Episode 21 — Who Listens To Earwolf?

[engineerdoug 6]

Our primary job with The Wolf Den is to inform our listeners about who we are. So who better to have as a guest than one of our smart, funny listeners? Natan is a graduate student at DePaul University and when he asked for help with a project we gave him one condition: We tape it and send it out! Hear what Jeff thinks of our listeners, competition, and brand as he is interviewed by a genuine fan.

[jklmr123 47]

I am just so upset at myself for not having an interview with you all when I finished up my MBA last year. But I thought this was a terrific episode and I'm glad you guys released it, the student did ask some very good questions that I had not thought of- I would love it if he could post his thesis on the website once it is completed.

[ProppaT 13]

Hey guys, this is all goofy. When you click play on this week's Wolf Den, it plays last week's episode...and the description here is for Affirmation Nation, not Wolf Den

[Vasectomist 3]

I have the same problem as Sam!

[engineerdoug 6]

Hey guys, are you still having the same problem? Is it the website, or are you using your iPhone? If your still having trouble, could you post a screen-shot showing your problem?

[Vasectomist 3]

@Doug - It's fixed for me (I'm using the site). Now I can listen to the new episode

[Vasectomist 3]

Smart kid. Just a note to Jeff - thou this was a very good episode, don't start recording all of you conversations cause you might get the 'Maron (or Nixon) disease' where people answer your phone call with 'are you taping this'

[CarolineEAnd 41]

The most interesting part of this episode for me was the defining of "comedy nerd." I've been referring to myself as one for years without having an actual definition. After ruminating on it, my definition is two-fold
-An individual who knows and cares about the culture and history of comedy (at least post-80's comedy boom)
-An individual who can observe and enjoy more than one joke at a time. As I've encountered non-comedy nerds who enjoy comedy, the main difference I've observed is that they don't get "the joke is that they're doing it" style jokes. I think that the common thread behind so much of "alternative comedy" is the meta-joke (Stella, Childrens Hospital, Mr. Show, Andy Daly, etc).

[Roy Ziegler 108]

I think comedy nerds are just people who see comedy as an art form, and therefore don't necessarily have a specific, narrow sense of humor but rather a broad range of kinds of humor they can find funny, because they are able to see the comedian's intention and execution of a joke. Rather than simply reacting to a joke with, "That's funny/not funny" based on their specific type of humor that they enjoy, comedy nerds are more analytical and respond to jokes with something like, "That was well done" or, "That was obvious and poorly delivered".

It's very similar to being a music nerd. Music nerds don't describe themselves as having specific "taste" in regards to genre or style of music, they just see good and bad music, derivative or inventive, skilled or unskilled playing, etc.