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Straw media. I'm leavi chambers.
My pronouns are he, him, his,
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and this is pride. I grew
up with a lot of trauma and
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damage, as a lot of queer
people do, so I think I used
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to humor as a coping mechanism and
that kind of always stuck with me.
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So I think my sense of humor
probably developed and changed as I got older.
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So I don't know if I was
always funny, but I always liked,
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I always had a sense of humor. My guest this week is Queer
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Comedian and viral content Creator Rob Anderson. I am a comedian, uh,
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and content creator and producer of short
form comedy videos on Tiktok, Instagram,
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uh, everywhere on the Internet.
Uh, and I currently live in L
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A and I am working on a
whole bunch of different projects Um at the
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moment. So just basically a comedian
Um that focuses on queer content, but
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not always. Rob Is best known
for his short form sketches, parodies and
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comedic series gay science, which tackles
harmful queer stereotypes by answering questions like why
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are gay men terrible drivers and why
gay men can't sit in a chair?
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Properly amassing over two million social media
followers. His comedy thoughtfully explores relatable lgbt
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Q plus issues in unique and Sardonic
ways. On today's episode, we learned
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how rob went from small town class
clown to big city marketing positions at grinder,
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Uber and the infatuation to global tiktok
sensation, author, musical artist and
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stand up comedian. We also discussed
the differences between online and onstage performance and
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his upcoming North American comedy tour,
Heart Throb live, and why it's important
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to him to be a vocal advocate
for the queer community. I'm Rob Anderson
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and this is pride heart throb.
Rob has become a household name in the
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Queer Community, but Rob Anderson wasn't
always a viral tiktok star. Okay,
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so were you always funny? Like
what was what was little rob like?
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You know, I'd say as a
kid I was pushing the envelope a little.
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I didn't always stick to the rules, because a lot of the rules
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when you're a kid are silly.
A lot of them are still silly now.
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But I just thought I went to
a Christian Um, UH middle school
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and elementary school and they have so
many rules and why? What is all
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this for? Um? So I
was suspending a lot. I had a
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lot of detentions, even in Public
School. Um, just because I like
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to push things. I thought authority. I. I didn't really feel like
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I threatened my authority. Uh.
And my mom wanted to kill me before
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I gave her I gave her a
lot of stress growing up. I was
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a tough kid to raise because I
just felt like, I don't know what
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is authority. You know, that's
the kind of kid I was. So
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I feel like you were just like
a good time. Yeah, I mean
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I think so. Like if I
was a kid in class, I'd have
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been like rob is fun. Yeah, I think so. I don't think
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I ever pushed it too far where
I was hurting myself or others, but
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I think I was trying to find
the things that were stupid, like why
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can't we say that? Why can't
we do that? Why can't we play
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that music? Why can't we watch
that show? Uh, and I think
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most, maybe the classmates would probably
agree with me. So I think that
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my um the class clown per se. I don't know if I was like
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the class clown, but I was
definitely a little bit of a troublemaker.
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So even back then, obviously you
challenge authority. You were funny. Did
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when was like the first time you
realize like, Oh, I love this,
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I love being funny. I want
to do comedy when people are having
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a good time. I always want
to have a good time. I want
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to enjoy myself, I want to
laugh. And Uh, I think when
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whatever was giving me that feeling,
in a very elementary sense, I just
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wanted to give to other people.
And I think our our world, is
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weird. We do a lot of
weird things. Uh. The news is
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sometimes really tough to get through.
It can be depressing and sad, and
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I think humor shakes people out of
it a little bit, reminds people were
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all just on this dumb floating rock. Like we a lot of this stuff
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we do was just made up.
Someone decided that it was gonna be a
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Load full transcript
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thing. Once some old white guy
decided this was gonna be a thing,
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and now we all do that thing, and I think humor kind of breaks
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it up a little bit, makes
people realize this is all just really kind
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of quite stupid. School money,
all made up bullshit. Yeah, like,
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what is money? What is money
really? So, throughout all of
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this, you eventually kind of worked
your way up and worked into a career
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in marketing. I graduated in two
thousand nine, which was a recession at
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that time, so jobs were hard
to come by and my first job out
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of college was as a reporter for
a construction journal, and that is as
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riveting as it sounds. It was. What are the lights? Uh?
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Did you like report on like there's
new back hose at the new construction site?
