Chris Hardwick
Chris Hardwick
Christopher Ryan "Chris" Hardwickis an American television host, stand-up comedian, actor, writer, producer, podcaster, musician, and voice artist. He is the chief executive officer of Nerdist Industries, the digital division of Legendary Entertainment. He currently hosts @midnight with Chris Hardwick, a nightly comedy-game show series on Comedy Central, and voices Craig in the Nickelodeon series Sanjay and Craig...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionComedian
Date of Birth23 November 1971
CityLouisville, KY
CountryUnited States of America
If you're going into stand-up, you're hyper-analyzing the world and asking as many questions about a thing as you possibly can so you can figure out the ultimate nature of that thing.
Our mandate at Nerdist is that we only get involved with nice people around things that we love. We have the luxury of being in the demographic that we're programming for.
I think because we're ourselves, we tend to think we're unique. 'I have problems that are just specific to me.' Then you connect with one of your parents and you realize, 'Oh yeah, we had all that stuff, too.' You're not that original. I mean, in a good way, because it makes you feel like you're connected and a part of the world and not an island.
I do find some of the meanest, most exclusionary people are the nerds. And they rebel against other nerds! What are you doing? As much as I love nerds and the nerd movement, the nerd-on-nerd violence is really bad. A lot of times, nerds are the meanest ones online. And also, the trolling can be very extensive because they're smart.
I hate to say it, but because of humanity's capitalistic nature, money is important.
Even before I had an assistant, my calendar was color-coded and I had all these different e-mail rules for how to prioritize e-mails, so I made it a point years ago to figure all that stuff out because my life was a mess.
With stand-up, there's a little bit of an exaggerated reality because things have to be manipulated to create comedy, to create jokes.
I don't know if I'm a Twitter addict. That seems kind of harsh. I would say it's more that I'm seriously involved. That it's a long-term relationship - like a girlfriend, which my actual girlfriend loves to hear.
Comic-Con is nerd Christmas. People go wanting to have fun.
My best friend, Wil Wheaton, identifies himself as a geek.
I think the mistake a lot of people make with new media is they just focus on one thing. But any one thing - just doing podcasts or just having a website or just doing television - isn't enough anymore.
All television is an advertisement - that's why it exists. It wasn't the art-form first and then the commerce - it was that they could put on entertainment long enough to distract people into looking at products. It's for focusing people on advertising and separating you from money in some way. Some people forget that. The side product is that we get some great eye candy. TV is the best it has ever been right now. I don't have a problem with that since it's what keep us employed.
Humans cannot produce viable offspring with our closest animal cousin: the chimpanzee. We cannot impregnate a chimp. So you know what that means? No condoms.
I spent a lot of time bowling as a kid, mostly because I grew up in bowling alleys. They were kind of my playgrounds.