Most people thought that COVID would forever harm the stand-up comedy industry. Kyle Kazanjian-Amory, the CEO and founder of Don’t Tell Comedy, isn’t most people.
“Since COVID, there’s never been a better time for stand-up,” Kazanjian-Amory told TheWrap. “Social media democratized comedy. You don’t need these traditional industry gatekeepers in order to have a career. You can really carve out your own path — it’s just a lot of work.”
Making that process less demanding is baked into the DNA of his stand-up events company. Inspired by Sofar Sounds, Don’t Tell Comedy only reveals the dates, neighborhoods and price of their shows. In exchange for roughly $25, the company promises an intimate and curated stand-up lineup from some of the best local and touring comedians in the area. The result is a show that blends rising talents, under-appreciated local comics and established names. The show TheWrap attended paired Michael Rowland, a comedian with under 20,000 followers on Instagram, with veterans like Godfrey and Janeane Garofalo.
But Don’t Tell Comedy goes beyond just offering a surprise night of laughs across over 200 cities. Because the company films and posts its performers’ 10-minute sets, it also helps the social media feeds of its participants. That’s a major value add during a time when a viral TikTok can make someone’s career and comedians are often being asked to be their own director, social media manager and promoter in addition to writing jokes.
Kazanjian-Amory came to the world of stand-up honestly. A lifelong fan of the medium, he was working as an accountant at Green Hasson Janks in 2017 when he started going to open mics. He quickly became “obsessed” with stand-up, volunteering everywhere from the basement of pizza shops to clubs to get more stage time. The more he worked at these venues, the more he learned what made a good — and bad — comedy show.
When he put on the first show that would launch Don’t Tell Comedy, he had no intention of making a business. Kazanjian-Amory just wanted to put on a good show.
“We weren’t charging for tickets when I started [in 2017]. I invited friends. There was a hot tub next to the stage,” he said. The lineup for that first show included Sam Jay, who went on to release specials for both HBO and Netflix. But as these events continued, demand increased. By the third show, Kazanjian-Amory and his collaborators started to charge a cover fee just to control capacity. That’s around the time he realized there was more to this idea than he originally thought.
Two years after Don’t Tell Comedy launched, Kazanjian-Amory felt the company was starting to become financially stable. That’s when COVID hit, decimating live events. While it forced Kazanjian-Amory to move back in with his parents, the global pandemic also increased the user base of an app that took his company to the next level: TikTok.
“We got really lucky with the timing of it all,” he said. “We had filmed a couple things before the pandemic, and we released some clips on TikTok, and they did super well — millions of views. That was definitely the inspiration to then later, at the end of 2021, start filming some of the shows.”
Don’t Tell Comedy’s social media success has expanded past its feeds. Comedian Ralph Barbosa was a barber in Dallas who had about 4,000 followers on Instagram before he performed a set for Don’t Tell Comedy. Now he has 1.4 million followers, a HBO special and a Netflix special after his clips generated “over 100 million views.” Similarly, “Saturday Night Live” cast member Emil Wakim used his Don’t Tell tape for his NBC audition.
The company even produced Hannah Berner’s widely watched Netflix special “We Ride at Dawn.”
“We’re trying to create that pathway where we can elevate comedians to eventually get to Netflix or Hulu and get a longer form special,” Kazanjian-Amory said. Here’s how this upstart company has been shaking up the stand-up world by ditching the rules and embracing social media.
What’s the vetting process like to figure out your comedic lineup?
I would say 90% of people that are running our shows are comedians, often one of the better comedians in the local scene. We’ve vetted them and have gone through this onboarding process where we’re saying, “This is the level of quality that we want to go for. We want to be known as one of the best shows in every city.”
Our whole business is built on trust. [The comedians] trust us. We trust them that they’re going to come and deliver. And then our producers, we trust that they’re going to put on a great show and that they’re going to be thoughtful about the experience … It’s how we’re able to find overlooked comedians like Susan Rice in Portland, Oregon, or Andy Huggins in Houston. We’re actively doing shows in all these places.
How are you looking at the future of stand-up comedy right now?
Social media has really put power in the hands of comedians to be able to connect with their audiences and their fans directly, which is really cool. So I expect that to continue. Comedians are building really strong fan bases that don’t need to be 20 million people. You can have 10,000 [or] 100,000 fans and make a solid living. That’s awesome, and I think that’s going to continue.
There’s going to have to be platforms that elevate comedians. That’s what we’re hoping to do is build the biggest discovery platform for comedians to help launch people’s careers. We’ve done it with these 10-minute sets, and we’re actually about to launch our first series of half-hour specials. Who knows? Maybe we’ll even start doing hours, and we’ll be competing with Netflix on the stand-up front.
What’s cool now is there are some comedians who I think would get more out of doing a Don’t Tell set on YouTube than out of doing a Netflix special because of the power of social media. The paycheck for a Netflix special isn’t what it used to be. The value in people’s eyes is it’s going to be a billboard for me to then tour around the country; that’s how comedians make money. But if we can, through social media, elevate comedians and drive more fans than could be driven through Netflix, then it starts to become a no-brainer to work with us over a streamer.
Do you ever see a future where the big splashy HBO or Netflix special becomes a bit more obsolete?
I’m not sure. Right now, there’s been a huge shift to putting stuff out on YouTube. It used to be a little bit more looked down upon. Comedians of a certain level would be like, “I’m not going to put something out on YouTube.” Now it’s super acceptable and thought of as a great way to build your fan base.
I think it’s going to be up to streamers. Can they pay comedians enough to make it worth putting them on their platform? And even if so, the downside is [viewership]. With some of the other streamers outside of Netflix and Hulu, it’s like, who’s going to watch that? … What’s unfortunate is it feels like some of the big platforms, they really focus on celebrity comedians and are so worried about who has the biggest following to drive the most people to subscribe to our platform, which is not a way that you build a sustainable model and build a reputation of of putting on great people.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
