The following is the caption timecode transcript. It’s for your convenience (Control F) and accessibility.
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Hi, I’m Annaliese Baker.
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I’m a junior at Emerson College,
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and I’m a creative writing
major and publishing minor.
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I’m currently interning at
Comedy Central Stand Up,
where I’m a digital strategist.
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So I found my internship by looking at LinkedIn and Paramount’s website
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specifically. A lot of summer internships open up around Thanksgiving,
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and so I applied right away
and I decided to take this internship
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because I do a lot of comedy
writing myself.
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I’m a standup and a sketch writer,
and I figured Comedy Central
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was the perfect opportunity
and the perfect environment
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to really hone my craft
and learn a lot about this industry.
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My day to day
routine was really, really nice.
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I spent a lot of time working in Comedy Central’s archives,
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so they’ve been a company
that’s been around since the nineties
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and they’re still putting out
new specials.
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So I spent most of my time
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editing these specials to put jokes on our Instagram and Twitter
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and TikTok accounts to really promote comedians’ work
on our social media.
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And I also got to research new comics and recommend them to my coworkers to say,
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“Hey, we should put this person
in a new special in a new show
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we’re putting out.”
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I love to just see how people write jokes and how people tell stories.
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So I spent most of this internship
living in New York City,
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going to comedy clubs
and performing my standup.
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So I would workshop these jokes at work if there was a free moment.
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And that was really nice to hear a lot of feedback from people
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who were consuming and hiring comedians on a daily basis.
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Someone in this field should definitely…
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I mean, this feels ironic to say,
but not take themselves too seriously.
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I think the biggest thing
about working in comedy is that you
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go into work every day and it’s a very playful environment,
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and there’s still that level
of professionalism
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where you’re learning a lot
and you’re working very hard,
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but it’s a very personable job.
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So just be relaxed and take it easily.
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I think some advice I have
for other Emerson students starting
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their internship is just don’t have
any expectations when you
go into the job.
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I was moving to New York
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and I didn’t know anyone and I’d never had a job in comedy before.
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So it was a very, very novel
experience for me
and I was a little nervous,
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but I didn’t want to have
any expectations because
I didn’t want to
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really know anything and I didn’t really know what to expect.
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So just go in and be ready to learn and be eager to help out in any way you can.
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And don’t be afraid to ask questions.
If you want to just talk to different
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people, connect to different people at the company
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that maybe you’re not working for,
but know they have a cool job,
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it’s super helpful to set up informational interviews.
