As part of a running series on comedy based in New York versus Los Angeles this week, Vulture has a great piece out today by Chris Gethard where the comedian and Fusion host explains why, despite how many of his friends and collaborators have moved to Los Angeles to find huge success in recent years, he’s ultimately decided to stick around in New York instead. It’s an insightful look at one comedian’s take on the ideas of career success, personal success, happiness, and the differences between Los Angeles and New York – the latter of which, Gethard argues, forces people to “stumble into surprises” every day, while LA “is a town where opportunities and jobs and other peoples’ lack of struggles are in your face all the time.” Here’s an excerpt:
But to me, there’s one fate that’s even worse. From time to time — and not as rarely as you might think — I see a friend go to Los Angeles to chase it. And on their way out the door they’ll say something to subtly imply that by moving west they’re also moving upward — and that by staying I’m moving, in a sense, downward. Then they go and they crush it. They become high-profile. Their face is known, they get stopped in the streets, they get booked on talk shows, and everything they hoped would happen when they moved to Los Angeles happens. But they’re miserable. Because none of that shit is all that fun, and all the success in the world didn’t chase away the demons that fueled the insecurities that led to the need to chase that fame-framed validation in the first place.
Read the rest over at Vulture.
