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I Hate Myself

Joe List

YouTube · 2020 · 56 min

An anxious club comic's tight hour on travel and everyday dread.

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Joe List is an anxious man who has built a career out of explaining exactly how his brain betrays him. His first hour-long special relies on this hyper-focused, self-deprecating neurosis, zeroing in on the dread of mundane interactions. The peak of this anxiety is the airplane, where he spends a significant portion of the set explaining that his fear of flying isn’t about dying in a crash—it’s the horrifying prospect of having to talk to the stranger sitting next to him.

The set was recorded on March 2, 2020, at the Village Underground in New York City, just ten days before the pandemic shutdown. Because of that timing, the heavy focus on travel instantly turned the show into a strange time capsule. List, a veteran road comic who spent most of the year touring, released the hour directly to Comedy Central’s YouTube channel that August. Beyond the flying anxiety, he targets the dental industry, the casual use of the term OCD, and the impossibility of sleeping in a middle seat. Audiences praised the hour for its high joke density and smooth transitions, cementing List’s reputation as one of the club circuit’s most reliable writers.

The set list

5 bits

  1. People saying they 'are OCD' rather than 'have OCD'

    Explores the grammatical quirk of identifying as the condition itself, imagining people doing the same with other ailments such as introducing oneself as 'genital herpes' or 'Gen for short.'

  2. People making loud noises when yawning on airplanes

    Frames audible yawning as a calculated, desperate bid for attention to bait fellow passengers into asking about their fatigue and hearing their life story.

  3. The potential fraudulence of dental cavities

    Expresses paranoia over dentists insisting that invisible, painless cavities must urgently be fixed.

  4. Flight attendants waking passengers to offer a can of soda

    Muses on how bizarre it is to disrupt sleep with a can of Coke, joking about adopting that routine at home to spice up dreams.

  5. Getting separated from his wife after being upgraded to first class

    Gladly accepts the upgrade despite separation from his wife, only to end up in a lie-flat bed shoulder-to-shoulder with a stranger watching When Harry Met Sally.

How it plays

Tone
Irritable, sarcastic, self-deprecating, and observational.
On stage
Unassuming, bespectacled New York comic with sincere, self-deprecating humor, dealing with open social anxiety and irritable analysis of ordinary situations.
Pace
Punchline-dense cadence marked by conversational rhythm, comfortable club delivery, and seamless topic transitions.
About
air travel, anxiety and mental health, Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD), dentistry and cavities, marriage and relationships, sleeping

What the critics said

Praised by critics as an astute, punchline-dense showcase of observational comedy that revitalizes familiar topics through sharp, irritable analysis and authentic self-deprecation.

In the room: An intimate, receptive crowd of about 250 people at his home club, responding warmly to his relatable gripes and sincerity.

Summed up from reviews, articles and listings. Sources: cbsnews.com, bostonglobe.com, allmovie.com, ultrasimi.blogspot.com, letterboxd.com, vanyaland.com, en.wikipedia.org, imdb.com.

Backstory

Taped on March 2, 2020, at the Comedy Cellar just days before the COVID-19 pandemic prompted a nationwide shutdown of live entertainment and New York City.

Details

Released
Taped
Comedy Cellar, New York
Runtime
56 min
Where
YouTube
Director
Jason Katz
Topics
Before
The Standups (2018)
After
This Year's Material (2022)

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