Latest news with #NishKumar
The Guardian
03-08-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Nish Kumar looks back: ‘My parents had to bribe me with Crunchies and Batman pens to stay in school'
Born in 1985 in Tooting, London, Nish Kumar is a comic and presenter. He started standup while at Durham University and has twice been nominated for best show at the Edinburgh comedy awards. He fronted topical comedy news series The Mash Report and co-hosts political podcast Pod Save the UK with the journalist Coco Khan. He takes his show to the Edinburgh festival fringe this month. This picture was taken at our house in Croydon, and I'm sitting opposite a ThunderCats book. At five, the central pillars of my life were ThunderCats and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. I was obsessive about the things I loved and I didn't have a good distinction between reality and fantasy. During one intense period of SuperTed fandom, I even called my mum Spotty. The hair is quite telling in this photo. My parents have clearly tried to comb my curls into a neat side parting, but a few minutes later it would have sprung back up again. This totally encapsulates my childhood: everything about me was unruly. My dad is an ordered man and had no idea how he birthed such a child. On more than one occasion he has said, 'If you didn't look so much like me, I'd have assumed your mother was having an affair.' As a strange, loudmouth, slightly geeky child who loved to read, I was precocious in all the wrong ways. After my first day at school, Mum said, 'How was it?' I replied, 'Yeah, it's pretty good. I don't think I'll be going back. An interesting experience but not my thing.' They had to bribe me to keep going. Crunchie bars, Batman pens, whatever it took to get me through the gates. I found it hard to make friends, mostly as I was really young in my school year, but also because I was a dweeb, happy in his own world. As a teenager, I was a real piece of shit. Half my teachers found me deeply irritating; the other half encouraged my 'audible engagements' with their attempts to educate me. One even told my parents I was going to be the first non-white prime minister. I have no idea what that was based on, but my parents took it as a solemn promise. When I turned out to be a comedian, they were like, 'Well, this product has not met its guarantee.' As I got older, I worked out that making other people laugh was a way I could connect and ingratiate myself into wider society. At university I joined the Durham Revue, which is where I met Ed Gamble and Tom Neenan. They were enterprising people and decided they were going to set up their own comedy night. They hired the upstairs of a local bar and, without asking, signed me up for one of the first shows. I was awful for the first five years of standup, but slowly the momentum built. It's only because I met that group of people and had the space and time to experiment at university that I now have this job. There were many years where I had to balance being a terrible temp worker, doing data entry and photocopying for the Central Office of Information, with gigging. But by September 2013 things were going well and I could leave office work behind. By the time I got on TV, I was 30 and felt well-adjusted enough for the ruthlessness of the industry. I did Have I Got News for You and Live at the Apollo, and even though some people would get wound up by my political jokes, I was prepared to face criticism for my comedy and prided myself on my resilience. But nothing could have prepared me for the ferocity of the feedback when The Mash Report came out. That inbuilt resilience took me up to about 2019, when I started getting death threats. Then it evaporated. It was then that my friend Brett Goldstein and my partner Amy [Annette] told me to see a therapist. I'm not sure what they noticed in my character to suggest it's what I needed, but it was possible I had stopped being able to manage my emotions. I was reluctant at first – I thought I could withstand anything and that needing therapy because my dream job was stressful would be indulgent. But I was wrong. Because as well as being incredibly arrogant, I have generalised anxiety, and that period of my life was the most relentless buildup of pressure. The media coverage, in retrospect, was beyond hysterical. The show became a kind of proxy battle about the BBC and political balance. Some people said, 'Nish Kumar is a threat, and the BBC has to get rid of him' and others said, 'No one's watching this show.' I kept thinking, 'Both of these things can't be true.' On top of that, there were newspaper columnists who did not believe that someone of my skin colour should be able to have an opinion on the operation of the British government, and that any criticism I expressed was a form of ingratitude. Sign up to Inside Saturday The only