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That's what you paid. Nineteen dollars
a year and UH, full for
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salary, full time. And I
sat at the desk and I called contractors
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and architects to see what jobs they
had open forbidding for different subcontractors, and
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then I would let the subcontractors know
that there were jobs happening. And I
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I had the state of Tennessee and
Kentucky. I had like the south.
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Uh. It was because such a
great time, I mean seeing if there
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was an orange Julius opening in Kentucky
and calling people and let them know they
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were going to build one. Um, what a great time to be alive.
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But from there, UM, I
luckily, my next job after that
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was for grinder. It was just
when grinder was first starting out. So
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my job, my job was a
lot of marketing and I got a lot
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of skills from that, and then
I started working for Uber and then eventually
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the infatuation uh doing creative marketing campaigns
to grab attention of these like new startups
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at the time, Um, and
it used a lot of my creative skills
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with a lot of my like technical
marketing knowledge that I had gotten over the
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years. I kind of wanted to
understand the parallels between what you were doing
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for construction and and grinder and also
if you had to like pit it queerness
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right, like do you feel like
when you were doing the construction calls,
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did you have to put on like
a hey rob kind of voice, you
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know, like got any new dirt
to move or something? You know,
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I feel like Kentucky, you might
even need an accent to really fit in.
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So I'm wondering what like that,
being a queer person at grinder versus
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construction media was was like yeah,
I definitely. Well, it was when
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I was first starting to come out
and, like a lot of gay people,
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I came out as by initially,
UM, because I didn't want to
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set all the women that I had
hooked up with. I'm like no,
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I really did like you, you
know, like like you know how just
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by and then eventually not. So
in that weird like phase you still have
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a little bit of that trying to
stay heterosexual in some ways. So I
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think that probably carried to the conversations
with the Construction Journal Company. But I
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was so bad at the cold calls. Like cold calling somebody out of the
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blue when they're not expecting it and
just trying to get information is hell.
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I'm an introvert in a lot of
ways and it was hell. And so
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they eventually moved me to only doing
it online and so I could just check
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websites and see and not have to
call people. Oh my God, it
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was such relief. Um. But
aside from that, working at grinder was,
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of course so much better to be
able to just be gay. I
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actually wasn't as I was like Oh, wow, people are gay. I'm
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like wow, you know, like
we're going there Um, because a lot
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of the people were Um. So
that was like my first I would go
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out to West Hollywood and visit the
offices and I'm like, well, this
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is crazy out here, this is
people are really gay. It was exciting.
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I think that moment in my life, that period in my life,
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I was trying to find humor with
being gay and finding the humor in it
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and looking back at how I've kind
of progress and how my as I've matured,
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my humor has changed. I look
at some of the things that I
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had written at that time. I
was an Improv comedian, so there were
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some like sketches I would put up
that were filmed and I look
at those
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now and I'm like, Oh,
it's funny to see how my humor changed
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from me realizing like, Oh,
this is what being gay is, but
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I was making myself too much of
the butt of the joke. Uh.
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And now my humor doesn't rely on
me being the butt of the joke.
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There's just humor that's within the community. Uh. So it is interesting how
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it's changed because my perspective of who
I am as a gay man has changed
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to I mean, that's kind of
awesome, right. That's the evolution,
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which is very scien ce right.
That's actually a beautiful segue into gay science.
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Um, the evolution of ROB's comedy. And in ten years I'M gonna
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look back in the humor now and
go what was I even doing? Then?
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Wow, that was really bad,
you know, but that's that's progress,
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absolutely. I mean that's that's how
works for everyone. Right. You're
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like, wow, that was thank
God that I'm here, or thanks someone,
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thanks someone, that I'm here.
Yeah, at this point, thanks
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someone. Um. So what inspired
you to start your whole gay science?
