They Love Us, They Hate Us: Reacting to Comments on Our TEDx Talk

Are we a legendary duo or just lame, failed comedians?

A few months ago, I stood on stage with my brother to deliver a TEDx talk. The hard part was over—or so we thought. What we didn’t anticipate was how quickly the internet would decide to share its two cents.

Since the talk was published 9 days ago, a whole host of comments have been coming in—some supportive, some… less so. Sadly none of them are talking about how much funnier (and handsome-er) I am than my brother.

I know they say you’re not supposed to read the comments, but I can’t not, you know? So what are people saying?

The Good Stuff: “Thank God for Your Mom for Having You”

Let’s start with the love. We had people dropping gems like, “You guys are soooo funny! Thank you.” 

There’s nothing quite like validation wrapped up with confetti emojis. Another person said, “Love it! Thank God for your mom for having you.”

Mom, if you’re reading this—take a bow. Your decision to bring us both into the world has been validated by the internet.

And, one of the very first comments on the talk was quite the ego boost: “Collaboration of them is legendary. Very necessary TED talk.” 

I mean, we’re just trying to follow in the footsteps of other legendary duos—Lennon and McCartney, Batman and Robin, Mario and Luigi. If the world needed this talk, who are we to deny it the delightful discourse of Dave and Drew?

The Not-So-Good: “Failed Comedians Attempting to Attract an Audience”

But of course, the internet can also be a bit of a raging dumpster fire—sometimes it’s a warm glow, other times it burns you alive. And oh boy, were there some good burns. Take the comment: “Failed comedians attempting to attract an audience. Not funny & rather pathetic.”

Failed comedians? Ouch! Are you saying our mom, who tells us we’re funny, is lying to us? Also the worst part of this comment is that 5 people liked it! 5 other people read it and thought, “Yup, I totally agree with that.”

But here’s the thing: we weren’t trying to be comedians (that’s for my upcoming Dry Bar special). Yes we wanted to be humorous and make people laugh, but we were more focused on teaching these new personas of humor. Also “pathetic” feels a bit harsh, don’t you think? Let’s downgrade that to “mildly disappointing.”

Another commenter said, “Oh fun. A TEDx all about a lame style of comedy. It reminds me of people that try far too hard to be funny.” 

I mean since when is a joke about balloons and inflation lame? Oh, after the age of five? Okay, that’s fair… but that was only one joke out of many! My “thanks for having us” joke was good, I don’t care what anyone else says.

And who could forget the eloquence of @juiiuice, who simply wrote: “poo poo.” 

Ah, the brevity. Shakespeare could never.

Balancing the Love and the Hate

Here’s the thing—feedback is inevitable. It’s the price of putting yourself out there. You get the highs of being called “legendary” and the lows of being labeled a “failed comedian.” Some comments are well-thought-out and others, like “poo poo,” leave you questioning your (and the commenter’s) life choices.

At the end of the day, we take both the praise and the critique for what it is: feedback. As long as there are some people who resonate with our message, we’re going to keep going forward. We’re not going to let the internet derail us from our mission of teaching people how to bring more humor into their lives (even if some people consider it “lame”).

And for all the love that was shown, thank you. For all the criticism, we hear you—and we’ll either use it to get better or laugh about it with our mom (the real MVP).

If you haven’t checked out the talk to see what all the love (and hate) is about, you can watch it here. Have any questions about the talk, the topic, or the two of us? Let us know in the comments.

(an)drew

PS. We want to host a watch party with Q&A for the talk. Can you fill out a super-duper-mega short three-question survey about what time and day tends to work best for you for our virtual events?