In an interview with The New York Times, Chris Rock explained why he’s been focusing more on acting than stand-up:
Honestly, I’m just trying to figure out how I’m going to do it. ’Cause the few times I’ve gotten onstage and thought about touring, immediately, stuff’s on the Internet, I’m getting calls, and I’m like, this isn’t worth it.
Stop, people. If your filming of Rock prevents him from performing, then you’re no longer doing a service to comedy fans by putting his sets on YouTube. To Rock, and his fellow comedians, there is a fear that it’s creating a culture where comedians can no longer work out material:
The sad thing, with all this taping and stuff, no one’s going to do stand-up. And every big stand-up I talk to says: “How do I work out new material? Where can you go, if I have a half an idea and then it’s on the Internet next week?” Just look at some of my material. You can’t imagine how rough it was and how unfunny and how sexist or racist it might have seemed. “Niggas vs. Black People” probably took me six months to get that thing right. You know how racist that thing was a week in? That’s not to be seen by anybody.
The rest of the interview is a must read. Rock talks about how Grown Ups is better than The Artist, the major difference between people complaining on Twitter and legitimate outrage, and how Louis C.K. is like Jimi Hendrix.
