Connor Wooden, a comic, podcaster, and social media persona who rose to fame with jokes about being unemployed throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, loves watching a superb TV present. Broad Metropolis, Curb Your Enthusiasm, It is All the time Sunny in Philadelphia, Seinfeld, and Veep make the highest of his record. So, naturally, once we met up in New York Metropolis’s West Village one Might morning, he can not help however inform me about his life prefer it’s a TV present.
Every story is remarkably episodic: There’s the one I might title “The Gang Gets a Pig,” wherein Wooden and his sister purchased a pig with out their mother and father’ permission and hid it of their rooms in Texas. “The One Where Connor Broke His Arm” is an episode about Wooden faking a damaged arm for the eye (celebrities, they’re similar to us!) a number of occasions earlier than his arm broke for actual. “The Cowboy Trials” is when he discovers that, regardless of his biggest makes an attempt, he doesn’t wish to be a cowboy. After which there’s “Connor Gets Put on a Watch List,” wherein all of us uncover Wooden was born on 9/11.
Connor Wooden: Man of the Individuals
Credit score: Joseph Maldonado
Shortly after Wooden moved to the West Village in February, The Minimize printed a narrative highlighting how the It women of the West Village spend their time. It went comparatively viral, as a bit from The Minimize does. After I carry it up, Wooden acknowledges that his new dwelling might be thought of the influencer capital of NYC. However, he says, he did not select the Village due to its proximity to influencer tradition — a tradition he would not essentially establish with — however as a result of he was in a rush to discover a place and his new condo has “amazing light” which permits him to “film all day” and in addition not “fall into a deep, deep void.”
We meet at a restaurant owned by a man who privately asks me, earlier than even setting eyes on Wooden, to not carry out cameras as a result of he “fucking hates that TikTok shit.” Wooden brings his personal espresso, which he rapidly finishes and discards so he can order an iced espresso from the store as a substitute. We sit on the bar and chat. I ask him about how, within the half a decade since he has been creating content material, he has amassed a couple of million followers throughout TikTok and Instagram. On-line, he predominantly posts his comedy or clips from his podcast, Brooke and Connor Make a Podcast, which he co-hosts alongside his inventive companion, Brooke Averick, recognized on-line as @ladyefron. If the web had its means, they’d be co-starring in a romantic comedy, too. Followers obsess over their chemistry, delivery them with the depth solely parasocial relationships can gasoline.
Connor Wooden: Huge Tchotchke Man
Credit score: Joseph Maldonado
“That level of friendship is the foundation of a marriage,” one particular person wrote in a subreddit devoted to the duo. “I think it’s possible Brooke could have had feelings for Connor at one point, but they’re truly not each other’s types at all,” a separate fan wrote. “I think they’re strictly friends who have probably made out while drunk,” one other posted. To be clear: It would not appear to be any of those posters have ever truly met both Wooden or Averick.
So when Wooden insists it’s strictly platonic, saying they each discover the fan theories “really funny,” it is clear he is being trustworthy. “We laugh at it,” he mentioned. “People have a lot of time.”
Leaving the espresso store, we embark on Wooden’s purpose for the morning: purchase some tchotchkes for his new condo. We wander into a unusual West Village store, the place Wooden is taken by a collection of artwork prints depicting well-known folks as sandwiches. Then, Wooden’s press particular person, who’s tagging alongside, will get yelled at for touching a kind of prayer candles with a star on it. We rapidly depart.
Loads of followers have identified that whereas Wooden and Averick might be bodily affectionate, that may simply be a means they hang around. And that notion goes past followers. Dave Portnoy, the 48-year-old founding father of Barstool Sports activities, referred to as Wooden the “top 1 most annoying dude” as a result of, seemingly, Wooden is just too pleasant.
It is true: Wooden is pleasant. That heat would possibly lead folks to learn extra into his relationship with Averick, however actively disliking somebody for being good is a reasonably wild stance.
Mashable Development Report
And being pleasant is among the causes Wooden has so many followers displaying as much as his reveals. He began touring together with his comedy — and with out Averick — in 2024, together with doing two sold-out reveals as a part of the New York Comedy Pageant and two reveals within the UK and Eire. Nonetheless, he is typically confronted with being the “TikTok Guy at comedy clubs,” a reputation he would not precisely adore as a result of, as he sees it, his work on TikTok is not all that totally different from what comedians used to do — it is simply one other medium.
