Comedian Rob Delaney credits Twitter in part for his rise to fame as a comedian—and rightfully so. With 343,232 followers who retweet, favorite, and respond to nearly every tweet he posts, Delaney knows firsthand the value of telling a joke in 140 characters.
But spliced between the crude humor and outlandish statements, the 35-year-old father is just as quick to remind fans that when he’s on stage, it’s all an act.
Wednesday morning on Reddit, the comedian opened an IAmA (short for “I am a”) to help fans get to know the real Rob Delaney, the one who takes Lexapro and Cymbalta to combat the depression that he’s dealt with all his life—and the same one who met his wife when they were both volunteer counselors at a camp for people with disabilities.
“It was summer so she was in a bikini a lot,” Delaney noted. “She was/is very smart and kind and funny and beautiful so I wanted to marry her pretty much right when I met her.”
Delaney fielded fan questions for just over an hour, with topics ranging from his first days as a comedian (“My early experiences were fun and exhilarating but my jokes were shitty and top heavy and I cringe when I think about them”) to who he wants to win the 2012 Presidential election. (“I vastly prefer Obama to Romney. And I’m not a Democrat.”)
Mostly, however, the conversation focused on what it took for Delaney to rise through the comedy ranks (“I pursued all the classical avenues of ‘making it’ before Twitter came along”) and how he manages to shed light on serious subjects.
“Let’s take rape for example,” Delaney wrote when asked if there was any topic he’d consider taboo. “It’s not funny. End of discussion. But you can do a funny joke about how people talk about rape, or you can juxtapose it against something else in a way that will evoke laughter and a ‘new’ way of thinking in people who aren’t monsters and/or rapists. So it’s all about the way the joke is done.”
Before closing, Delaney made sure to address the issue of his Twitter avatar, a knees-to-neck shot of a very hairy Delaney standing tall in a green banana hammock.
“How long do you plan to keep that twitter avatar?” asked eyevinx.
Delaney’s response: “As long as I’m on Twitter.”
Speaking for presumably everyone, scottagro handled the snappy rebuttal. “Forever is not long enough for that avatar.”
