Rob Delaney, the 2012 Comedy Central-crowned “funniest person on Twitter” who is widely known for crossing the line on social media, fearlessly dove into taboo topics during his comedy show at the College on Tuesday, March 25, in Mayo Concert Hall.
The show opened with the all-student comedy troupe, The Mixed Signals, who prompted audience members to shout out words that would become the main focus of their completely improvised set.
Following their performance, Delaney flew out from back stage like a bat out of hell and immediately launched into a rant about how New Jersey isn’t all that bad, and the real dump is Long Island.
“I’m not saying this to appeal to you, I don’t care about you as individuals … I probably wouldn’t like a lot of you,” Delaney retorted.
Delaney often interacts with his more than one million Twitter followers, which he notes as sometimes coming with a creepy cost.
“Somebody got a tattoo with like my name, which really upset me. That made me really sad and upset and I hope no one ever does that again,” Delaney said in an interview with The Signal.
The comedian often incorporated his wife and two young children into his set, as many of his jokes stem from personal anecdotes about his life.
When asked if his kids find him funny, Delaney said, “Yes, but that’s not really a good gauge because the oldest one isn’t even three yet … they’re little children, they’ll laugh at anything, they’re little happy fun people.”
Oftentimes it wasn’t what Delaney was saying on stage, rather it was how he was saying it. His comedy was emphasized by his constant physical motion, excessive use of phallic imagery and sound effects.
After divulging intimate details about one of his sexual escapades in college at NYU, Delaney had the audience erupt in equal parts hysterics and repulsion.
The rest of the evening, Delaney tackled racism, homophobia and misogyny.
“Misogyny and sexism make me angry,” Delaney said. “When I was younger I tried them on for size, but then I saw my wife have people come out of her body and I was like ‘you’re fucking magic and I am nothing.’”
Delaney also made note of the strange homophobia featured in beer ads.
“You don’t need to incite hate crimes in your ads,” Delaney said. “Beer commercials should be seven seconds long. Beer. It still exists.”
Delaney is unapologetically himself and uses his blunt honesty to comment on the absurdities of our society.
Delaney will continue his antics this spring on tour and keep shooting vulgarities into the Internet. Here’s to the next million Twitter followers.