way to get a look behind the scenes of the Saturday magazine. Sign up to get the inside story from our top writers as well as all the must-read articles and columns, delivered to your inbox every weekend. after newsletter promotion When I was a kid, my parents – like the parents of most ethnic minority kids – would constantly tell me, 'You need to keep your head down. Stay safe, get a proper job.' I thought it was because they lacked imagination, but my mum arrived in England in 1973, when the National Front were on the streets. It wasn't that my parents didn't 'get me' and my creative ambitions – they just wanted me to be a lawyer or doctor because it's harder for them to kick you out of the country when that time inevitably comes. One of the best things my therapist has said is, 'People who are children of immigrants have to realise their parents are both paranoid and correct.' I grew up surrounded by a level of anxiety that was disproportionate but not unfounded, and coming to terms with that has really been the lesson for me. That's not to say I regret doing the job I've done or making the jokes I've made, but maybe I was naive about how personal the response to me on TV would be. Now I'm in a much better place: I did a treatment programme for post-traumatic stress disorder because my brain had internalised the death threats, and my support system includes a mental health professional. It also helps that I have so many good people around me. From being a kid who struggled to make friends, I now realise how fortunate I am to be surrounded by my partner and a peer group in comedy that really have each other's backs. We all came up at a time when there were lots of opportunities, and instead of trying to destroy each other on panel shows, we were supportive. Not because we are especially virtuous people, but because we were very sociable, and if you were a dick to a comedian on Mock the Week on Wednesday, it would make X person's birthday drinks pretty fucking awkward on Friday. Sometimes, on bad days, I feel as if I have let my younger self down. Like I've fallen short of my ambitions for the type of person I wanted to be. Then, on better days, I think, 'All I wanted to do was get inside the TV, and I've done that.' Because, deep down, I am still that obsessive, strange, loudmouth geek. All that's different, really, is the beard and grey hairs.
The Guardian
03-08-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Nish Kumar looks back: ‘My parents had to bribe me with Crunchies and Batman pens to stay in school'
Born in 1985 in Tooting, London, Nish Kumar is a comic and presenter. He started standup while at Durham University and has twice been nominated for best show at the Edinburgh comedy awards. He fronted topical comedy news series The Mash Report and co-hosts political podcast Pod Save the UK with the journalist Coco Khan. He takes his show to the Edinburgh festival fringe this month. This picture was taken at our house in Croydon, and I'm sitting opposite a ThunderCats book. At five, the central pillars of my life were ThunderCats and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. I was obsessive about the things I loved and I didn't have a good distinction between reality and fantasy. During one intense period of SuperTed fandom, I even called my mum Spotty. The hair is quite telling in this photo. My parents have clearly tried to comb my curls into a neat side parting, but a few minutes later it would have sprung back up again. This totally encapsulates my childhood: everything about me was unruly. My dad is an ordered man and had no idea how he birthed such a child. On more than one occasion he has said, 'If you didn't look so much like me, I'd have assumed your mother was having an affair.' As a strange, loudmouth, slightly geeky child who loved to read, I was precocious in all the wrong ways. After my first day at school, Mum said, 'How was it?' I replied, 'Yeah, it's pretty good. I don't think I'll be going back. An interesting experience but not my thing.' They had to bribe me to keep going. Crunchie bars, Batman pens, whatever it took to get me through the gates. I found it hard to make friends, mostly as I was really young in my school year, but also because I was a dweeb, happy in his own world. As a teenager, I was a real piece of shit. Half my teachers found me deeply irritating; the other half encouraged my 'audible engagements' with their attempts to educate me. One even told my parents I was going to be the first non-white prime minister. I have no idea what that was based on, but my parents took it as a solemn promise. When I turned out to be a comedian, they were like, 'Well, this product has not met its guarantee.' As I got older, I worked out that making other people laugh was a way I could connect and ingratiate myself into wider society. At university I joined the Durham