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I guess we're going to call it
a series. Yeah, it is a
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series. Uh, the preference that
gay men have for iced coffee over hot
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coffee is so, UM, ubiquitous, it's so ingrained. I wanted to
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know why that was and I couldn't
find any information on that, and so
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I decided to make my own information, which was through the form of fake
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science, in a video that was
very matter of fact, um, but
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so silly. And so it's clearly
so stupid and people really got to kick
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out of it and people really enjoyed
it and they kept sending me more of
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our community stereotypes that we have our
own community jokes, uh, as things
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to like poke fun act, because
some of them are so silly, like
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not sitting in a chair properly,
UM, coloring your hair when you're in
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a crisis. Um, literally there's
just dozens and dozens of them, Um,
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and I've had fun making fun of
each one of those through this fake
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science method. So what was what
was the process like in the very early
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days of of Gay Science? What
what was that process like? Did you
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like come up with a concept and
then kind of scripted out, like how
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did that go? Yeah, I
started with a list of, Um,
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all of the stereotypes that I know
of that I wanted to explain, and
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then a lot of the Times I
rely on my audiences. They're really awesome
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and they have really good ideas,
and on Instagram I popped up up story
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that was like Hey, send me
whatever stereotypes you want to explain, anything
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you want to explain through gay science, and so I added those to the
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list and then I kind of prioritized
which ones I thought I had a good
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explanation for and then I put those
into their own documents and I think about
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like, how can I get to
that end result? What weird, stupid
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path can I bring people on?
What what story can I tell, uh
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to to land at a thing that's
positive? UH So. So a lot
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of these things start with something that's
negative. Like maybe why are wire game
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and annoying? Why do we hate
terrible music. Why or do we talk
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like that? Why do we run
like that? All these things that we
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get picked made fun of all the
time, and it ends in a place
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it's like because, you know,
we're better, queer people are better.
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Um, we're elites, we have
we've evolved and the rest of everyone else
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just hasn't caught up with it yet. So, Um, that's the kind
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of path that I wanted to take. And then in that is all the
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jokes. You just throw in a
whole bunch of jokes. Uh, you
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do a bunch of voiceovers a few
times over lay um images on top of
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it. I just have a lot
of fun with it. They're the most
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fun thing that I've ever made.
I have so much joy making them that
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sometimes it will be like a few
weeks till one comes out because I think
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of more funny things to add into
it. That just they make me laugh.
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So is the purpose of the content
that you're creating? Do you feel
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like really, at its core it's
the social commentary, or do you feel
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like comedy is really and laughing and
making people laugh is at its core?
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All of them give some sort of
should give you a little bit of joy.
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Um, should make you feel good. Uh. So I don't make
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anything that makes anyone feel bad,
Um, which I think is a very
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unique thing. I think we have
a lot of more we have more positivity
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in content these days, which is
nice. You know, we're not those
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like the bitchy two thousand tens,
like the nasty like you know, Um,
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we don't have that sort of attitude
in our culture as much anymore,
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which is really great. Um,
but I think that when it comes to
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talking about our community, there's a
lot of things that like to talk negatively
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about it or make some people in
our community feel weird for being the way
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they are, or that if a
lot of people do a certain thing,
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if it's really popular in the gay
community, then it you know, we're
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gonna WE'RE gonna talk down on that, we're gonna make people feel bad that
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they're in this in the masses,
that like something that's popular, and I
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think what I like to do is
make people feel good about being in our
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community, no matter what kind of
place they have in it. So I
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think that's what all of my stuff
has in its core. But, going
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off what you're saying, does it
does it have a message? Does it
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not? Is it just to make
people laugh. I think it just depends.
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It doesn't always have to have a
message. Sometimes I just might think
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an idea is really stupid, like
holding in your poop for a while just
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to like remind yourself of an x, you know, remind your stuff that
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you miss him. You know,
that's the so stupid right, like what
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is that? What are you saying? Like what? But I'm like,
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I just want to do a video
about the fact that you miss somebody,
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so just like holding your poop a
little bit longer to like, you know,
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feel like they're in there. I
mean that's I don't know, there's
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no social message. They're like that. I'm not really I'm not bringing anyone
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to the polls to vote for any
sort of social cause there. Um.
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But and then other times, you
know, I like to Um talk about
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the government's response to monkey box or
gaze, the gaze over covid Um controversy.
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You know, there's some other things
that have a little bit more to
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them. I mean, I'm sure
there are people who can relate to holding
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in their Poop, just as Mitch
longer, I would hope so. I
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mean this video is for them.
There's definitely an audience for every single concept.
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Um. So, so when you
first got started, did did the
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concept go viral right away? It
wasn't one of those like you know,
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you hear that story, the stories
from people, particularly who create content on
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Tiktok, where it's like I put
a video up and I woke up in
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the morning and I was famous.
Basically, Um, is. Is that
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how it was for you, or
was it a little more of like a
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slow burn into like an inferno?
