Alt Comedy in the 2010s: The Decade the Weird Stuff Went Mainstream

The 2010s were alt comedy's richest decade and the one that made the word “alternative” hardest to defend. Netflix bought stand-up hours by the hundred. Cable and streaming handed series to comedians who would once have been too strange for television. Podcasts let comics talk directly to millions of listeners. By 2019 the most talked-about sketch show in America was a Netflix series about people who can't admit they're wrong, made by a Second City and SNL alumnus. Alt comedy hadn't so much won as dissolved into the mainstream.

This is part three of our decade series, after the 1990s and the 2000s and before the 2020s. For a single year-by-year view, see the alt comedy timeline.

Self-release and the Louie era

The decade opened with Louis C.K. as the most acclaimed stand-up in America. His FX series Louie (2010–15), which he wrote, directed and edited, became a model for the auteur comedy series: melancholy, formally loose, sometimes not funny at all on purpose. In December 2011 he sold Live at the Beacon Theater as a cheap, DRM-free download from his own website, proving that a comic with an audience could skip the networks.

The most important release through that channel wasn't his. In August 2012 Tig Notaro walked onto the stage at Largo days after a breast cancer diagnosis and opened with it. The set, released that autumn as Live, is the purest example of alt comedy's confessional strain: no armour, no structure beyond honesty, and a room laughing at things nobody was supposed to laugh at.

In November 2017 The New York Times published accounts from five women of sexual misconduct by C.K., which he acknowledged were true. His series and film projects were dropped. That reckoning, alongside the wider #MeToo moment, became part of the decade's history of comedy too.

Netflix and the specials boom

Netflix released one of its first original stand-up specials, Bill Burr's You People Are All the Same, in 2012. By the late 2010s it was releasing specials at a pace no network had ever matched, and the stand-up hour went from a rare career milestone to something many working comics could expect. The volume had two effects. It made room for odd, ambitious work that would never have aired on network TV. And it made the polished Netflix hour, shot in a theatre with a slow-motion intro and a crowd of glowing faces, the new mainstream that the next alternative would push against.

The decade's most alt specials pushed against that format from inside it:

• Maria Bamford, The Special Special Special (2012), performed in her living room for an audience of her parents. Her semi-autobiographical Netflix series Lady Dynamite (2016–17) followed.
• Bo Burnham, what. (2013) and Make Happy (2016), which used lighting, pre-recorded tracks and music to deconstruct the spectacle of performance. See our Bo Burnham profile.
• Jerrod Carmichael, 8 (HBO, 2017), a hushed, intimate set directed by Burnham.
• James Acaster, Repertoire (Netflix, 2018), four linked hours whose callbacks pay off across the whole series.
• Hannah Gadsby, Nanette (Netflix, 2018), which had shared the Edinburgh Comedy Award in 2017.
• Julio Torres, My Favorite Shapes (HBO, 2019), a stand-up set delivered to objects on a conveyor belt.

Nanette and the argument about comedy

No special of the decade generated as much argument as Nanette. Gadsby opened with conventional self-deprecating stand-up, then announced they were quitting comedy and spent the second half explaining why: a punchline releases tension, and they no longer wanted to release the tension in stories of homophobia and assault. Critics hailed it as a turning point; other comedians argued that it wasn't stand-up at all, or that comedy had always done this. Both sides helped make the theatrical, confessional special a recognised form, a thread that runs through the 2020s work of Jerrod Carmichael and Jacqueline Novak. Read our full analysis of Nanette.

The alt sitcom becomes prestige TV

The decade's most original comedy series mostly came from alt comics given unusual freedom.

• Nathan for You (Comedy Central, 2013–17): Nathan Fielder's business-advice show, built from absurd schemes carried out with real small businesses. Its feature-length finale, “Finding Frances”, was the decade's strangest piece of television documentary.
• Review (Comedy Central, 2014–17): Andy Daly as a critic who reviews life experiences on demand, and lets each one destroy his life a bit more.
• Broad City (Comedy Central, 2014–19): Ilana Glazer and Abbi Jacobson's web series, born in the UCB world, turned into a joyful, chaotic sitcom about two friends in New York.
• Kroll Show (Comedy Central, 2013–15): Nick Kroll's reality-TV parodies, a sketch show that thought like a network.
• Atlanta (FX, 2016–22) and Fleabag (BBC Three/Amazon, 2016 and 2019): comedy-dramas that borrowed alt comedy's formal freedom for bigger stories.
• Search Party (TBS, then HBO Max, 2016–22), with John Early's scene-stealing performance, and Joe Pera Talks with You (Adult Swim, 2018–21), the gentlest show ever made by the network of Tim and Eric.