Revue, which is where I met Ed Gamble and Tom Neenan. They were enterprising people and decided they were going to set up their own comedy night. They hired the upstairs of a local bar and, without asking, signed me up for one of the first shows. I was awful for the first five years of standup, but slowly the momentum built. It's only because I met that group of people and had the space and time to experiment at university that I now have this job. There were many years where I had to balance being a terrible temp worker, doing data entry and photocopying for the Central Office of Information, with gigging. But by September 2013 things were going well and I could leave office work behind. By the time I got on TV, I was 30 and felt well-adjusted enough for the ruthlessness of the industry. I did Have I Got News for You and Live at the Apollo, and even though some people would get wound up by my political jokes, I was prepared to face criticism for my comedy and prided myself on my resilience. But nothing could have prepared me for the ferocity of the feedback when The Mash Report came out. That inbuilt resilience took me up to about 2019, when I started getting death threats. Then it evaporated. It was then that my friend Brett Goldstein and my partner Amy [Annette] told me to see a therapist. I'm not sure what they noticed in my character to suggest it's what I needed, but it was possible I had stopped being able to manage my emotions. I was reluctant at first – I thought I could withstand anything and that needing therapy because my dream job was stressful would be indulgent. But I was wrong. Because as well as being incredibly arrogant, I have generalised anxiety, and that period of my life was the most relentless buildup of pressure. The media coverage, in retrospect, was beyond hysterical. The show became a kind of proxy battle about the BBC and political balance. Some people said, 'Nish Kumar is a threat, and the BBC has to get rid of him' and others said, 'No one's watching this show.' I kept thinking, 'Both of these things can't be true.' On top of that, there were newspaper columnists who did not believe that someone of my skin colour should be able to have an opinion on the operation of the British government, and that any criticism I expressed was a form of ingratitude. Sign up to Inside Saturday The only way to get a look behind the scenes of the Saturday magazine. Sign up to get the inside story from our top writers as well as all the must-read articles and columns, delivered to your inbox every weekend. after newsletter promotion When I was a kid, my parents – like the parents of most ethnic minority kids – would constantly tell me, 'You need to keep your head down. Stay safe, get a proper job.' I thought it was because they lacked imagination, but my mum arrived in England in 1973, when the National Front were on the streets. It wasn't that my parents didn't 'get me' and my creative ambitions – they just wanted me to be a lawyer or doctor because it's harder for them to kick you out of the country when that time inevitably comes. One of the best things my therapist has said is, 'People who are children of immigrants have to realise their parents are both paranoid and correct.' I grew up surrounded by a level of anxiety that was disproportionate but not unfounded, and coming to terms with that has really been the lesson for me. That's not to say I regret doing the job I've done or making the jokes I've made, but maybe I was naive about how personal the response to me on TV would be. Now I'm in a much better place: I did a treatment programme for post-traumatic stress disorder because my brain had internalised the death threats, and my support system includes a mental health professional. It also helps that I have so many good people around me. From being a kid who struggled to make friends, I now realise how fortunate I am to be surrounded by my partner and a peer group in comedy that really have each other's backs. We all came up at a time when there were lots of opportunities, and instead of trying to destroy each other on panel shows, we were supportive. Not because we are especially virtuous people, but because we were very sociable, and if you were a dick to a comedian on Mock the Week on Wednesday, it would make X person's birthday drinks pretty fucking awkward on Friday. Sometimes, on bad days, I feel as if I have let my younger self down. Like I've fallen short of my ambitions for the type of person I wanted to be. Then, on better days, I think, 'All I wanted to do was get inside the TV, and I've done that.' Because, deep down, I am still that obsessive, strange, loudmouth geek. All that's different, really, is the beard and grey hairs.
Yahoo
27-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
British Comic Nish Kumar on How YouTube Helped Him Achieve Success Outside of the U.K.
