Iliza Shlesinger
speaker
495 appearances
4 recordings
3 series
first heard Nov 2024
last heard Apr 2025
Iliza Shlesinger’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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Appearances
Like that's how bad it is.
And I need like if there's I want to answer fans and I want to do that stuff. So let me know at the end of the week what I can answer. But I can't. I have like a very I'm a big like put your head down, get the work done kind of person. We tried taking it off the phone. I keep reinstalling it and I've never been addicted to something.
So in a couple ways, for me, it's less about the insecurity and it's more about combating weaponized ignorance and stupidity. So somebody's like, you're not funny. I'm like, okay, well, my houses that I own dictate otherwise. But I know only male athletes are allowed to talk like that. Me and Deion Sanders are like...
but it's more something deeply problematic and anti-Semitic, or it will be something deeply trying to be hurtful about being a woman, or it'll be something just so out of bounds that doesn't hurt my feelings. I get angry that that person like thought that they were worth, like, how dare you think that you're allowed to speak to me that way? And so it doesn't hurt my feelings, it's an anger.
And so that's harder because if it hurts your feelings, you're like, okay, why does it hurt my feelings? Let's look at that with anger. Then I start sweating. And then I find myself like on a Turkish Instagram page at one in the morning after doing a gig in Toronto, just like hitting C translation over and over.
We have a flight in three hours. Like, you have a family at home.
Unwinnable. And I am the kind of person that thinks you can win every fight, not in a like, I told you so, but in a I deeply think like, oh, if I can just say the intelligent thing, surely they'll come around. And so I forgot the other part of the question, but I don't. I'm doing my, oh, you were talking about the social media of it all. It is hard.
I mean, if you're watching sports, right, you need to keep up with it. This new world of content and being forced to make it, it's amazing for so many reasons.
um and it's kind of like your pleasure is your poison like i used to love filming funny sketches and stuff like that but now and my team's doing their job when they're like hey could you do a collab with someone sometimes that person's great and sometimes you're like i don't know who this person is and like they're not a performer they just happen to get famous and now you've got to create this and so you're taking time away from something that you might otherwise be doing because all of a sudden like overnight
creating this perfect hour of polished stand-up isn't enough.
Well, so therein lies the silver lining. Because if you intellectualize it, you can say it was always there. They just didn't have the internet. Racism was always there. We just didn't have the internet. Information about anything you ever wanted to know was always there. It just wasn't in the palm of your hand. So the good news is it was always there. It's not going anywhere.
The bad news is it's not going anywhere. And so it's about really learning how to calibrate. And I'm saying this as if I'm doing it. I'm doing my best to do it. I do not have a handle on this. And the content, you know, you... I don't think people fully internalize that when you look at something, it doesn't matter if you like it because you looked. It's almost like a horror movie.
You looked at it. Now you're part of it. And so you hate watch stuff or you look at stuff that's stupid or you just out of curiosity want to see something. But that is still a view which translates to money. So the boring, inane, the stupid get more successful. And plenty of successful people who are funny get more successful. But like the internet has killed curiosity.
Because once I look, now I'm part of this system and now it will serve me more of that even if I've decided I didn't like it. Like I'm good with Bella Hadid videos. Like that's cool that I clicked once to look at her shoes, but like now I got to look at this woman all the time.
There's no choice because to object to it renders you a dinosaur. Then you're the person just like doing their stand up and like doing this. Oh, the kids, you know, you have no choice. Like the best comics always evolve. You know, even in your material, you don't want to be 50 talking about like having sex with 20 year olds. Like it's cringy, as the kids say.
And so I think it's all about like, what's the authentic way? Because at the end of the day, a lot of us are artists versus just creators, you know, and you can call art whatever you want. But what's the way that I can engage with this that feels authentic and good to me? Maybe I won't see exponential growth, but at least at the end of the day, I will feel good about what I did.
That's just the way that I wrestle with it, you know, but I do not. I think there's a lot of bitterness out there about the people who have like figured out something on the Internet and they have, you know, they're filling arenas or they're making millions of dollars. At the end of the day, it is a meritocracy. And so you may not like that comedy, but the audience does.
And that's just as valid as a perfectly crafted, bespoke, you know, 45 minutes of stand up. It's just that's what it is. There's no reason to be bitter about it.
I mean, anybody who knows me knows that I have a very clear-headed opinion, and it stems from the idea that because you're a Jewish person, you should not be beaten up on the street. simply because you're Jewish. That's what I've always stood for. Even if you didn't like, even if you hate Israel, I mean, we don't like China, but you don't see Chinese students getting beaten up.
We don't like Russia. I don't see any bricks going through the Russian delis in West Hollywood. But people have gotten very comfortable with exacting like very harmful revenge on everyday Jewish people. So that's insane. And even in standing for that, people get mad at me.
Showing 361–380 of 495 · page 19 of 25
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