A golden age of sketch

The 2010s produced more great sketch comedy than any decade since the 1970s. Portlandia (IFC, 2011–18) satirised hipster sincerity. Key & Peele (Comedy Central, 2012–15) brought cinematic craft and sharp writing on race. The Eric Andre Show (Adult Swim, from 2012) destroyed the talk show. Documentary Now! (IFC, from 2015) recreated famous documentaries with absurd precision. Kate Berlant and John Early's 555 (2017) parodied prestige-drama self-importance.

And in April 2019 Netflix released I Think You Should Leave with Tim Robinson. Robinson's sketches about people doubling down on social catastrophes were short, loud and endlessly quotable, and they became meme currency in a way no alt sketch had before. If one show marks the moment alt comedy's sensibility became simply the sensibility of comedy, this is it. Our list of the 25 greatest sketch shows puts it in context.

The podcast decade

If the 2000s invented the comedy podcast, the 2010s industrialised it. Scott Aukerman and Jeff Ullrich launched Earwolf in 2010, with Comedy Bang! Bang! at its centre; the show also became an IFC series (2012–16). Marc Maron's WTF became an institution, and in June 2015 he interviewed President Obama in his garage. Podcasts gave comics something the special never could: hours of unguarded conversation, a direct relationship with listeners and an income that didn't depend on a network. See our guide to the best comedy podcasts of all time.

The internet as a stage

The decade's new comics often started online. Bo Burnham had come from YouTube. Twitter made one-liner writers famous. Vine (2013–17) trained a generation in six-second absurdism. Comedians built followings with web series and videos before they ever had a TV credit, and a viral clip could matter as much as a late-night set. In October 2014 a clip of Hannibal Buress calling out Bill Cosby's public moralising and the sexual assault allegations against him spread online and helped revive public attention to those allegations, a reminder of how fast a single stand-up moment could now travel.

The rooms

Live alt comedy grew too. UCB's theatres in New York and Los Angeles were at their busiest, Brooklyn bars and venues such as Union Hall hosted a thriving scene of weekly shows, and in Los Angeles the back room of the Meltdown Comics shop became a hub, with Jonah Ray and Kumail Nanjiani's weekly show turned into the Comedy Central series The Meltdown with Jonah and Kumail (2014–16). NBC even launched Seeso (2016–17), a short-lived streaming service just for comedy. The 2020s would see many of these rooms close and new micro-venues take their place.

Britain and beyond

In Britain, Stewart Lee's Comedy Vehicle (BBC Two, 2009–16) put anti-comedy on mainstream television, and Alex Horne's Taskmaster (from 2015) became an unexpected hit by casting alt comics in a game show built on absurd tasks. Phoebe Waller-Bridge's Fleabag went from the Edinburgh Fringe to the Emmys. The Fringe itself remained the world's great alt comedy incubator, and Netflix's global reach meant British, Australian and Canadian comics, from Acaster to Gadsby to Mae Martin, found American audiences faster than ever. See our history of British alt comedy.

How the decade ended

By 2019 the alt comedy of the 1990s was the establishment and the streaming specials boom was at its peak. The UCB theatres, the scene's main institution for twenty years, were struggling. Within months, a pandemic would close every venue in the world and change the economics of comedy again. Continue with alt comedy in the 2020s.

Frequently asked questions

What happened to alternative comedy in the 2010s?

It went mainstream. Streaming services, especially Netflix, bought hundreds of stand-up specials, cable and streaming gave alt comics their own series, and podcasts gave them a direct audience. Formerly fringe styles such as cringe, anti-comedy and confessional stand-up became prestige television.

What were the best alt comedy shows of the 2010s?

Highlights include Nathan for You, Review, Broad City, Key & Peele, Kroll Show, Documentary Now!, Lady Dynamite, Joe Pera Talks with You, Fleabag and I Think You Should Leave with Tim Robinson.

Why was Nanette so important?

Hannah Gadsby's Nanette (Netflix, 2018) used the stand-up special to argue against stand-up's own mechanics, refusing to defuse painful stories with punchlines. It sparked a long debate about what comedy is for and made the theatrical, confessional special a recognised form.

What was Hannibal Buress's 2014 routine about Bill Cosby?

In October 2014, a clip of Hannibal Buress calling out Bill Cosby's public moralising and referring to the sexual assault allegations against him spread widely online. It renewed public attention to the allegations, which many women then came forward to repeat.