British comic and podcast host Nish Kumar knows the value of Netflix specials for A-listers like Chris Rock and Dave Chappelle. But he sees emerging comedians like himself with slow-burn careers often getting their biggest boost globally from YouTube after years playing clubs big and small back home. 'I'm primarily known in North America because of a British show called Taskmaster, which people outside the UK watch on YouTube,' Kumar told The Hollywood Reporter while performing at the Just For Laughs comedy festival in Montreal. More from The Hollywood Reporter 'In the Land of Arto': Camille Cottin, Zar Amir Ebrahimi Journey Into Armenia and Its Past (Exclusive Clips) Why Stand-up Legend George Wallace Can't Get Off the Stage After 49 Years in Comedy: "I'm Living My Dream" Former Obama Speechwriter Jon Lovett on How Trump Is Funny Like a "Clown With a Gun" Re-runs of Taskmaster, a British comedy panel game show that included Kumar, have been viewed on YouTube as creator-driven online platforms increasingly disrupt the traditional media landscape, and podcasts like Crooked Media's Pod Save the UK, which Kumar co-hosts with cultural journalist Coco Khan, transform the audio space. The podcast gig followed Kumar appearing on stage at a live London comedy show produced by Crooked Media, which was followed by that proverbial chance call from Hollywood. Soon after he walked off stage, he got a call from Los Angeles asking if he could be at a meeting in London in 20 minutes. 'And I was like, I'm already there. I'm literally in the audience. So I got pulled out of the crowd like Courteney Cox in the 'Dancing in the Dark' video,' Kumar recalled. Later, Crooked Media asked if he'd be interested in launching and hosting a British show, which he did. Kumar's Pod Save the UK offers a weekly fix on U.K. politics. That means Kumar and co-host Khan got to cover the downfall of British prime minister Boris Johnson over his rule-breaking parties in No. 10 during the COVID-19 pandemic. 'In terms of historic failures of leadership, I think Johnson's conduct in the pandemic is one of those things that people will study for years,' Kumar says. But while the U.K.'s Conservative Party sent Johnson packing, Kumar has a take on why Donald Trump, also judged by many as a political buffoon whose erratic style endears him to followers, was restored to the White House for a second term. 'Trump has killed the broad church in the Republican Party. It's no longer a political party. It's a delivery system for a single man and that's a huge problem,' he insists. As Nigel Farage, a protégé of Trump, challenges Britain's current Labor government in the polls, Kumar doesn't look forward to his Reform UK party coming to power to reinvigorate his political comedy. 'The thing with (Farage) and Trump is there is a shamelessness. It actually makes it harder to make fun of them. Politicians in theory are supposed to conduct themselves with a level of dignity that means there's something to prick for principles. Farage and Trump are congenitally shameless men,' Kumar said. The Just For Laughs comedy festival continues through Sunday. Best of The Hollywood Reporter Hollywood's Most Notable Deaths of 2025 Harvey Weinstein's "Jane Doe 1" Victim Reveals Identity: "I'm Tired of Hiding" 'Awards Chatter' Podcast: 'Sopranos' Creator David Chase Finally Reveals What Happened to Tony (Exclusive) Solve the daily Crossword
Yahoo
22-07-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Comedian Nish Kumar on why Trump isn't actually 'good' for comedy: 'He's not one of your crack smoking mayors'
Nish Kumar reflects on political satire, social media and the evolving global reach of stand-up comedy ahead of his Just For Laughs shows in Montreal LONDON, ENGLAND - MAY 21: Nish Kumar attends Day 1 of The Podcast Show at the Business Design Centre on May 21, 2025 in London, England. (Photo by Alan Chapman/) As the Just For Laughs comedy festival continues this week, shows from comedian Nish Kumar are sure to be a highlight of the Montreal summer staple. While Kumar sells out stand-up shows around the world, and for good reason because he's one of the best, he said that he has a "sentimental fondness" for taking part in a festival. "The shows are always really good fun. ... There's an international circuit of comedians that do these things, that do Montreal, that do Edinburgh, that do Melbourne, and ... it's a really great opportunity to catch up with some friends, and also get to see some cool stuff as well," Kumar told Yahoo Canada. "I watch a lot when I'm in town and I've seen some unbelievable shows." This isn't Kumar's first time in Canada this year. The British comedian was doing a show in Toronto in February, just as U.S. President Donald Trump's tariffs came into effect. ADVERTISEMENT "That was a particularly febrile time," Kumar