“You know, I think I might be famous in Pakistan,” says standup comedian Finlay Christie. In 2019, Christie became the youngest winner of So You Think You’re Funny? and now, at just 22, is honing OK Zoomer, his first hour-long set ahead of the Edinburgh festival fringe. But people in Pakistan don’t know Christie through his award-winning standup, and that’s not how I came across him either. I first saw his sketches on TikTok, the social media platform that has become a shop window for British comedians, and where he’s racked up 174k followers and counting. Content on the platform primarily takes the form of 15- to 60-second videos: hardly enough time to deliver a proper routine, but more than enough for a video sending up everything from the corniness of 90s sitcoms to the emetic tone British ads adopted in the pandemic. (“For all the zeros and NHS heroes – Britain, here’s one for you.”) This simple formula bears little relation to traditional standup comedy, but it has worked wonders for Christie: “My videos spread to other platforms without me knowing,” he says. “One got posted on Reddit, and Al Jazeera got in touch asking if they could show it.” TikTok began as a boredom cure for the young comic. “I just got addicted to the app,” he says. “At one point I was spending eight hours a day on it.” It quickly became an outlet for his old standup ideas and a space where he could exercise total creative control. “The best stuff is all online, because it doesn’t have to be OKed by loads of different people,” says Christie. “Stuff on stage has to be punchline-heavy; the laughs have to be in an obvious place, whereas videos can be generally amusing.” OK Zoomer examines his generation and, in his own words, “why everyone seems so depressed and nihilistic all the time”. “Why wouldn’t we be?” he says. “We grew up accepting the world is fucked.” One 19-year-old fan’s reaction to the show says it all: “People think we’re all snowflakes. Finlay proves that we’re not.” Herein lies the distinction between the two comedy worlds. On one side, the traditional storyteller, leading the audience to a punchline. On the other, the young creatives behind a ring light making relatable videos packed with references to internet memes, pop culture and their inner anxieties. Before comedy went online, its natural home was the open-mic night or smoke-filled club. Success would mean a tour or Edinburgh fringe show, and then, if you truly made it, arena tours and TV. But social media has disrupted the industry, allowing audiences to preview comics in 15-second increments or 280-character musings before ever seeing their routines. And TikTok is the real gamechanger, with acts going from the phone screen to TV screen without having to hone their act on the circuit. This shift has provoked a mixed response from established comics and industry experts. “If you write a sitcom, or have three comedy specials, or do a tour, you have more substance, in my opinion,” says Duncan Hayes, executive producer at United Agents. Historically, comedians won these coveted commissions by proving their acts worked on the road, which meant at least two years of regular gigging and often a lot more. This often had a homogenising effect; riskier bits can be more trouble than they’re worth and the live environment can be hostile towards certain acts, particularly women and people of colour. For comedian and podcast host Samantha Baines, 34, not only is gigging “an expensive hobby” until you make it, but the live environment “got a bit scary”, given all the late finishes to shows and travelling solo around the country to perform. When she was offered a lift home from one show, it was in exchange for sitting on a male comic’s lap. When she won a comedy competition in an otherwise all-male lineup, the organiser joked it was “because of her big tits”. Post-Covid, Baines has retreated from doing standup and now hosts The Divorce Social podcast. “I did feel like even a few years before the pandemic I’d have to put my comedy armour on before a gig,” she recalls. Baines is deaf in one ear, and the live environment became “overwhelming, draining and stressful” for her. Subtitling is the norm on TikTok and Instagram reels, making the online environment far more attractive to the deaf community, in contrast to the lack of British Sign Language and captioning at live events, not to mention the number of venues still without accessible entrances. By amplifying new voices, TikTok is helping to foster a generation of comics who are not only more diverse but also more emotionally revealing, reflecting the influence of confessional online content. Like Christie, standup Ania Magliano, 24, found TikTok in the pandemic and has used it to grow her audience. Her Edinburgh show, Absolutely No Worries If Not, “is about family, being bisexual, and who I am, rather than a comment on society”, she says. “I think a lot of comedy is about perspective, and these are perspectives we haven’t heard on stage before. This isn’t the woke brigade saying we need one of everyone on every lineup – it’s just better comedy.” She acknowledges there are those in the industry who are dismissive towards comics who are “content creators first and then start doing comedy”, but she doesn’t think “social media comedy is less valid or less challenging”. However, not everyone in the industry shares this sentiment. Writing in the Spectator, seasoned comedian Geoff Norcott, 45, argued that “on Twitter, rewards are given for pithy humour and clear thinking. On TikTok, credit goes to someone nodding their head in time with their cockapoo.” Standup comic and GB News contributor Simon Evans, 56, is similarly sceptical. “It’s not actually been good for standup comedy,” he says. “I think there might be the capacity for some degree of confusion, or for people to be slightly deceived thinking this guy is a great comedian on TikTok and then it turns out the hour-long show isn’t the greatest.” Whether TikTok is a positive force in the industry is a matter of taste. But for an individual’s career there’s no question of its growing importance. No one understands this better than Nigel Ng, 31, who, after 10 years in comedy, “blew up in July 2020” after posting his first video in the character of Uncle Roger. This cantankerous caricature of a man is “who I would have become if I never left Malaysia”, says Ng. Uncle Roger’s cutting criticism of western attempts to cook Asian cuisine catapulted Ng into TikTok superstardom. “I’m fortunate enough to play to bigger rooms now,” he says, “and also perform in many more places around the world.” He is currently on his first international tour, the Haiyaa World Tour, having sold out venues throughout the UK, the US, Europe, Asia, Australia and New Zealand. Yet Ng is not one to rest on his laurels. “A fun little goal I have would be to sell out Madison Square Garden because the initials spell out MSG, the Asian cooking ingredient. Imagine that – Uncle Roger selling out MSG. “In this day and age, you can’t do just standup any more,” Ng says. For him, performing live and posting online go hand in hand, because “as a standup you go into content creation with very thick skin already”. In fact, he welcomes online hate. “Every time I get hate on the internet, it’s an opportunity to market myself. We work in the economy of attention, so that’s what our currency is.” The only thing worse than an onslaught of negative comments for a video, he suggests, would be to receive none at all. “[If you’re] bombing on stage people can boo you and you still have to do your time. What’s the worst on the internet? The thumbs down button?” Ultimately, performing live and producing content are almost entirely separate arenas, overlapping only in the simple fact that the goal remains the same: to make people laugh, and to help people forget about their lives for the length of a joke or routine. And yet no amount of online praise will ever beat the real thing. “A laugh is worth 10,000 likes!” says Ng. Given that he has more than 40m on TikTok alone, it’s hard to argue with that.