SHNEAKO - Seek Truth Through Funny

00:00:00.080 This is single-handedly the coolest thing I've ever been handed.

00:00:04.340 And no, it's not the 1 million YouTube plaque.

00:00:06.680 I was really close to throwing it in the river when I got banned.

00:00:09.320 It's the $100 bill that I keep on top of it.

00:00:12.240 When you look closer, you can see on the left it says,

00:00:14.980 Much Love, and on the right it's signed by Dave Chappelle.

00:00:18.280 In the basement of a small comedy club in New York City,

00:00:20.560 he wanted to smoke, so I threw a pack of cigarettes on stage.

00:00:23.400 And he gave me this bill and a long message about kindness.

00:00:26.600 I think he was happy I was kind enough to give him the whole pack instead of just one,

00:00:29.840 but I keep it here as a reminder of my motto to seek truth through funny. It's way too hot.

00:00:39.960 This picture was five years ago. It was the first time I performed stand-up comedy and it was the

00:00:45.000 most nervous that I've ever been in my entire life to this day. I've been in many scary situations.

00:00:50.420 This I wasn't even nervous for a second but this moment I had to poop three times in the club

00:00:55.380 bathroom before I stepped on stage. Because these four words define my entire life philosophy. Without

00:01:00.960 this, I have no idea who I'd be. By far the most difficult question I'm asked is how do I find

00:01:06.980 purpose in life? This is how I found mine. I grew up during the most self-aware period in human

00:01:14.280 history. Traditionally, your environment dictates who you are before you even reach the age of

00:01:18.920 self-discovery. But my generation was the first one where the environment was social media. Previous

00:01:24.180 generations could find themselves tripping lsd at a music festival but we were the first ones where

00:01:28.980 algorithms told us who we were before maturity even had a chance the reason i was pooping so

00:01:34.340 much here and this bill was so cool was stand-up comedy was the first outlet i found to teach me to

00:01:39.140 think for myself without stand-up comedy i would have never found what i wanted in life at such an

00:01:43.940 early age growing up my environment was a world of lies these newly found algorithms allowed us

00:01:50.100 to craft a version of ourselves rather than becoming one and although most of it is terrible

00:01:54.500 comedy is still the pursuit of truth that arab guy and family guy put it perfectly quad can i

00:02:00.020 buy a cup of coffee oh yes it's funny because it's free and no one can have by ridiculing the

00:02:07.460 aspects of life we have all accepted as normal you begin to realize just how programmed we are

00:02:12.740 this is the era where social norms are not established out of necessity but out of convenience

00:02:20.500 and not a convenience to the betterment of society but to prioritize people's feelings

00:02:26.020 and additionally my era could be defined by the rise of heightened self-awareness

00:02:31.620 from ages 3 to 12 i was in a constant state of freaking out that was until i found george carlin

00:02:38.020 right here he's getting arrested for using too many swear words at a comedy show 0.76

00:02:41.780 12-year-old me said that's fucking badass i had never seen someone speak so freely and truly not 0.95

00:02:47.460 give a he attacked the establishment he went after the government he roasted traditional 0.99

00:02:52.580 religious gatherings the guy seemed to hate absolutely everything he was an edgy atheist 1.00

00:02:56.980 but he was honest and really angry he came off like he was smarter than everyone telling us what 1.00

00:03:01.460 to do and he only had to use jokes to achieve it some people are really stupid 1.00

00:03:06.180 it. Before George Carlin, I studied hard for all my exams and afterwards I cheated because school 0.98

00:03:12.440 was a scam. How would I let these cops in uniforms tell me what to do? Then George Carlin became a

00:03:17.940 little preachy and I found Louis C.K. Louis was like the more degenerate Jewish Mexican hilarious 1.00

00:03:25.020 version. Louis C.K. helped me realize the absurdities of it all. People tweeting their 0.97

00:03:31.820 moral stance about climate change on an iphone made by a chinese child in a sweatshop people 1.00

00:03:37.060 who believe you should say the n-word instead of just saying the n-word that's just white people 0.82

00:03:42.960 getting away with saying nigger that's all that is when i was 14 and the third wave of feminism

00:03:47.600 arrived i found bill burr he was answering the questions that every western man has wait why 0.99

00:03:53.140 should we simply believe all women ladies can you at least admit that every ass kicking doesn't just 1.00

00:03:58.720 fall out of the fucking sky? When I turned 16, the world got even crazier when the nation of 79 0.99

00:04:04.560 genders attacked. Dave Chappelle was the one who was always able to navigate through the outrage 0.89

00:04:08.980 with the right commentary. The dude became one of my heroes when I realized he ditched Hollywood

00:04:13.540 of a $100 million contract because he refused to sell his soul. When the industry offered to buy

00:04:18.940 him out, he said, fuck your money, fuck your fame, and left to Africa for seven years. If Dave Chappelle 1.00

00:04:24.400 could refuse to sell his soul for $100 million, then who was I to accept that $20 million

00:04:29.260 gambling deal?

