Here’s a shot of me headlining at Caroline’s On Broadway years ago. It just closed. Bummer. Among other things, the club deserves credit for that iconic backdrop. in a sea of brick walls, that argyle really sang. 🔸🔹

The set from there I now think of most often is when I made the final 8 of the March Madness comedy tourney where a bunch of up and coming comics go head-to-head. (Art competitions are dumb but hey, ya do what ya gotta do.)

I found out I was matched up against some 19yo kid from Staten Island I'd never heard of and figured I had it in the bag cuz how funny could a 19yo kid be? I had a great set and felt confident until that kid came out and instantly had the entire crowd eating out of his hand. Then, he started telling jokes about his dead firefighter dad and I was like: Oh man, this isn't gonna end well.

Time marches on though. Sad to see Caroline's close, but it's tough to compete with M&M megastores in Times Square. And that Staten Island guy may be out there flaunting his BDE* on TMZ while screwing Kim K and Emily Ratajkowski, but I've got a new special coming to YouTube.com/mattruby on Jan. 19 so life pretty much evens out. Also, I got posters designed/screen printed for it because you only live once. More info on all that below.

* I just learned the hard way that BDE is the Jewish blessing of death. (“Baruch dayan ha'emet” or “Blessed is the true judge.”) Figured it out after seeing this group chat…

…I chimed in: “Wow, this guy musta had a huuuuuge 🍆!” Big mistake. Now I’m uninvited from Seder. Whoops.

Quickies

🎯 Proverb: "Nothing is certain, except death and taxes." Rich people now: "Actually, I've got a plan to avoid both of those."

🎯 FYI real “alphas” don’t go around droning on and on about how they’re alphas.

🎯 It’s crazy that only poor people watch ads now. They’re the ones who don’t have any money. Makes no sense.

🎯 Good fun: Whenever someone is raising money for a charity, tell them you're opposed to that cause. "I'm raising money to combat malaria. Would you like to–" "Oh, I would. But I'm actually pro-malaria."

🎯 Women deal with unfair body standards leading to eating disorders. Men deal with unfair emotional standards leading to feeling disorders.

🎯 Elon Musk has singlehandedly managed to reveal the political views of the VC class that puppet masters Big Tech. Basically, the whole operation is a political mullet: Liberal up front (employees/PR), conservative in the back (investors/execs).

🎯 GF slowly realizing I have no idea how to be Jewish. “How do you spell Hannukah?” There’s no right answer, actually. “When is it?” Dunno. “We gonna light the candles again tonight?” Ugh, I pretty much do two nights max and then flake. I just feel anxious and neurotic constantly so I claim the identity, ok?

🎯 Weird how people fight for equal pay for women athletes but not for male models.

🎯 There are plenty of "nepo babies" in the NBA too, a place that is 100% a meritocracy. When you're around something your whole life, the odds go up you're gonna be good at it – that goes for acting as much as shooting hoops.

🎯 Guy told me, "You should like watching women's tennis since they're closer to your ability as a tennis player." Um, I don't want to watch people who are closer to my ability level. Like, I don't watch p0rn where it's just a guy apologizing for finishing too soon, y'know?

Vooza @voozahq

SHOCKED that NFTs didn't work out. I mean those guys had so many 🚀🚀🚀 emojis in their bios.

9:28 PM ∙ Dec 24, 2022

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10Likes3Retweets

10 top Rubesletters of 2022

Here’s a look back at my fave newsletters I sent this past year…

1. Apps turned dating into a video game. On West Elm Caleb and the age of minimal viable romance.

2. I love therapy. I hate therapy. I started seeing a therapist 10 years ago. Let's get into it.

3. Meet the wellness guru who's worked with Kanye West and Vladimir Putin (part one) and Lonnie Dama explains why he's "proud of running a cult" (part two).

4. Here’s what’s wrong with how progressives speak. The way words sound matter. The shorter, the better.

5. My Instagram Reel went viral (1.3M views). Here's why that sucks.

6. Wabi Sabi is rock 'n roll. The mistakes are the interesting parts.

7. His and Hers. Every weird thing I can remember about growing up with my parents.

8. "Time spent on app" is not a metric of success. What screenlife is doing to our brains.

9. Of course you should separate the art from the artist. You can blame the messenger while still enjoying the message.

10. When my mom told me about her abortion. On secrets, shame, and abortion.

Subscribe

I spend a ton of time each week writing this newsletter. Subscribing to the paid plan is a great way to show you appreciate the effort (plus you’ll get a bunch of bonus content too). Thanks!