You know, I think that it's more
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of a slow burn. I put
a lot of effort into my videos.
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Um, not always, but most
of them that do well. They take
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a lot of time and effort and
planning. I'll create fake board games,
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uh, and all the individual pieces, I'll get them three d printed and
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I will make original boards, and
so some of my concepts can take over
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a month to get together. I
design everything myself. So, Um,
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a lot of those things have hit
really hard because people are sometimes just impressed
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by the sheer amount of work that
went into something so stupid, like just
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taking an idea that's so dumb and
committing to it's so hard. Um,
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people just seem to enjoy those sorts
of things. So over time. You
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know, those things build and people
are like Hey, I like this guy,
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like he puts a lot of time
and energy and effort into these dumb
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ideas. Um. So for me
it feels like a slow burn. Even
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if someone individually looked at videos,
they go. He just went viral really
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quickly. I think I was just
working really hard. Um. But yeah,
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I'd say a slow bird. That's
deserved, a deserved slow burn,
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a deserve slow bird. Since Starting
Gay Science, Rob has partnered with the
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00:17:34.160
Academy Awards, made promotional content with
pop star Kim Petris, penned a number
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one best selling children's book based on
the infamous national anthem performance by singer Fergie,
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put out a song and music video
and appeared on the discovery plus show.
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The book of Queer sounds overwhelming,
to say the least, in terms
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of gay science. Right. What
happens when that's not what you want to
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do anymore? I mean so many
things have happened already. Right, I'm
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like, Oh my God, I
am my success as success. Um,
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yeah, no, thank you.
We should clap for you, but it'd
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be weird. Um, I have
too many ideas and too many things that
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I want to do. where.
Um, I will just have them all
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in different documents of like Um long
form shows that I want to make,
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movies that I want to write,
um start like scripts that I've started to
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write and collaborations. I'll see somebody
online I'm like, Oh my God,
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I love this person. It would
be so fun to do this and this
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with them, but I want to
make sure that thing was the perfect match.
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And so I never approached them or
d m them because I'm like in
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the back of my mind like that
that'll come to me when it does and
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then I'll reach out to them.
And so I actually have too many things
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that I want to do and it
would be nice to have a less and
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be able to actually like focus on
what that one next thing is Um,
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which I'm trying to do. That's
like I'm trying to hone things in and
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find one thing and like really focus
on it. Um. So, uh,
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yeah, I think when it comes
to a series like gay science,
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I've really never gotten tired of it
goes in waves. Or if I have
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a lot of good ideas, I'll
have a bunch of in a month and
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then maybe like the next couple of
months, like maybe I'll have one or
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two. I just kind of Lean
into whatever is most enjoyable for me to
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make. Um. But there are
sometimes where I think things run its course.
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Like I had a series called boyfriend
twins, and it may eventually come
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back, but I did it for
like maybe about nine months and I feel
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like there was like I went through
a bunch of topics with them. I
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think we got to know who these
two guys were. Um, they were
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a boyfriend twins that looked alike.
I played both of them and they're dating
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each other. But the show wasn't
about the fact that they looked alike.
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It was just about like a slice
of life in a in a gay couple,
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Um, and people really liked it
and I think I was like good
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on it. It's sort point who
were like bring that back, like where
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did that go? Like we want
more videos of them, and I think
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I did one and I just didn't
enjoy it as much and I'm like,
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well, I'm not. I'm just
gonna bring it back if I want to,
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if I have a good idea for
it, um, but I just
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get bored too easily. I like
to move on from things, but gay
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science is the one thing I haven't
really gotten bored with. Recently, ROB
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announced he'll be kicking off his twenty
city North American comedy tour, Heartthrob,
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live in black rock city, Nevada, on August thirty one, which will
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conclude in Los Angeles on December eleven. The show features original music, presentations
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and personal stories. He says he's
kept far away from the Internet. You
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can purchase tickets at HEARTTHROB ANDERSON DOT
com slash tour. You've kind of taken
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everything and now you're doing it live
and on stage, which to me sounds
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more terrifying. Like it's better to
put something on the Internet because if it's
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really doesn't hit, you can be
like, I'm gonna del eat that.