recalled. "I think I was hoping that things might have calmed down a little bit, but obviously they were never going to calm down." "It's a fascinating experiment in what happens when a country, for seemingly no reason, out of nowhere, reverses centuries of diplomatic relations with its neighbour, with whom it shares a land border." Kumar's February show was also just months before Canada's last election, which saw Mark Carney get elected prime minister after previous holding the position of Governor of the Bank of England. "It obviously is very strange for a British person that Mark Carney is [the Prime Minister]. I know he's Canadian intellectually, but to me he only exists as a character in British news from 2016 and 2017," Kumar said. Nish Kumar: Trump isn't good for comedy But while some have frequently assumed that Trump is "good" for comedy, Kumar stressed that "he's not." ADVERTISEMENT "He's not one of your crack smoking mayors, ... the idea of regionally powerful politicians that make national news for being buffoons is maybe something that I can see as being good, but with Trump ... he poses this huge existential threat. Especially with his total hostility to climate science," Kumar highlighted. "I think what you have to try and find the balance with is engaging with the seriousness of what's actually going on and what the ramifications of a lot of these guys are, and also ... you're trying to find the balance between jokes that make people laugh. ... If it looks like you're not taking it really seriously enough people will just will get annoyed. I don't think the people that I'm performing to are interested in hearing like, he says 'bigly,' or look at him, isn't he orange. I think if I went out and did that kind of stuff the people that I'm performing to would be furious. I'm always trying to thread that balance between jokes that are funny, but also engage with the seriousness of the stuff that a figure like Trump is capable of." What that has also meant is that Kumar has to be especially adaptable to respond to what's happening in the world, U.S. politics, Trump and beyond, which he's been able to navigate with real finesse. "Since 2016, I've always kept a bit of room in my shows for stuff to change constantly," Kumar said. "You try and make sure that ... 80 per cent of the show is set in stone, ... and then the other 20 per cent you have to be loose and you have to keep writing while you're touring." "The silver lining of that is that you're never bored with the show. I've had to kind of retool the show as I've been touring, because I've been touring it for nearly a year now, and so that 20 per cent has just changed." LOS ANGELES - FEBRUARY 29: AFTER MIDNIGHT, airing Thursday, February 29, 2024, with host Taylor Tomlinson. Pictured: Nish Kumar. (Photo by Sonja Flemming/CBS via Getty Images) The good and the bad of social media A big shift in comedy consumption around the world has been things like social media and podcasts allowing people to get exposure to comedians they otherwise wouldn't engage with, also helping to create an invested audience for things like comedy festivals, as Kumar highlighted. ADVERTISEMENT "I think the internet is sort of supercharging these things, rather than taking away from them," he said. "A British comedian of my standing 20 years ago would not have been able to casually come to Canada and America and sell out tour shows, that didn't exist. It's only because of the internet and podcasting and Taskmaster, specifically. ... I think there's a lot of negatives that it has for our industry and the art form more broadly, but from a perspective of getting people to come to shows and live comedy and festivals, I think it's actually really helped." But engaging on the internet, specifically on social media, can be a tricky exercise, with Kumar describing his relationship with the platforms as "not always healthy." He has spoken about receiving death threats for years. "I think the problem with it is that it's not exclusively bad," Kumar said. "I'm grateful to the internet and social media for what it's done for my career in terms of the live audience. I think in terms of having access to everyone's opinions about a thing that you've made is not always conducive for getting it made. Having the ability to see what every single person thinks of you can, at points, be paralyzing and I've definitely gone in waves with it." "I don't want to praise him ever, really, but the one thing I will say is Elon Musk buying Twitter has been really great for me, because it means that I've stopped using it, I think like for a lot of us. ... It's like a reverse Raiders of the Lost Ark, where he just opened this box and just Nazis went everywhere. And I think that, that had made a lot of us examine our relationship with it. Is this all part of a