Embedded is your essential guide to what’s good on the internet, written by Kate Lindsay and edited by Nick Catucci.
Just using this spot as an excuse to share another Vinny Thomas video I like. —Kate
The only time anything remotely funny comes across my Twitter feed these days, it’s from comedian Vinny Thomas. The content creator and actor has managed to to take something as familiar as first-person character videos and instead produce some of the weirdest and surprising comedy I’ve ever had the privilege to scroll while laying sideways on my couch. You might know him from his viral “The Galactic Federation Interviews Earth.” His “I have been kicked out of the Kentucky Derby” leaves me in tears of laughter, and I couldn’t tell you why.
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Whatever it is, it also caught the attention of writer and director Nicholas Stoller, the creative behind shows like Friends From College and movies like The Muppets, who was a fan of Thomas’s videos and subsequently cast him in the recent AppleTV+ show, Platonic. Thomas was named as a 2022 “Comedian You Should Know” by Vulture, now lives in LA, and will be appearing in a movie coming to Amazon Prime later this year.
As someone who built a platform on Twitter, I was curious to hear how Thomas is adapting to its painful demise. In this conversation, we chatted about his formula for making comedy videos, how internet success can be translated IRL, and his ultimate aspiration to become “a fun little Bill Nye” who hosts a nature program.
You're both an actor and a content creator. Which came first?
Well sketch comedy and improv and live stuff came first. I started doing comedy in Denver where I'm from, and then I moved to Chicago for a few years and I was on the house improv team at Second City. And then the pandemic happened. And during the pandemic, that's when I started making videos, which is not something I ever thought I would do.
What were your first videos?
I started doing characters, and you know, with the folks in Chicago that I was performing with, we were all just almost making these videos for each other. I don't know if there was a sense that anything would go viral from any of us, but I liked what I did and I was just posting it around and it is just that thing that happens sometimes where you hit that...what's the current, sea turtles find that current—EAC! You find the EAC of something topical, but also funny, but it can't be too hack. It still has to be relatable in some way and then, and then it'll just click and just kind of slip through. And I don't think you know that until you start doing it.
What is your strategy for making videos?
I'd say if your goal is to make something that gets seen by a lot of people, then you should always find something topical and then not do the obvious thing. So like, do a character, but it's not the person who's in the news. It's someone who's in some sort of situation with the person who's in the news. You can do that. Or you can just do something you really like that may not be super popular. Like, I love animals. I love biology. I love all that stuff. And so I'll make really niche stupid videos about, like, going on a date with a Moray eel. There's an audience for that and it's mostly science communicators, but I like to do it. And I think that's another thing. It's like, don't be afraid to do what you want, you know?
And also no one's making comedy for the science communicators that often.
They're hungry for it. They're starving for some jokes about mole rats. They need that. It's all very sad science wise right now.
You're also an actor in shows like Platonic. Does it help to have a platform online?
I think it does. I think at the beginning I was a little precious about it. I was like, “Oh, I can't do too much because if I'm too much of an influencer then I'll never”—but it's 2024, no one cares anymore. You should be doing that, especially if you wanna do comedy. I guess maybe it's a little different if you're a very serious—and not to say I couldn't do a very serious, dramatic thing—but some people just do very serious acting, and then you're a little more worried about that. To answer your question, I think it did help because you are just advertising yourself for free. And through that I was able to get an opportunity in which the person who directed that show, Nick Stoller, saw me. And now I've been in a couple of his projects and it's been a lot of fun.
You're on Twitter too, and you have a sizable following. Twitter's had such a transformation in the past year.
And not for the better.
Yeah. I feel like I used to follow all of my favorite comedians on Twitter, and then the landscape got decimated. Is Twitter still a helpful place for comedy?
I suppose it is. I don't post videos on there as much as I used to, just because there's so much more of a risk now. I mean, before it was like, if someone who's horrifically racist would find something, then ultimately they'd be reported. Now it's like any one of those freaks could potentially find something, so I'm always tentative about that. I'm almost like an advertiser that's completely abandoned that website. So I'm kind of pouring more energy into Instagram and TikTok, which...I don't post on TikTok that much. I don't like her that much.
Why do you like Instagram better than TikTok?
I think I like Instagram better because first of all, I know that what I'm posting is going to my followers first. I don't know if I'm super worried about making new followers. I just like providing videos for the people who follow me. TikTok is weird in that when I post a video, it'll go out to the For You page, but it won't really go out to the people who follow me. And then on top of that, I don't know, I don't think it's an age thing, I just think the quality of replies is sometimes just strange on TikTok. And it's not necessarily bad, it's just odd and those are the things that I think really irritate me. I'm allergic to being irritated. It happens all the time on TikTok, but I'm doing it more because you have to.
How would you describe your audience?
I would describe my community as weird girls. That's my core demo. People who like to have fun and enjoy the kind of weird sadness and genuineness about life. People who like an earnest, embarrassing situation. I guess sad girls and emotional voyeurs.
I'm always like, “I wanna be a successful enough writer that I don't have to use social media anymore.” Is that the case for you at all? Do you have a hope that one day you'll surpass the need for it? I guess that the better question is: What is your relationship with social media?
I think it has its place and I think it's useful in a lot of ways, but if I didn't have to do it—and I think most people are on this level—if I didn't have to do it, I probably wouldn't do it nearly as much. It's just always a little stressful. And then it sometimes feels icky, like you're feeding into this algorithm. You're putting your face all over the place. And with AI, that feels a little weird now. There's just a lot of things in the back of your head, but it also feels necessary for right now. I guess if I were to become a showrunner, if I had my own thing going, then I obviously wouldn't do it as much. Because it takes time sometimes. So I think in that case, if I did more TV or movies, then I would peel off a little more from social media, which I guess I am doing. I will say I have pared back, I think. When I first started during the pandemic, it was a video a day. And now it's maybe one or two videos a week.
I read in your Vulture interview that your dream is to host a nature show. Are you any closer to that dream?
I think I'm a little closer. I would love to be a fun little Bill Nye-type figure. And I think that's definitely one of my dreams, but I got a lot of dreams.
I was gonna ask, what are some of your other goals outside of, obviously, hosting a nature show?
Oh, I have so many. I wanna be a weird sci-fi character. I wanna be in an insane alien costume one day. I think that would be crazy. I love just acting too, as a normal human person, so that'd be great. Whatever shows up for me, I'm just gonna start doing it.