Among everything else in the world, the COVID-19 pandemic has affected how we use, consume, and share media. One way these effects largely manifested was in the long hours of endless scrolling on TikTok, time spent devouring hundreds of 30-second videos on any topic imaginable. Unlike other social media platforms that pride themselves on providing all sorts of content, TikTok’s concise, digestible content is all videos. In this way, TikTok is the most personal platform we’ve ever had.
Rather than Twitter, whose text-centric platform can allow for an excess of nuance, comedians on TikTok can basically perform stand-up through their front camera. (In fact, many stand-up comedians do post full bits to their page, which makes for an almost mini-Netflix experience.) Additionally, previous gatekeepers of comedy like Comedy Central or Netflix are nonexistent. Any creator is essentially able to become a viral comedy sensation.
Such comedy content creators have since landed gigs in television, appeared on award show coverage, and become brand ambassadors. The calculated ability to be quippy and authentic allows such TikTok comedians to push themselves to fame with an aura of effortlessness and casualty that traditional performance-based stand-up lacks. TikTok also differs from previous comedic social media platforms like Vine, whose six-second time restriction inherently limited its content, or long-form platforms like YouTube, which is slowly failing to keep up with our rapidly shortening attention.
TikTok’s impact is also changing the way that the next generation of comedians are approaching the industry. Earlier in November, I sat down with Grace Kuhlenschmidt, a 2017 graduate of Skidmore with a Bachelors of Arts in Psychology and one of the TikTok creators at the front of this phenomenon. Kuhlenschmidt, who is currently living in Brooklyn, New York, has accrued 338,000 followers on TikTok and nearly 170,000 on Twitter. Her videos often mimic the moments of life that people post every day– like salad recipes or mental health inspiration– except Kuhlenschmidt’s scenarios are just the right amount of ridiculous that you question whether it’s really satire.
I was overjoyed when Kuhlenschmidt responded to my request to write an alumni spotlight about her. Newspaper aside, I was just excited to talk with one of my favorite creators. I spent the weeks leading up to our conversation thinking of the right questions to ask about her content and how her time at Skidmore has influenced her journey. As soon as our Zoom conversation began, I felt how personable and naturally funny Kuhlenschmidt was; although much of her content involves roleplaying, I immediately understood how authentic her humor is. It was no surprise that we were cracking jokes and laughing the entire hour we talked.
Of course, the first thing I asked her was what she thought of Skidmore. I prefaced by saying that it is commonly expressed that this community feels like an enigma, and she immediately agreed.
“It felt like a commune,” she added. “People biking around picking up compost… It was a very magical place for me.”
Kuhlenschmidt entered Skidmore planning to be a neuroscience or mathematics major. However, she told me that soon into her freshman year she realized that path was unsustainable for her, and admitted that she felt “pretty checked out academically.” She shared that she graduated with a 2.8 GPA, and looking back, gained more overall from her extracurricular activities than her classes.
Kuhlenschmidt spoke passionately and with love about her community at Skidmore. She was an active member of Skidomedy and the Ad-Libs, and remains close with members of those groups today.
“I think we were really funny. Like, I genuinely thought that my peers were hilarious,” she said of her peers in comedy clubs at Skidmore. “And, yeah, we treated it pretty professionally. But we didn't do that many shows. But I felt more serious about that than I did about any of my classes.”
Her participation in comedy groups at Skidmore benefited her postgraduate path. After graduating, Kuhlenschmidt moved to Chicago – a city with a comedy scene that felt less intimidating than Los Angeles or New York – with a school friend, working service jobs and taking improv classes in her free time.
When the pandemic hit, her trajectory changed. Kuhlenschmidt shared that she felt isolated in her area of Chicago during the initial months of lockdown, and turned to online content in lieu of in-person comedy events.
“I had a couple friends who had been going kind of viral on Twitter. And they were like, you just gotta post videos. I think it'll go viral,” she reminisced.
Much of Kuhlenschmidt’s early experience was shaped by her close friends. She recounted that she would have FaceTime sessions with friends also pursuing comedy to talk about platforms where their content was performing best and the process of getting into the business.
Kuhlenschmidt’s big break came when the New York Times featured her in “Seven Comedians to Watch on Instagram and Twitter” in the spring of 2020, which commended her “gift for hilarious snapshots of the unhinged, the deluded and the startlingly vengeful.” By summer, she had gained “real traction” and was quickly asserting herself in the world of comedy. She was connected with an agent, who subsequently engaged a manager. Now, Kuhlenschmidt’s team also consists of a literary manager and a social media manager.
She says of her social media manager, “She's helped me so much. I think sometimes I get in a weird headspace. The internet is fucked up. And I'll just be like, I'm not going to post, I don't need to post. But I ultimately do enjoy making content. And I think she reminds me of that a lot.”
Kuhlenschmidt’s presence has since risen and her outlook has expanded. In 2021, she appeared on HBO Max’s Search Party, an experience she describes as “fucking sick.”
She says that, after that experience, “I think my biggest goal right now is to be on screen as much as possible. [If] I could be on set every single day, I'd be the happiest person in the world.”
As a Skidmore alumna who is making it outside the corporate mainstream, Kuhlenschmidt represents a new class of entertainers that are breaking free of previous constraints. I asked her what she thought about veering away from the corporate world, and what advice she has for current students hoping to do the same.
She confessed, “I think I would be absolutely lost in a corporate world. Like, I have no idea of who I would be.” But she clarified that those norms are slowly dissolving. “This is a cool time where I think things are opening up. And there's so many new random jobs that you can do, make a great living, and be happy.”
On the college experience, she said, “I’m one of those annoying people that says ‘college is the best time of your life.’” She added, “If you are not feeling the vibes academically, your hobby can be hanging out with your friends and having fun and enjoying the walkable campus.”
I was interested to hear about Kuhlenschmidt’s relationship to her audience. She often gets people in her comment section asking for clarification or questioning the authenticity of her comedy, both an example of just how biting her comedy is and how social media has changed our media consumption abilities. When I asked her whether she expects her audience to consider this desensitization, Kuhlenschmidt offered that she thinks most of the people that follow her are smart, and do “see the satire very clearly.”
On her desire to remain positive, she started, “I didn’t know how stupid people could get until I got on Twitter.” She believes she generally has a positive relationship with social media. “I feel pretty well-liked online,” she remarked. “When I get hate, I know that person is unwell.” When it’s easy to get bogged down in online negativity, Kuhlenschmidt remains positive and resilient.
After learning about her career as a content creator, I was really interested to hear more about the ideas behind her videos and her perspective on comedy. Mostly, I couldn’t wait to ask her about the phrase in her social media bio: “straight lesbian comedian.” Much of Kuhlenschmidt’s content often mirrors and exploits online heterosexual tropes and trends with her own queer twist. Mixing tropes and topics from different audiences, her content fits in a niche of satire with a layer of hyperbolic imagination.
Kuhlenschmidt agreed that her content is hinged on the queer experience and her journey accepting her identity. “My whole thing is if straight people are allowed to be total idiots, then gay people should be able to also,” she began. She admitted that in the end, “I'm just having fun. And it's fun to make fun of yourself. It’s fun to make fun of myself now. It's fun to make fun of myself when I was closeted. We don't need to take ourselves so seriously.”