long game for Elon Musk's attempts to improve all of our mental health? No, it definitely isn't. But I genuinely think there's something fundamentally unhealthy about all of it." Kumar stressed that Canadian Naomi Klein's book "Doppelganger: A Trip into the Mirror World" has "rewired" his brain in terms of engaging more critically with how he conducts himself on social media platforms, and more "empathetic" to "victims of these algorithms," while angrier about the perpetrators. ADVERTISEMENT "There's this illusion that's been created that we've got a lot of critical thinking applied to what we would call legacy media, or mainstream media," Kumar said. "And that's good and healthy. And we should have been considering who the gatekeepers were the whole time. ... However, there is a flip side to it, which is we have lost the ability to realize that there are gatekeepers to the internet, and you'll see people say, 'Well, you've got to question everything' and then repost something about, for example, the COVID vaccine that they've engaged absolutely no critical thought to at all." "There's this idea that social media platforms are purely democratic and if something is blowing up on social media it's just a pure exercise of democracy. And again, that doesn't really take into account the algorithms that govern these websites, and the fact that it's not necessarily qualitative, it's just that you've done something that games the algorithm in a particular way." From his evaluation of politics, societal structures and beyond, Kumar continues to be one of the best and essential voices in stand-up comedy. Nish Kumar has shows on July 23 and July 25 at the Just For Laughs comedy festival in Montreal
Yahoo
22-07-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Comedian Nish Kumar on why Trump isn't actually 'good' for comedy: 'He's not one of your crack smoking mayors'
Nish Kumar reflects on political satire, social media and the evolving global reach of stand-up comedy ahead of his Just For Laughs shows in Montreal LONDON, ENGLAND - MAY 21: Nish Kumar attends Day 1 of The Podcast Show at the Business Design Centre on May 21, 2025 in London, England. (Photo by Alan Chapman/) As the Just For Laughs comedy festival continues this week, shows from comedian Nish Kumar are sure to be a highlight of the Montreal summer staple. While Kumar sells out stand-up shows around the world, and for good reason because he's one of the best, he said that he has a "sentimental fondness" for taking part in a festival. "The shows are always really good fun. ... There's an international circuit of comedians that do these things, that do Montreal, that do Edinburgh, that do Melbourne, and ... it's a really great opportunity to catch up with some friends, and also get to see some cool stuff as well," Kumar told Yahoo Canada. "I watch a lot when I'm in town and I've seen some unbelievable shows." This isn't Kumar's first time in Canada this year. The British comedian was doing a show in Toronto in February, just as U.S. President Donald Trump's tariffs came into effect. ADVERTISEMENT "That was a particularly febrile time," Kumar recalled. "I think I was hoping that things might have calmed down a little bit, but obviously they were never going to calm down." "It's a fascinating experiment in what happens when a country, for seemingly no reason, out of nowhere, reverses centuries of diplomatic relations with its neighbour, with whom it shares a land border." Kumar's February show was also just months before Canada's last election, which saw Mark Carney get elected prime minister after previous holding the position of Governor of the Bank of England. "It obviously is very strange for a British person that Mark Carney is [the Prime Minister]. I know he's Canadian intellectually, but to me he only exists as a character in British news from 2016 and 2017," Kumar said. Nish Kumar: Trump isn't good for comedy But while some have frequently assumed that Trump is "good" for comedy, Kumar stressed that "he's not." ADVERTISEMENT "He's not one of your crack smoking mayors, ... the idea of regionally powerful politicians that make national news for being buffoons is maybe something that I can see as being good, but with Trump ... he poses this huge existential threat. Especially with his total hostility to climate science," Kumar highlighted. "I think what you have to try and find the balance with is engaging with the seriousness of what's actually going on and what the ramifications of a lot of these guys are, and also ... you're trying to find the balance between jokes that make people laugh. ... If it looks like you're not taking it really seriously enough people will just will get annoyed. I don't think the people that I'm performing to are interested in hearing like, he says 'bigly,' or look at him, isn't he orange. I think if I went out and did that kind of stuff the people that I'm performing to would be furious. I'm always trying to thread that balance between jokes that are funny, but also engage with the seriousness of the stuff that a figure like Trump is capable of." What that has also meant is that Kumar has to be especially adaptable to respond to what's happening in the world, U.S. politics, Trump and beyond, which he's been able to navigate with real finesse. "Since 2016, I've always kept a bit of room in my shows for stuff to change constantly," Kumar said. "You try and make sure that ... 