means every old set (starting from 2010), every old joke, every clip from my specials, it will either be on here, tik tok, instagram, youtube. That is 6 months to put out everything.

So much of it is really great stuff that I am excited to not have sitting on a hard drive anymore and some of it will be something that is ok but that I want to share with the world and I bet sometimes I won’t know which is which! One of the Letterboxd users said ‘He kinda doesn’t have any set up for his jokes he just…say them’ and he gave me a half star, so I don’t think he liked that aspect of my comedy but to be honest I like that review because I have been doing comedy for 15 years and sometimes I don’t like setting up a joke, I like to just say them. Which is the positive side of the way I have handled my comedy trajectory…part of the reason I have not spent a decade working on my instagram, tik tok and youtube followings is because I have been performing all over New York City and the world, hundreds and hundreds of shows. Thousands and thousands of hours. And it’s been so incredibly fun and I think some of the material I have developed has so far exceeded what I ever thought I would be able to write. That doesn’t mean I think I am amazing or a genius, I just think I am better than I ever thought Kevin Doyle would get at comedy. I feel very fortunate to be able to been able to pack out so many shows without Mark Zuckerberg’s assistance and without the watchful eye of the internet changing my perception of myself before I found my voice.

I think a lot of people feel this way about putting ‘content’ out there. It can make you self conscious and scared and lame and it even feels disheartening to even look at some work you crafted and created now be referred to as content. Well, I have felt that way in the past as well, so if you are a writer or a musician or a comedian or filmmaker I would encourage you to not let that hold you back from sharing your work because someone needs to hear or read your work.

So I will have more live shows in the future, which is what I love most and will continue to do forever but in the meantime I will be giving you all a chance to see all my jokes and stories on your phones and computers.

Now…if that was the end of the story and my entire new mission, I would be quite depressed. The reason I feel so thrilled and excited to be on INSTAGRAM AND TIK TOK MORE…is because I am working on a new story, that is not for socials, not for entertainment. It is very close to my heart and expresses some of the deepest fears and anger and confusion I have ever experienced and it may be a story to build a show around or it may just be a 10 minute story for the RISK podcast. That is who I recorded the rough draft for. It is a story about church, God, divorce, reconciliation, disappointment, death and cancer. It’s not a real algorithm buster!

So….my next post after this one…is going to be a few questions for you and context from me and the entire 12 minutes of audio of a story I have never worked on before. I just read it into my voice memos app and you can listen to it and let me know what you think so far.

Here is a pic of me finishing this substack and being excited to write more here: