street roots
8
j
June 6,2014
Nerd
alert!
Chris Hardwick, the
comic behind Nerdist
Industries, brings his
stand-up act to Portland
BY SUE ZALOKAR
)?STAFF WRITER
Z ^ h r i s Hardwick is the quintessential
nerd — with benefits. He is also a
stand-up comedian, actor,
screenwriter, musician, podcaster, television
host and voice actor. Though he lives in Los
Angeles now, he claims roots in Louisville,
Ky. Kids of the '90s might remember him as
one of the original hosts of MTV’s “Singled
I
Out ” alrm ff
.
the late night, improv com edy show
..
information. How
much they will try
to understand
somèthirig more
than anyone else.
How deep down
rabbit holes they’re
willing to go and
how much they’re'
willingtodévote &
r
midnight” on Comedy Central and
| interviews guests on AMC’s “Talking Dead,”
the hour-long live talk show in which
Hardwick discusses “The Walking Dead”
episodes with various people..
Four years ago he started The Nerdist
Podcast *- a weekly interview show “about
what it really means to be a nerd.” What
started as an hour-long podcast - in whieh,
as Hardwick will tell you, he basically talked
people he wanted to meet into doing his
show - has evolved into Nerdist Industries,
a network of podcasts, a premium content
YouTube channel, a news division (Nerdist
News), and a television version of the |
original podcast produced by and aired on
BBC America.
Hardwick will be in Portland for five
shows at the Helium Comedy Club, 1510 SE
9th Ave., June 12 though 14. The man is a
little busy these days, to say the least. I was
able to catch up to him the weekend after
the movie “X Men: Days of Future Past” hit
the box office. I assumed that, like any good
nerd, he would have seen it already. I was
wrong.
Chris Hardwick; I haven’t seen ityet
because I haven’t stopped working for the
last month. I was on the set of “The
Walking Dead” for the first part of the week
and now I’m in Salt Lake City. I just literally
have had not time between travel and work.
S u e Zalokar: Describe nerd culture
C.H.; I don’t see it as the accidental
qualities of what people think of as our
culture in terms of “this person likes this
comic” or “this sci-fi show or film,’’ so that
makes him a nerd.
Nerds tend to like those things, I think
nerds tend to like things that involve fantasy
and imagination and science and science-
fiction just because nerds are imaginative.
I think that the thing that makes
someone a nerd is how they process
S.Z.: For our readers
who m ight not have seen
your show, “@ midnight,”what
can they expect when they tune
in?
C.H.: “Jeopardy” with dick jokes?
S.Z.: I watched a bunch o f segments last
night. I was laughing my ass off.
C.H.: If has the engine of a game show
with die soul of a British panel show, It’s
basically a reason to get three comedians
together to screw around and use internet
culture as source material.
S.Z.: How has Social media influenced
comedy and vice versa?
C.H.; Not just as ,a source to draw
comedy from, but it’s also changed the
way that comics interact with the world. In
the '80s there were a million comedy
shows on every channel. It was very easy,
all the comedian had to do was just do the
circuit of all the TV shows and people
would watch the shows, liked them and
would go see them live. When that all went
away... if there hadn’t been podcasts or
social media, those wete just things that
comics found to survive. That was our
evolution. That was our proto mammals
crawling out of holes and trying to find ways
to survive and evolve. That was the best
way to communicate with our audience.
Finally a paradigm that didn't involve a
large, corporate entity telling you whether
or not you could communicate with people.
It didn’t just change fot comedy, it’s
changed for anyone who wants to put
something into the world.
S.Z.: You have a segment on © m idnight
called tthashtagwars. W hat do you think
about the ftnotallmen tiyesallwomen hashtag
See HARDWICK, page 9
PHOTOS BY ROBYN