80 per cent of the show is set in stone, ... and then the other 20 per cent you have to be loose and you have to keep writing while you're touring." "The silver lining of that is that you're never bored with the show. I've had to kind of retool the show as I've been touring, because I've been touring it for nearly a year now, and so that 20 per cent has just changed." LOS ANGELES - FEBRUARY 29: AFTER MIDNIGHT, airing Thursday, February 29, 2024, with host Taylor Tomlinson. Pictured: Nish Kumar. (Photo by Sonja Flemming/CBS via Getty Images) The good and the bad of social media A big shift in comedy consumption around the world has been things like social media and podcasts allowing people to get exposure to comedians they otherwise wouldn't engage with, also helping to create an invested audience for things like comedy festivals, as Kumar highlighted. ADVERTISEMENT "I think the internet is sort of supercharging these things, rather than taking away from them," he said. "A British comedian of my standing 20 years ago would not have been able to casually come to Canada and America and sell out tour shows, that didn't exist. It's only because of the internet and podcasting and Taskmaster, specifically. ... I think there's a lot of negatives that it has for our industry and the art form more broadly, but from a perspective of getting people to come to shows and live comedy and festivals, I think it's actually really helped." But engaging on the internet, specifically on social media, can be a tricky exercise, with Kumar describing his relationship with the platforms as "not always healthy." He has spoken about receiving death threats for years. "I think the problem with it is that it's not exclusively bad," Kumar said. "I'm grateful to the internet and social media for what it's done for my career in terms of the live audience. I think in terms of having access to everyone's opinions about a thing that you've made is not always conducive for getting it made. Having the ability to see what every single person thinks of you can, at points, be paralyzing and I've definitely gone in waves with it." "I don't want to praise him ever, really, but the one thing I will say is Elon Musk buying Twitter has been really great for me, because it means that I've stopped using it, I think like for a lot of us. ... It's like a reverse Raiders of the Lost Ark, where he just opened this box and just Nazis went everywhere. And I think that, that had made a lot of us examine our relationship with it. Is this all part of a long game for Elon Musk's attempts to improve all of our mental health? No, it definitely isn't. But I genuinely think there's something fundamentally unhealthy about all of it." Kumar stressed that Canadian Naomi Klein's book "Doppelganger: A Trip into the Mirror World" has "rewired" his brain in terms of engaging more critically with how he conducts himself on social media platforms, and more "empathetic" to "victims of these algorithms," while angrier about the perpetrators. ADVERTISEMENT "There's this illusion that's been created that we've got a lot of critical thinking applied to what we would call legacy media, or mainstream media," Kumar said. "And that's good and healthy. And we should have been considering who the gatekeepers were the whole time. ... However, there is a flip side to it, which is we have lost the ability to realize that there are gatekeepers to the internet, and you'll see people say, 'Well, you've got to question everything' and then repost something about, for example, the COVID vaccine that they've engaged absolutely no critical thought to at all." "There's this idea that social media platforms are purely democratic and if something is blowing up on social media it's just a pure exercise of democracy. And again, that doesn't really take into account the algorithms that govern these websites, and the fact that it's not necessarily qualitative, it's just that you've done something that games the algorithm in a particular way." From his evaluation of politics, societal structures and beyond, Kumar continues to be one of the best and essential voices in stand-up comedy. Nish Kumar has shows on July 23 and July 25 at the Just For Laughs comedy festival in Montreal