00:04:30.260 When I was 20, I found the funniest guy of all time, but he was already dead.

00:04:35.880 His name is Patrice O'Neal.

00:04:37.520 Patrice O'Neal said what every man felt but had no idea how to articulate.

00:04:41.820 He died 10 years before I found him, but I still listen to every single bit of media

00:04:45.880 that's ever posted on the internet of Patrice.

00:04:47.720 But still, one of my favorite moments of his isn't even comedy.

00:04:50.740 It's when he went on national TV to defend a white man who made a joke about a black 0.96

00:04:54.280 woman being a nappy-headed hoe. 1.00

00:04:56.280 I know that cracker didn't say nappy-headed hoe. 1.00

00:04:58.400 Patrice O'Neil was fat and he called himself ugly, but his existence was proof that the 0.84

00:05:02.660 most authentic person is who captivates the room. 0.89

00:05:05.260 He was the funniest comedian of all time because it wasn't just jokes to him.

00:05:09.480 Comedy was a philosophy.

00:05:10.700 There was something more important going on than just making people laugh. 0.98

00:05:13.920 It was about removing all the layers of bullshit to be perfectly honest. 0.99

00:05:18.820 is how I learned to remove all those layers of bullshit. Growing up, feeling like I never fit 1.00

00:05:24.040 in. Going to school with kids with money who dressed in salmon shorts and Sperry's. With that

00:05:28.840 fakeness that every Asian American has at one point where they try to blend in undercover with

00:05:33.540 white people. But while you're undercover realizing, hey kid, you're also black. Everything felt 0.97

00:05:38.940 awkward. I wouldn't walk into school. I would move my right leg and then my left leg. Individually.

00:05:44.900 Right. Left. Right.

00:05:46.820 Stand-up comedy was the process of unlearning all that programming.

00:05:50.300 Being six years old in the grocery store and seeing two gay men kiss and their beards interlocking.

00:05:56.260 Me going, ew! No! Don't say that! Don't think that!

00:06:01.040 Altering your honest feelings just to fit into society.

00:06:04.300 Changing who you are to be a good person.

00:06:06.860 That's not gross!

00:06:08.480 Being taught that saying the word fat is offensive and to say big-boned or wide-framed instead. 0.94

00:06:14.420 The problem is they're still fat. You're not saving them from their inevitable

00:06:18.620 diabetes. You're just protecting their feelings. This was a very effective way

00:06:22.860 to develop my worldview and understand who I really am. But I wouldn't recommend

00:06:27.140 it to people because you might get the Woody Allen problem. No, not the problem

00:06:31.220 of getting married to your adopted Asian daughter, but living in order to talk 0.86

00:06:35.880 about living. Woody Allen's stand-up is not my favorite, but his movies are some

00:06:39.480 of the best of all time. And the fact he's able to do that with films almost

00:06:42.400 completely comprised of dialogue is because he's not really in the moment. All his experiences are

00:06:48.080 going to be written down one day. For example, last month I sent a quarter million dollars in

00:06:52.820 crypto to the wrong address. The money was vanished like that but I wasn't dreading it for more than

00:06:58.480 five seconds before I started thinking, oh this would be a great movie scene. I had my mouth like

00:07:04.380 this and I started writing immediately. This worldview is honest but you will never really

00:07:10.940 live in the moment again. When everything in life becomes material, the only real

00:07:15.020 way to turn that off is with drugs or quitting. Luckily for me, seeking the

00:07:19.260 truth so much led me to finding God again. I had went full circle from the

00:07:23.840 atheist edgy George Carlin days to somebody with really strong faith. One

00:07:28.820 day you're just laughing at jokes from George Carlin about how absurd it is 0.72

00:07:32.180 that people ever go to war and slowly you realize that everything ridiculous

00:07:36.920 in this world stems from the fact that people are just disobeying what has been

00:07:40.700 outlined to us by God.

SHNEAKO - December 11, 2025

Seek Truth Through Funny

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