Comedy

😈 My top YouTube shorts from 2022:

1. British heckler vs. American comedian: Horoscopes and gun control

2. 70-year-old heckler hurls bald insult at comedian

3. "Trust the science" is wrong. Here's why.

4. "Just shave it all off!"

5. Audience member has interesting DNA test results

🅼🅰🆃🆃 💎 🆁🆄🅱🆈 @mattruby

Early warning: Feb 2 in Worcester, MA 👇 buff.ly/3Vm4GQg

buff.lyMatt Ruby at Ralph’s!Matt Ruby is a comedian, writer, and filmmaker from New York City. His comedy has been filmed by Comedy Central, MTV, NBC/Seeso, and FO...

3:15 PM ∙ Dec 24, 2022

😈 I post clips of my standup at Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube.

😈 Check out recent posts at my other newsletter “Funny How: Letters to a Young Comedian.”

Substance

Coming soon…
MATT RUBY: SUBSTANCE
A comedy experiment:
4 nights
4 shows
4 substances
🌿 Weed
🥃 Booze
🍄 Shrooms
🚫 Sober

📺 Watch it online!
(YOUTUBE) THU JAN 19 - 8pm
“SUBSTANCE” PREMIERE
Youtube.com/mattruby

👀 See the film in person!
(NYC) THU JAN 12 - 8pm
ADVANCE SCREENING/MATT’S BDAY PARTY
The Gutter (Spare Room)
200 N. 14th St. Brooklyn , NY 11249

🎭 See the celebration show!
(NYC) THU JAN 26 - 10:30pm
RELEASE SHOW
NY Comedy Club (4th St.)
Tickets - $10 off with code “ludlow”

🖼 Get the poster!
18x24” screenprint
Designed by Scott Sugiuchi
$30 each including shipping
Order here: https://bit.ly/substanceposter
(or Venmo: rubymatt, PayPal: rubyisagem)

5-spotted

🗯 The Triggering of the Libs: How right-wing info warfare works.

In much of the right-wing info-ecosystem, liberal outrage is a sign of an attack’s effectiveness…By now it should be obvious that for large swaths of the right-wing media ecosystem, the Triggering of the Libs has become an end in itself. In the brutal competition of the so-called attention economy, provoking large-scale outrage and loathing is not an incidental feature of making controversial arguments. It has become a key marker of success.

If social media continues to incentivize trolling, we’ll all slowly turn into trolls.

🗯 Max Read: People respond to enthusiasm and joy.

Readers want to learn stuff, and to be made to laugh, and to have their weird feelings articulated for them artfully, but, especially when it we’re talking about a publication that arrives in their email inboxes, they want to read something that sounds like it was written by and for living human beings. If you can stick to topics you’re genuinely interested in, and convey your obsession in even just a non-deadening manner, you are streets ahead of 99 percent of writing that exists online, and probably off it as well.

How to Hate a Jew Like a Jew by Josh Gondelman.

There’s no such thing as “the Jews.” A global conspiracy of all Jewish people would be impossible to cultivate and keep up. Canonically, no gathering of more than one Jewish person in history has been able to reach a consensus on where to get the best bagels in town or what shoes Grandpa should be buried in. Dominating international financial markets is, to be frank, above our organizational capacity.

Did ADHD Evolve to Help Us?

[Some psychologists] argue that ADHD traits likely evolved in early human environments that rewarded exploration, novelty seeking, and movement, such as nomadic and migrating communities. If they’re right, this has tremendous implications not only for education but also for how we talk and think about ADHD and other supposed “neurodevelopmental disorders.” Instead of seeing ADHD as a deficit to be fixed, we should see it as a gift to be nurtured.

René Girard and the Rise of Victim Power.

As Girard already perceived in 1999, we live under the reign of “victimism, which uses the ideology of concern for victims to gain political or economic or spiritual power.” But victimism isn’t merely a cynical smokescreen for power. Instead, the rise of victim power signals a genuine and troubling exhaustion of all other sources of authority and legitimacy. This points to the real problem with this new ideological regime: Beneath its benevolent rhetoric, its implications are apocalyptic, accelerating the collapse of any sustainable order.

Victimism is a great term for what’s happening all around us. Related Rubesletter: How therapy-speak turned victimhood into currency.

Thanks for reading.

-Matt