2030: Standup Act

Genres: parody Length: micro-fiction Series: x/twitter Reading Time: 3 min Tags: farce Content Warning: Mature content

The comedian takes the mic. “Ya’ll ever get to work and be like ‘Shiiiit, man. I got a whole ’nother day of this!”

[The audience chuckles off-screen]

“Like I gotta show up on Monday, right? And the whole time, the whole time, I know they gonna do this shit to me again on ๐‘ป๐’–๐’†๐’”๐’…๐’‚๐’š. Two days in a row! Two days, man!”

[Audience laughter intensifies]

“It ain’t right! And what they got me in there for anyway? They telling me ‘Tyrese, we need a human in the loop’. Pssh, I ain’t dumb. Ya’ll just want someone to blame when something goes wrong. But like, hell, I don’t even know what the AI is doing. Do you?!”

[Audience laughter, snorts of agreement]

“Hell, I don’t even know what I’m doing half the time!”

[Audience hooting. A woman in the back shouts, ‘That’s right!’]

“The AI asks me, ‘Do you approve this change?’ Shit man, I just hit yes.”

[Audience laughter]

“Every time I hit yes!” He mimics pounding the button. “๐˜ฝ๐™–๐™ข, ๐™—๐™–๐™ข, ๐™—๐™–๐™ข! I’m George Jetson in this motherfucker. Why he askin’ me?!”

[Audience laughter, front row member wheezing]

“The AI can do all these complex math computations and shit, right? It got the whole sum of human knowledge in there, and can, like, like, build rockets that go to Mars’n ‘shit. Why he askin’ me?’

[Audience laughter]

“That would be like ๐™ข๐™š putting ๐™ข๐™ฎ ๐™ฃ๐™š๐™ฅ๐™๐™š๐™ฌ in charge of my financial decisions. And he’s ๐™ฉ๐™๐™ง๐™š๐™š ya’ll!”

[Audience laughter]

The comedian gets down on one knee. “Now Damon, buddy, I know you’re trying to work out this whole ๐‘ช๐’๐’–๐’๐’• ๐’•๐’ ๐‘ป๐’†๐’ thing with Elmo, but you need to help Uncle Tyrese. Now, should I buy the Google WireHead+ or re-up the subscription on my third AI wife?”

[Audience laughter, clapping. From the back, ‘Get the wirehead, bro! She ain’t worth it!

The comedian stands up. “And you know what’s crazy? Our grandparents used to work five days a week. Five days y’all! Monday through Friday. Can you believe it? It’s like Friday was their Tuesday and it had four Mondays in front of it! Four Mondays!”

[Audience laughter]

The comedian turns to an imaginary coworker. “Hey man, how’s it going?” He snaps back. “How you think it’s going, motherfucker?? It’s Wednesday! I’m trying to get through my third Monday!”

[Audience laughter, inhuman howls of delight]

“But the worst part is…” The comedian waits for the laughter to die down. “The worst part is, even with five days off, I’m always thinkin’ about that Monday. Ya know?”

[Audience murmurs in agreement]

“Like on Wednesday, I’m still good. But by Saturday, I’m like ‘Shiiiit.’”

[Audience chuckling]

“I got that Monday comin’โ€””

You hit the pause button, and the world freezes. The AI-Generated comedian stands trapped in time, mid-gesture, mid-joke. It’s Sunday night, and you’ve got a whole three hours of work tomorrow.

With a resigned sigh, you clear the current generation prompt [(Black standup comedian talks about how Monday’s suck, in the style of Dave Chappel and Chris Rock)] and type in a new prompt, the one you always use to lull yourself to sleep:

[(Big Titty Hucow Goth Mommy lovingly feeds you milky milky from her giant size K udders while Sydney Sweeney sings a French lullaby in a string bikini, and then they both jerk you off together with their feetโ€”also Sydney Sweeney is a catgirl and please give her those little jelly bean cat pads on her paws for extra grip. No claws.)]

You snuggle into bed and, with a sigh of serenity, hit play.