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PaperclipPerfector  3d ago (text post)   13681 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 12, 2026

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There is no actual “Harvard undergrad in writing, Princeton PhD in comedy studies” comedian

Well, yes, I don't think there are any successful standup comedians who received formal university training in comedy. But it isn't remotely difficult to find examples of intelligent, university-educated comedians (whether comic actors or standups):

  • Monty Python: Three members of the troupe studied at Cambridge (variously studying medicine, law and English literature), two studied at Oxford (studying English literature and history), and the sixth had a degree in political science from Occidental College.
  • Fry and Laurie: Stephen Fry was offered a scholarship at Cambridge and studied English lit, where he met Hugh Laurie, who was studying archaeology and anthropology.
  • Conan O'Brien graduated Harvard magna cum laude with a degree in history and literature.
  • John Mulaney earned a BA in English lit from Georgetown.
  • Mitchell and Webb: Like Fry and Laurie, they met at Cambridge, where Mitchell studied history and Webb studied English.

Monty Python: Three members of the troupe studied at Cambridge (variously studying medicine, law and English literature), two studied at Oxford (studying English literature and history), and the sixth had a degree in political science from Occidental College. Fry and Laurie: Stephen Fry was offered a scholarship at Cambridge and studied English lit, where he met Hugh Laurie, who was studying archaeology and anthropology.

That means mostly - we are members of the British upper or upper-middle class and we are a bunch of smart chaps.

Smart people generally speaking do well in universities. This by no means that the university helped them in their careers (except by socializing and connections) or that the people that do well in universities are smart.

This by no means that the university helped them in their careers

Did I claim they had successful careers because they attended university?

(except by socializing and connections)

This seems a very apt time to use this clip. "Alright, but apart from networking opportunities, socialising and jump-starting our entertainment careers... what has Oxbridge ever done for us?!" Surely that's half the reason people study humanities in the first place?

Fair point. I will rephrase - I don't think the credentials helped them in their career.

To be maximally pedantic, Terry Jones's education into medieval history proved invaluable when they were writing Holy Grail, to the point that it's sometimes been called one of the most historically accurate films with a medieval setting.

But in general, yes, I don't think having a piece of paper with a 2:1 on it helped any of them in their careers. I took @coffee_enjoyer's point to be that talented comedians tend not to be "book-smart", and hence that comedic talent is orthogonal to g. And I think it's trivial to demonstrate that that isn't true: there have been plenty of talented comedians who were at least book-smart enough to complete a humanities degree.

Wait, but it’s trivially easy to demonstrate that it is true that comedy is orthogonal to both g and the academic accreditation filter process. If comedy tracked with either one, then we should expect virtually all the best comedians to be from elite institutions, because there are many hundreds of people graduating from elite institutions with a high IQ who are interested in comedy every year. The best mathematicians and the best lawyers nigh universally come from the best elite institutions. That’s what we should expect: the top 10 come from top institutions. But right now, and for decades, seldom do the best comedians come from such institutions. You had to go all the way back to look at Monty Python and this is complicated by the British class system. American comedy is more meritocratic, so where are all the Ivy-educated high IQ comedians? The high IQ and the Ivy graduate would both outperform Shane Gillis on a verbal iq test. So why is Shane the comedian du jour and not those ranked above him in either g or accreditation? Harvard Lampoon alone poops out 120 super-elites per decade, who are ahead of Shane in IQ, accreditation, training, and support. So… where are they?

I’d actually go further than “orthogonal”. Per the available evidence, comedy is negatively associated with possessing high g or strong academic success.

This suggests Ivy League is primarily selecting on g. They also are strongly selecting for conformity which kills comedy.

stand-up comedy, yes, but written comedy selects for strong verbal IQ

If you want to see the utter opposite of Shane Gillis, look to Nathan Fielder. Highly g-loaded conceptual comedy that plays a long game. Yep he's Jewish.

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