Ryan Singer

Ryan Singer does not do detached irony. On stage, he operates with the wide-eyed intensity of a guy at a bus stop trying to explain the universe to you, anchoring that energy with the rhythm of a club veteran. He will start a bit on a standard observational premise, like the quality of fast-food milkshakes, and spin it outward until he is earnestly defending the sentience of plastic straws. He delivers these leaps with total sincerity, leaning into the microphone and speaking with a cheerful urgency.

He occupies a specific cultural slot as standup’s resident cryptozoologist and road-dog weirdo. He is the kind of comic other comedians champion, capable of headlining clubs across the country while maintaining the sensibilities of an alt-comedy basement. He leans heavily into his esoteric interests offstage, hosting a paranormal podcast and filming a special inside a haunted school. But when he has a microphone in his hand, the weirdness is just another tool to get to a joke.

Singer’s sets work because he refuses to rely on bitterness. He avoids self-pitying material, even when discussing his own flaws. When he talks about racking up thousands in credit card debt at a casino, he sounds just as enthusiastic as when he talks about aliens or reincarnation. He never treats his eccentricities as a temporary persona. He simply lays out his strange train of thought as a matter of fact, treating a belief in Bigfoot with the same casual tone another comic might use to complain about traffic.