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You can't delete real life embarrassment because
it's just there. So was that terrifying
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taking the comedy you created for online
to a live stage with real human beings
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in front of you? Yeah,
there was definitely nerves involved. I don't
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know if I was terrified, though. I was an Improv performer in Chicago
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for seven or eight years for the
second city and I owe and the stage
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is really comfortable for me. I
really enjoy it, but I have not
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been on it since. So it
was I was a little nervous because it
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had been about seven years,
six
years Um, since I stepped on on
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a stage and it was stand out
a lot of stand up that I was
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doing all new material. So I
was like, I just didn't know how
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people were going to respond to it. Um. But it's a room full
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of people that already like me and
enjoy me in these shows that I've had
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leading up to the tour. Uh. So the audiences were just fire and
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the material really landed, which was
great. Uh. And I refined it
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even more. A bit of a
perfectionist, so after that first show I
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was like, okay, like what
worked, what didn't? How can I
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make that better? And I spent
another month of like refining it, and
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then I did in front of a
new audience in San Diego and I saw
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what they liked and didn't like,
and then I refined it more. And
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so, like, over time,
I just came up with what is,
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I'm really confident to say, is
like an awesome, funny show and I'm
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excited to do it in the fall. Is it really fucking funny? It's
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it's really fucking funny. It's really
gay. It's really really gay, and
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I've had some straight people in the
audience, Um, and I I think
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they enjoy it too. There's there's
a moment. There's a moment for the
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straight if they don't it's fine.
Yeah, yeah, but it's really gay
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and it's all the things that I've
been wanting to say, stories I've wanted
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to tell, jokes I've wanted to
make that I can't really make on the
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Internet, Um, especially not places
like Tiktok where it's like heavily moderated.
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Um. It's all of the more
explicit things and more personal things that I
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think when you're on stage and you're
in an environment where it's just you and
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the audience, it just feels more
intimate. Uh. And that's the kind
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of show that I've put together.
Can you give us like a little taste
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of what people should expect? It
should be explicit. It's very gay.
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Yes, uh. It's the basis
of it is storytelling, personal stories taken
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from my life that I've wanted to
tell and intersplice in those are original songs.
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Some of those are songs that people
have may have heard, original songs.
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Yes, I love this. Yes, Um, there are songs that
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I've released. Two songs out now, comedy pop songs. Those are in
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the show, as well as other
songs that are just only really should exist
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within the confines of the show to
give them context. Uh. And then
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original Um presentations. So it's a
variety of sorts of stand up storytelling,
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Um presentations and music and a little
bit of nudity. Wait, there's no
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wait. Okay, so this is
fitting. I was getting excited for the
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nudity. Oh, there's a little
bit. Okay, twenty one plus.
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You gotta be one. Well,
the first question is, who's nude?
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Is it you? I'm assuming so, because it's called it's the heartthrob tour.
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Correct. Yes, but the audience? You're nude. The audience is
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nude. Oh, you don't know
until you don't know, until you come
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in, and I'm like don't you
love this? That's Super Fun. Everyone
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get naked. Did did you name
your tour heartthrob? Did you are you
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a self described heartthrob, or did
people say like you are heartthrob? That
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should be the name of the tour. Uh. My original instagram name was
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really boring. I think it was
like Rob Anderson Eight, Rob Anderson Eight,
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and I was like I need a
Pun. I need a pun in
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my name. Uh, and so
a few years back I changed it and
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that's that's the one I decided to
come up with. So No, nobody
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actually calls me a heartthrob itself.
I call myself it, which is so
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cool, isn't it? What a
cool thing to name yourself a compliment.
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Yes, so how many? I
know you actually have a lot of your
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tours are several of them are already
sold out. I think Portland has sold
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out and maybe Seattle sold out.
Um, but you're going everywhere, from
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like Texas to Hawaii. I mean
I think around the east coast a little
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bit dabling in like Philadelphia. So
there are a lot of places for for
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people to see you. Where can
they buy your tickets? They yes,
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I'm in twenty cities. I actually
wanted to hit up every single city in
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the United States, in North America,
and my tour agent was like,
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you know, her name is Rachel, she's amazing. She was like this
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is your first tour, you know, like, why don't we just try
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to dial it in? But she
got all the cities that I wanted and
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she got amazing clubs in them.
Um, you can get tickets at Heartthrob
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Anderson Slash tour. HEARTTHROB ANDERSON DOT
com slash tour. Uh and I'm in
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Texas and Florida and everywhere on the
East Coast. I'm in Toronto and,
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yes, even in Honolulu. Will
End my tour in Honolulu. So there's
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a lot of places to see me. Uh and it is selling out.
