It’s been a busy time, and I haven’t been able to write — but I’d feel like I was doing a disservice if I didn’t say something.
Before our Tuesday show at Mackay, a fellow comic showed me one of the videos that’s been circulating. My initial reaction was immediate: that’s not something we would ever do at Comedy on Mackay. Social media suicide. I dismissed it right away as another example of how businesses misuse AI — something I’ve seen happen repeatedly until their ventures eventually folded. I brushed it off because, frankly, it wasn’t my show, not my problem. Then it was brought to my attention again — this time by another comic — that the video had been created using Sora, OpenAI’s new text-to-video model. For those unfamiliar, Sora generates realistic, cinematic footage directly from written prompts. In other words, you can describe a scene, and Sora will create a moving image of it. However, Eva Alexos from The Kickback posted an argument that made me think more deeply. This isn’t about business models or branding — it’s about what makes comedy so profoundly human: the humans themselves.
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 Quinn Lague performing at the Open Mic at Comedy on Mackay There are a lot of reasons why people do standup comedy.
Some do it for the pure joy of short-form storytelling—turning life’s absurdities into something others can relate to. Some do it for the attention. Some use it to process the horrific and the terrific—to reclaim their story. For me, it’s the last one: reclaiming my narrative.
Doing stand-up comedy is one of the most vulnerable things you can do on stage. Now, imagine doing it in a second language — where the rhythm, timing, and slang don’t always land how you practiced them in your head. That’s not just vulnerability — it’s linguistic bungee jumping.
Not many people know this about me, but I speak eight languages: Tagalog, English, Portuguese, Spanish, French, German, Chinese, and Italian. That’s what happens when you live in Europe for eight years and collect languages like Pokémon. But fluency isn’t permanent — it fades if you don’t use it. And when I decided to write and perform my first comedy set in Spanish, one of my favourite languages, I felt all that rust loud and clear. In comedy, hecklers are a known risk. Some are positive hecklers—overexcited audience members who just want to be part of the fun. They act like rowdy cheerleaders, trying to hype the comic up, even if it’s disruptive.
Then there are negative hecklers—people who bring hostility, insecurity, or straight-up aggression into the room. Their interruptions aren’t meant to be funny or helpful—they’re designed to throw a punch, metaphorically (and sometimes literally). They create a toxic energy that can make even the most hardened comics glance toward the exit.  You ever watch a comedy show so bad you start questioning your own taste in friends for inviting you? Like, “Damn, did I really go to college with you and sit through this set where a guy just lists types of soup for five minutes?” That’s not just a bad night. That’s what happens when mediocrity becomes the norm. And let me tell you, in comedy, mediocrity isn’t just tolerated—it’s booking gigs.
 Dawn Ford performing at Comedy on Mackay. Sometimes as comedians, we walk away from a show where everyone bombed — the comics, the crowd work, the energy in the room — and we console ourselves by blaming the audience. “Tough crowd tonight,” we say, nodding in solidarity, as if we were all helpless passengers on a sinking ship.
But here’s the uncomfortable truth: sometimes, it’s not the crowd. Sometimes, the root of that flat, uncomfortable, or low-energy night comes down to how the show was hosted.  Photographer: Eric Spicely (@spicewonder) One of the best things about stand-up is that there’s no one way to be funny — and thank God, because if I had to write like Seinfeld or shout like Sam Kinison, I’d have quit ages ago.
Still, I meet so many new comics who ask, “What’s my voice?” like it’s something you pick off a shelf. The truth is: voice comes from trying, failing, and figuring out which style of funny feels like home. So let’s talk about the different kinds of comedy styles out there — and what it actually means to “have a voice” in stand-up.  Saba Jakeman, co-producer and co-host of Comedy on Mackay with audience members. There’s a unique kind of anxiety that creeps in five minutes before showtime when half the chairs are still empty. For comics, that silence hits differently. We start doing mental math: Did I post enough? Should I have made a reel? Did my followers ignore this one? Is this my fault?
 "You're doing great."
I hear it a lot. From comics, from audience members, from people who genuinely love what we’re building at Comedy on Mackay. And I know they mean it with love. They’re rooting for us. But what people don’t always see is that ‘doing great’ often means doing everything.  It’s a question I keep coming back to.
What is good comedy? Not just funny comedy. Not just crowd-pleasing, brand-safe comedy. But good comedy — the kind that lingers, that stays with people for the right reasons. The kind that respects the room without playing it safe. The kind that hits you in the gut, but still makes you want to come back for more. |
AuthorTina Cruz (@tinatellsjokes) is the founder of Comedy on Mackay—named one of Montreal’s top 5 comedy nights by CultMTL—and a seasoned performer making her FringeMTL debut this summer. Archives
October 2025
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