Art I’m Enjoying: Josh Johnson stand-up comedian

Something to know about me is that, in the back half of my high school career, I ended up on a stand-up comedy kick. So much so that I actually won the talent show my senior year with a stand-up act.

There was a time where I had deep thoughts about what made a good and a bad stand-up act and how the construction of a joke should work. Not necessarily correct thoughts, but a lot of thoughts for sure.

I sort of lost that interest in college. I still enjoyed the occasional stand-up special and, you know, the concept of humor—but as with so many things when you get to college, it was an interest that didn’t survive the strain of an quasi-adult schedule. (R.I.P. soccer, flute, and piano. Theater, congrats for hanging on by a thread.)

I didn’t think comedy was something I’d get back into in a big way, but then I saw Josh Johnson.

There is something about his approach to comedy that is very refreshing to me. He typically starts his acts with a sort of low energy and comfortability on stage that seems to let him build and manipulate the energy of the crowd he’s working worth really powerfully as he gages their reactions and the direction to take his act in.

To be clear, I’m not—like—deep in the Josh Johnson lore (it’s mostly his material from the past two or three years I’ve been dipping into), but I have found myself making time to watch the 30-60 minute stand up acts he posts to his Youtube on a weekly basis.

From what I can tell—based on the variety of his material—is that he doesn’t so much write jokes as follow his own thoughts to their humorous conclusion. Like, if you asked me to tell a Josh Johnson joke, I couldn’t do it without creating a pale imitation of the performance he’d done.

It’s hard to describe the difference between that and telling a joke, because of course a comedian is going to have funny thoughts. But I think with Josh Johnson, his brain isn’t looking for the joke so much as its looking for understanding and he is good at expressing his thought process in a funny way.

Maybe that still doesn’t make sense, but—suffice it to say—he has a very conversational style of comedy.

On top of that, I don’t think he punches down, easpecially in his recent stuff. If he does it’s with such empathy I couldn’t describe it as a punch, he does so with what feels like a genuine desire to understand the behavior of certain people.

I’d go so far as to say that he barely even punches up. Yes, he will mock those in power (he is a correspondent on The Daily Show after all) but it still comes from a place where, in his own material, is from asking the question of “why”? To me, it never feels mocking, it feels like he’s legitimately grappling with the actions of the people he talks about.

He’s also maybe the first comedian who I’ve paid specifically to see live—certainly the first I’ve done so for since the pandemic—and when I saw him a good portion of his act was grappling with building better male-male friendships. It was funny but it also, I think, really implore the men in the audience to feel and express their feelings towards each other.

He’s probably a more mainstream name than either of the other artists I’ve talked about in previous posts (Phillip Labes and Jorge Rivera-Herrans) so you can find him not only on his Youtube (where he has dozens of videos that could be released as full comedy specials) but he’s also touring the country right now. (I saw him in Des Moines at Hoyt Sherman Place and my Grand Rapids, MI friends can catch him at GLC on Aug. 8, 2025.)

I think, if you watch his stuff, it’ll be easy to see why he’s grown in popularity. His stuff generally feels like it comes from a really kind hearted place and—to my ear—a lot of him comedy encourages people to really listen to not only him, but to each other, and ourselves.

*****

The Wilderlands is available for physical purchase now from Barnes & Noble and Amazon. The Wilderlands ebook is available on Kindle, on Nook, on Kobo, and on Apple.

Light Keeper Chronicle: The Unspoken Prophecy is available for physical purchase from Schuler Books, Barnes & Noble, and Amazon. The Unspoken Prophecy ebook is available on Kindle, on Nook, on Kobo, and on Apple.