Shane Gillis and the new media

There will never be a new Leo DiCaprio. But instead we'll have a dozen Shanes.

I have a theory that there's old and new media fame. Old media is when everyone watched the same tv shows and movies. And new media is everyone watches different stuff. And even the tentpoles like the Marvel movies doesn't really make people stars in the way stars used to be. And old media hasn't gone away. But we're in a weird transition period. It's like the speech at the end of FIGHT CLUB about people living in the ruins of a civilization. FTR I don't think new media is bad. A lot of people's complaints are about the last dinosaurs. The people who got famous in the old media environment but maintained it in the new media world: Tucker Carlson, Joe Rogan, Leo DiCaprio (it's not all bad). And a lot of old media people didn't make the jump and you have formerly famous people doing not very popular podcasts. But way more popular because of their old media fame than if they had to launch them from scratch. But if you're a comedy fan an interesting mix of old and new is Shane Gillis.

Because for comedy nerds Shane was the new hotness for a while. But a lot of people think getting cancelled put him over the top. (and ftr "the top" is still new media top. most people have never heard of him. it's not like old media Richard Pryor or Jerry Seinfeld where you know a decent amount about their careers even if you never saw anything they did). But what put Shane over the top wasn't getting cancelled. There are lots of new media people who have been cancelled that you never heard of. It was that he was associated with old media SNL. Like ofc SNL isn't as relevant as it used to be. And lots of the marginally talented people on the show never go anywhere. But it is one of the last old media relics. And either way could have gone the David Spade or Pete Davidson route and gotten famous from Weekend Update bits. Or what happened and he got cancelled and became a standup powerhouse. But it was the old media connection that changed a cancelling to an opportunity. Final caveat is the last old media holdout is music. Because while the tech has changed the biz model has actually stayed the same. Musicians never made money from radio or music videos That was always just advertisement for their live appearances. In a way Youtube specials gave comedy the ability to replicate the biz model that has worked for music since the invention of radio.