Veronica Osorio is a comedian, writer, and actress raised in Venezuela and living in New York City. She performs regularly at the UCB Theater in New York with her Maude team (212), and she’s made and starred in a variety of web series and videos that you can find on her Youtube channel. On Twitter, Osorio writes under the handle @vaov. I recently spoke with Osorio about three of her favorite tweets plus capitalizing on trends, reading tweets out loud in a person’s voice, and naps.
Osorio: Well, I tried everything to get my boyfriend to look away from this game in which he is a band of bugs swarming around or some crap, and he wouldn’t. I showed him my best sexy dances and made little noises and bigger noises… nothing! Eventually, I thought if he was ignoring me so I feel like I got a free pass to tweet about it. He saw it later and I think he thought it was funny and got the message… not that he applies it.
When tweeting about real life stuff, are there certain areas that you draw the most from, or that you won’t even touch?
I think I don’t leave things out but I rarely feel inspired to tweet about relationship stuff. I like people-watching and bad interactions the most. I’m observing and guessing what people are thinking and why they are doing what they are doing all day, at a small scale too, a walking-down-the-street level. AND THEN Star Trek, because I just finished TNG back-to-back and I’m watching DS9 from the beginning.
Do you think there are jokes that are equally as good on Twitter and in person?
Yes! There are some but they are rare. Funny is funny but some tweets are cleverer, more laugh-inspiring on Twitter than in life, like they resonate more with people in written form but if you say them out loud people are thinking, “so snarky!” or, “Oh OK,” and that’s it. Sometimes I read tweets and I imagine the person saying it in their voice and tone and I just want to hear them say that out loud.
This is one of my favorite tweets, I think about it about twice a month I think. It was the time in which everyone was asking everyone to retweet things, and that thought just popped into my head and now it’s out in the world. Also we all believe in goats, I think, it would be crazy not to, so I got some sure RTs out of it, which I exchanged for a large sum of money in the Twitter headquarters, and now I needn’t to worry about a thing in my life.
What are your feelings on topical jokes, or generally keeping up with what’s current on Twitter?
I love seeing what people do with topical stuff, you can learn a lot about joke writing, you can search any topic and see what EVERYONE on Twitter has written about it. That way I gauge what the obvious jokes are. I personally like surreal humor a little more, however it’s so satisfying to nail a topical joke… hm I should try it more.
I had one of these days in which I napped three times and I felt like that should count for something, that takes a lot of effort and commitment. You sweat more when you nap and also get the weirdest dreams and wake up the thirstiest so… I feel like I was putting in some real effort. Maybe I was being a little self-congratulatory that day because I also thought writing that tweet was a huge “writing progress.”
What’s the longest amount of time you’ve spent on a tweet?
Oh God, in a row? Maybe an hour? But so many more get incubated in the drafts folder for a while before they even leave. Then sometimes I tweet the first thing that comes to mind about farts and I get more faves than ever.
What are your favorite and least favorite things about Twitter?
My favorite is when any of my friends just silently retweets something dumb someone else says, also imagining the people I read saying the tweets in their own voice. Personally, I like saying weird things and finding out, through favorites, who’s the crowd for that specific tweet. Even guessing, ahead of time, which of your friends will favorite it.
I don’t like: I wish I could spell check without deleting the whole tweet. Not only this is my second language but I’m dyslexic as hell so, that’d be awesome.
Jenny Nelson writes, lives in Brooklyn and works at Funny or Die.