Connor Wooden: West Village Lady
Credit score: Joseph Maldonado
“I read all these books with comedians, and [they talk about] doing shows every single night,” he informed me, referencing books like Jerry Seinfeld’s Is This Something? “We’re posting TikToks every single day. And it’s not the same, but it is immediate feedback that we take to the clubs and try out longer bits. We just have this extra tool now to use as a sounding thing before we go to the clubs.”
He would not put up a set variety of TikToks day-after-day, however he posts just a few every week, most of which garner tons of of hundreds of views, and a few of which garner tens of millions. He makes use of TikTok as a software and listens to his viewers — what do they discover humorous? What do they discover attention-grabbing? He gathers all of that info to create a set. After which, he heads on tour. Proper now, Wooden is ending up his “Fibs and Associates” stand-up tour, after performing all over the place from Virginia to Hawaii.
Connor Wooden: Loves a park
Credit score: Joseph Maldonado
We cease at one other kitschy retailer stuffed with girlboss gadgets with exorbitant costs for about 20 seconds, after which attempt to go to a few vintage shops which are all closed. Wooden is attempting to buy one thing to embellish his condo with, and he is additionally attempting to indicate me round his neighborhood, so it isn’t going precisely as he pictured, however he is taking it like a champ.
“This is really fabulous that everything’s closed,” he says with fun after the second failed try.
Throughout our stroll, Wooden strikes with the unfastened, barely crooked power of somebody not sure of the place he’s going, however form of OK with that. He pauses to admire canine, grows distracted by instructions, and tells me he as soon as rerouted his total day simply to drink a espresso close to Will Ferrell in reverent silence.
Wooden’s jokes do not are inclined to hit like punchlines in particular person; they unfurl, extra confessional than performative. It is all amusing and fascinating, nevertheless it’s exhausting to get by way of to Wooden’s real vulnerability. He is engaged on one thing he will not inform me about. He is forgotten about his New 12 months’s resolutions, or refuses to share them with me. After I press him on upcoming initiatives, he doubles down.
Connor Wooden: What??
Credit score: Joseph Maldonado
“And I won’t [tell you],” he says, playfully confirming his quiet technique. For those who neglect your targets utterly, perhaps that is the true secret to conducting them. Holding that distance is one thing I can respect — though he is not fully tight-lipped and feels nice sharing how sweaty he’s (very, though you’ll be able to’t inform). “There’s a level of fame where I want to cap out,” he says, describing his dream profession arc, and joking that “no one on his team wants to hear that.” “But I can’t imagine not being able to go for a run on the West Side Highway or go out to eat.” It is like he is already envisioned the price of notoriety and determined he desires to maintain just a few elements of himself untouched.
Nonetheless, it would not appear to be he thinks he is wherever close to that but. Wooden has a predominately feminine fan base, and after I ask if he’d like extra males within the combine, he laughs and says: “I wish I had more fans. I don’t care who they are,” then, pretending to flag down a waiter: “Please, more fans! I’ll do a double.”
That rigidity between ambition and groundedness drives a lot of what makes Wooden compelling. He’s formidable, however not insatiably so. He’s self-aware, however not tortured. He desires to be humorous, however not on the expense of care. He’s a kind of uncommon personalities who appears to get that each comedy profession, regardless of how digital, remains to be simply an ongoing pilot season. You strive issues. You see what sticks. You rewrite the script. You hope the viewers grows with you.
After a ultimate cease at Restoration {Hardware}, which we stroll by way of for a second earlier than giving up, we sit down at one of many tables on Little Island, a small and exquisite synthetic island in Hudson River Park. The humidity is at its peak. I am pondering that my episode with Connor would have been referred to as “The Antique Store,” harking back to that Seinfeld episode the place everybody will get misplaced within the parking storage.
Wooden doesn’t appear to be he desires to impress me, and it really works. I am not impressed by him. He would not have a larger-than-life aura. Normally, that form of detachment solely works in the event you’re gifted sufficient that your work speaks for itself, or cool sufficient that your style emanates past your silence, however Connor is simply…some man. And that is what so many individuals love about him. That is what I like about him.
If Wooden’s life actually was a TV present, the latest season could be thought of monumental. The forged is altering, the set is flipped, and the profession has developed from youthful TikTok jokester to on-stage comedian. It is nonetheless about hijinks — a full episode could be dedicated to the “I’ve purse” line from their podcast, a joke reminiscent to me of Paul Rudd’s “I love lamp” line in Anchorman — nevertheless it’s additionally about craft. He is displaying as much as open mics, specializing in his inventive partnership with Averick that’s half podcast, half friendship remedy (and under no circumstances romantic), and studying learn how to stability visibility with one thing that appears like actual life.
And that, actually, feels just like the form of finale that deserves a inexperienced mild.