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So we so that. I think
seven of the shows so far, Um,
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and I think they're all going to
sell out. Is what I'm told.
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So that's very exciting. So if
you do want to go see heartthrob
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live, you need to get tickets. I mean by the time this comes
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out, probably you're too late.
It's it's over, but you're too late,
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but hopefully not. You might as
well check and make sure that you're
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not too late. Rob is a
vocal advocate when it comes to lgbt Q
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plus rights and issues, so I
wanted to get his pulse check on some
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current issues the queer community is facing. What are your thoughts on some pertinent
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issues to the LGBTQ plus community that
don't say gay bill, Um, even
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just the precariousness of Queer rights in
our country? Um, specifically after the
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overturning of Rov Wade, the government's
response to to monkey pok. So I'd
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love to know about kind of the
the issues that are really important to you
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right now and and just why you
feel like you should, I guess,
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use your platform for those those issues. Yeah, I um. It can
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be really depressing reading and seeing what's
happening because, like a lot of things,
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uh, you think you have a
little bit of progress. And I
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mean when we had gay marriage throughout
all fifty states and two thousand fifteen you
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know, a lot of uh,
mostly CIS UH gay men, felt like
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okay, fine, like we're finally
all equal, but it is not the
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case. There's a lot of people
under the LGBT Q plus umbrella that don't
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have that equality, that that are
are more stigmatized, and I think that
385
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even now, seeing what's happening in
Florida and how other states are seeing that
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00:28:14.000 --> 00:28:18.400
don't say gay bill and making their
own versions of it. Um, the
387
00:28:18.440 --> 00:28:23.319
fight really never ends and it can
be exhausting and really frustrating seeing it.
388
00:28:23.759 --> 00:28:30.839
Um, but we have to notice
that it's happening, realize we're gonna take
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some losses and things are gonna have
to we're going to be pushed back,
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but we're not gonna stop talking about
it, uh, and we're not gonna
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stop showing how absolutely ridiculous it is. Um. And, and I do
392
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that through comedy. Um, it's
it's just my way of communicating, it's
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my way of like showing my thoughts. Um. But everyone does it in
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their own way and so, Um, yeah, I think that that's like
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just a it's a very important thing
for me. Where can all of the
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people into the Rock and in a
cave? No shame for cave dwellers,
397
00:29:11.079 --> 00:29:15.559
but where can they follow you on
social media if they're not already? On
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00:29:15.599 --> 00:29:23.440
instagram it's Heart Rob Anderson, and
on Tiktok it's heart throbberts and on twitter
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00:29:23.880 --> 00:29:29.319
it's a smart throb. Oh my
gosh, the puns. I know.
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00:29:29.759 --> 00:29:33.880
It's mainly because my name was taken
in each one of these subsequent things,
401
00:29:33.519 --> 00:29:37.359
so I couldn't. I had to
find new wage, a new way to
402
00:29:37.400 --> 00:29:41.720
call myself, a new thing.
Uh. And then, Um, youtube
403
00:29:41.799 --> 00:29:45.319
is just my name. Well,
thank you so so much for coming on
404
00:29:45.359 --> 00:29:49.160
the podcast and taking time away from
my guests. You were probably like knee
405
00:29:49.160 --> 00:29:52.559
deep creating new content for tech talk. That's going to be out in like
406
00:29:52.559 --> 00:29:53.440
a month or so because it's taking
a long time for you to make a
407
00:29:53.440 --> 00:29:59.079
new board game or something, but
I really appreciate you taking the time to
408
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be on the podcas past and to
talk to us about all of these things.
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Levi, thank you for having me. This was so much fun.
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Pride is a production of Straw hut
media. If you like the show,
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leave us a rating and a review
on Apple podcasts, spotify or wherever you
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listen to podcasts. Then follow us
on Tiktok, instagram, facebook, twitter
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and snapchat at pride and tune in
weekly for more. Be Sure to share
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this episode with your friends and subscribe
for more stories from Amazing Queer people.
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If you'd like to connect with me, you can follow me everywhere, at
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Lea by chambers. Pride is produced
by me Levy Chambers, Frank Driscoll,
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Maggie Bowls, Ryan Tillottson and Brandon
Marlowe. Edited by Frank Driscoll and Daniel Ferrara.