Los Angeles comedian Ron Taylor won Kevin Hart’s Netflix comedy competition Funny AF. In winning, he earned a Netflix special after nearly a decade performing and living out of a van.

But taking part likely boosted many comedians’ followings. The Jokebook tracked Instagram follower growth for Funny AF’s top ten contestants beginning on April 4, shortly after the show launched on Netflix. Some notable trends: 

2000s Jersey stand-up had enough stories to make a fourth Godfather. Comedy club spies, stolen jokes, mob-style phone threats, and feuds between clubs over who controlled comedy territories. 

John Poveromo was there. “It was insane,” he tells me. “You could’ve made reality TV out of it.”

He remembers seasoned headliners forced to go up at dead shows at the club he worked at because the owner wouldn’t cancel. “If you can’t do it,” the owner would say, “then I guess you’re not a comic.” Two confused audience members sat there in broad daylight, not even sure why they were there. 

“It was torture,” Poveromo says. “These headliners would beg me, ‘You got to get him to cancel the show.’ And I'd be like, ‘I'm 20 years old. I can't get him to do shit.’”

Some bookers also acted like mafia men. Perform at the wrong club, and you might be deemed disloyal. “As a 20-year-old just getting into comedy, I was like, ‘This is how grown fucking adults who run a business handle their shit? Jesus Christ.’ 

To be clear, this wasn’t the full story of 2000s Jersey comedy, says John. “Jersey had great clubs when I started. Rascals, Stress Factory for open micers, Asbury Park had places all over. It still has this great indie vibe to it. No matter what stage you're at when performing, it feels like there's a solid camaraderie there with other performers, no matter what stage or level you're at.” 

But, some of the stories from that comedy era are too absurd not to tell. 

When John finally quit his first comedy job in his early 20s, he got a phone call. 

“The club owner called me at that point and was like, ‘You'll never work again.’ And I was just like, ‘Did you fucking 1950s old time me? What the hell?’ He had this thing where you’d be in trouble if you worked at any club within a 10-mile radius.”

He was also reprimanded for helping get comedians on shows. “I get this phone call, and he's like, ‘Who the fuck do you think you are?’ And I remember being like, ‘I’m John. Who are you?’ These guys have built their ego so high and get their ass kissed by other grown men that I guess they thought they were at the Copacabana. He was like, "You're booking my guys without cutting me in." And I was like, "Aren’t they grown men with mortgages and families who can decide for themselves whether or not they want to take a gig on a Thursday night?"

Through the threats, the egos, and territorial nonsense, John’s reaction isn’t bitterness but amusement. “That was kind of the early Jersey scene back in the day. There was a lot of that going on and it was just really funny. Looking back, it's just ridiculous.” 

The deeper Poveromo got into Jersey comedy as a young comic, the more ridiculous it felt. 

“One club had a guy who was a local comic, a full-grown adult who would be a spy for the club owner. The spy would tell the owner, ‘Hey, man, a couple of our guys are performing at the other club in Jersey’. It was like high school, but for grown men, a great lesson in, ‘Hey, you know who I don't want to become is these two assholes.’” 

The stories are endless. There was an older comic who would steal other people's material just to host the show. “We would sit in the back of the room, and the headliner said to me, ‘well, there goes two of my jokes." He'd forgotten who he stole from. And it didn't matter because he wasn't going anywhere and nobody gave a shit.”

I asked John how he got from open mics to where he is now. 

“You absolutely have to expand from open mics. I don't get anything from them because open mics are rarely filled with an audience that wants to be there…But you can meet great people there when you're starting out. There are some really good open mics. I would call them less open mics and more showcase shows that other comedians are putting on or producing, where they're actually trying to get a real audience and a fan.”

His key advice to young comics is to not wait for permission to start or become a headliner. “When you think you have a solid 10-15 minutes, just start MCing. I don't believe in waiting that long. Just make sure you have some jokes, good tape. Always record your set. And this is something everybody will tell you, but don’t wait until the right moment. There's no right moment. No one is going to say, ‘You're ready. You're so good.’”

John has a podcast Dystopia Tonight, where he sits down with musicians, comedians, actors, and other creative people for long-form conversations. Guests have ranged from comedians like Lewis Black to musicians including Glen Phillips (Toad the Wet Sprocket), DEVO’s Gerald Casale, and Melissa Auf Der Maur (Hole / Smashing Pumpkins).

Kevin Hart gets roasted live tonight in Netflix’s The Roast of Kevin Hart, with Shane Gillis hosting from the Kia Forum in Los Angeles as part of Netflix Is A Joke Fest. The show streams globally tonight at 8 p.m. ET / 5 p.m. PT. Jeff Ross is expected to appear alongside surprise comedians and celebrity guests, with names like Nikki Glaser, Tom Segura, Andrew Schulz, and Tom Brady rumored.

New specials from Anjelah Johnson (YouTube, May 10), Matty Ryan (Prime/Apple, May 12), Jackie Monahan (Prime/Apple, May 12), Heather Shaw (YouTube, May 14), Ophira Eisenberg (Veeps, May 15), and Lisa Ann Walter (Hulu, May 15). SNL’s James Johnson announces a summer stand-up tour. Jerry Seinfeld returns to The Chicago Theatre October 10. Just For Laughs Montreal adds Seinfeld, Dan Soder, and others to its July 2026 festival lineup.

That’s The Jokebook — your Sunday comedy update. Have something to share? Message us at [email protected].