Austin Nasso, Nikita Oster, and Jesse Warren worked in tech for several years. They had seen the long hours, the high-pressure environment, and the ridiculous work culture. The existential boredom many techies feel, they felt, too. Tired of their soul-sucking jobs, they formed a group, Socially Inept, to hit back at the tech industry. Their weapon of choice: comedy. After taking on the Silicon Valley giants, the crew has landed in India to entertain and roast the techies of Delhi, Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Mumbai from September 29 to October 14. In Bengaluru, they will perform at the Good Shepherd Auditorium on October 6 and 7.
Socially Inept’s birth was accidental. Austin, the funny guy in his school and college, had experience in live comedy shows. He independently produced a show, Young Tech, which was essentially a way to bring tech people in Seattle together to network with some stand-up comedy mixed in.
“When I was leaving Seattle (in 2018), Jesse and I decided to organise a farewell show for me. At that time, I came up with the idea of roasting the Seattle tech scene as the show’s theme,” says Austin, speaking over the phone from Bengaluru. It was a whacky idea. But it turned out to be a successful one, too, as the duo managed to sell out one of the primary comedy clubs in Seattle.
When they started to cash in on this breakout idea, the pandemic halted them. It was not, however, a complete washout. The comedians’ social media followers grew like mushrooms in monsoon. By then, Nikita had joined them as well to complete the trio. At the time of writing, Socially Inept’s Instagram page has 392,000 followers on Instagram and 129,000 followers on TikTok.
Engineering the jokes
The 90-minute, 18-plus comedy show combines improvisational crowd work, satirical takedowns of tech and startup founders, and a gamified Turing Test challenge that pits humans against AI.
The process of the comedians is equally amusing as their content. Each of them follows a different method. Jesse, for instance, says he is not naturally funny. “I was described as serious and intense,” he says, chuckling.
Like a true engineer, he thought of comedy as a problem to solve. “My method involved studying and reverse engineering the specific mechanisms that successful comedians use in their craft. For instance, in the case of stand-up comedy, I would isolate individual jokes, even breaking them down to one-liners, and meticulously analyse the components that made them work. I sought to discover the underlying formula or mechanism that allowed these jokes to resonate with people. Then, I would adapt these mechanisms to my own life experiences to create original jokes. This analytical and methodical approach was my foundation in comedy for many years, although it has become somewhat less mechanical over time.”
Nikita, who has a background in linguistics and logic, used to be obsessed with the structure of the jokes rather than their emotional component.
“I began my writing journey with a strong emphasis on structure. However, I now realise that I can’t make significant progress solely through structural exercises. Regardless of what I’m writing, there must be an element that is directly, intuitively, and emotionally engaging. Purely structurally interesting content can only take you so far,” he reckons.
“That said, when working with our target audience of engineers, I have the privilege of crafting jokes that are quite nerdy from a structural perspective. These jokes may include recursive references and mimic the format and structure of coding expressions. What’s truly rewarding is that our audience, which comprises engineers, appreciates and understands these nuances. It’s a fantastic feeling when we can share these nerdy jokes and connect with our audience on that level.”
Austin is the most conventional among the three, as he is innately humourous. But he, too, says his engineering background influences their comedy group. “It plays a role in how we manage our comedy group as a business. Although we function as a touring comedy group, we operate with a business mindset. For instance, after our shows, we send out feedback forms and continually iterate on the show based on the feedback, similar to how a tech company would treat software releases. We approach our comedy show as a product, constantly making adjustments and using an engineering approach to refine its format and overall development.”
A new experience
Though Socially Inept has sold out venues in the US, the Indian scene is a new experience for them. “In a way, all of us (techies) are a part of monstrous conglomerates. So, there is some commonality. But the Indian scene, especially Bengaluru, is something we haven’t really explored,” says Nikita.
So, before the show, the trio is interviewing local software professionals to understand the work culture here. “We will pick something up during the show, too. Each show is a learning experience for us,” adds Nikita.
India, in some ways, can be a little restrictive for roast shows compared to the US because a few topics, like religion, are hot potatoes. So, how do they tackle this?
“For India, we came up with this strategy, wherein we ask the audience to shout ‘jail’ if we are veering towards something controversial,” says Nikita, “Hopefully that works.”
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