I give a lot of unsolicited feedback. I try to make it specific so that people don’t hate me, but some probably do. I also try to give them a positive comment to go with the negative one, since I usually wouldn’t bother giving feedback to anyone whose material I don’t like at all anyway.

When it comes to producing any art, my view is that ego is the first thing that has to go out the window for progress to take place. This doesn’t mean that you take just anyone’s advice, but it means that you have to at least be willing to lower your defenses enough to listen to what they have to say and attempt to evaluate it honestly, regardless of whether you like the person or not or think they should be giving you advice or not. Now sure at the end of the day it makes sense to give more weight to the advice you get from people you respect and/or like, but sometimes people can surprise you, and if you can take advantage of the information itself regardless of the source I believe you will improve more quickly.

I’m not saying I’m a total paragon of virtue when it comes to doing this myself, but I try to be open to constructive criticism from anywhere. When it comes to comedy anyway, I’m much worse at applying this lesson in everyday life.

Of course, that doesn’t mean that when someone finds out I’m a comic and says “Tell me a joke!” that I’m going to. That’s a different issue and has to do with people trying to assert dominance over you in a social interaction by getting you to give them the chance to judge you. Fuck that.