NILES ABSTON’S ASS GUY REVIEW
“The worst part of the rap beef to me personally, was having to hear white people’s opinion on it” The viral joke that introduced me to Niles Abston. A man that I didn’t know I was already laughing at via his writing on FX’ Dave.
This joke caused me to do a deep dive on Niles’ work (‘98 Honda, Household Name, etc) and that eventually led me to today - a review of Niles Abston’s ASS GUY.
Comedy to me is a couple things, and neither are “can you make me laugh?” my 5 year old makes me laugh, the word fart still makes me laugh. Making me laugh is a low bar. I need to know
What is your pen like? Can you WRITE-WRITE, or are you just another viral crowd work comic?
Your demeanor. Yelling your punchline doesn’t make it good, do you believe in the joke you’re telling?
Niles to me hit both of immediately, his laid-back approach with well written material made me instantly want more. Seeing comics go viral for all of the right reasons and without nauseating over the top crowd-work material is always refreshing and something I’ll never get tired of.
Now for the reason I am here, ASS GUY.
Off rip, an appreciation and donation setup for teachers, banger. Good teachers need to make triple what your local police make and the bad ones still maybe make double - as a father of 2 I can’t imagine a class of 15 plus. I’d be a bad teacher too, shit.
Niles opens up with a great take on Kelce and Swift, a topic that you’d think is played out but again, we’re shown when done correctly - nothing is played out. Make Travis black again.
Abston’s ability to make topical events timeless is something to be admired, my favorite example of this is displayed early with his writer strike joke. The jokes surrounding this whole event can be told in 2055 or during the week of the strike and you’d laugh just the same. Excellent joke writing, storytelling ability that places you in the dispensary he worked, overall perfect execution on the whole bit.
One of my favorite things about the special isn’t even the jokes. It’s the almost purposeful dividing of the room. There is a lot of talk on race, there are different outlooks and ideas through points of view that a lot of people won’t have, especially if you look like me. Abston doesn’t tiptoe around these topics, he embraces them - he draws attention to these topics and by the end of each joke any division in the room is united by laughter.
About halfway through the special and MAAAAAAN.. It feels like Niles knows me. The whole conversation on the word woke, the white people transitioning. These are topics that I have personally talked about and maybe the jokes don’t hit the same for everyone else but this shit was making me feel SEEN. I am a thick ass white boy and my boys couldn’t convince me to try Post Malone’s OREO cookies, that’s how serious I take this transition shit. Lmao.
I could go joke for joke and tell you everything that I loved this special (I’ve done it, nobody is reading that shit) but honestly.. bring your ass to YouTube, man. It’s free unless you’re a good person and donate. It’s less than hour long and genuinely it’s the equivalent to an album with no skips. Every joke has substance, every transition flows seamlessly, there’s a swagger throughout that is fun to see. Niles is one of them ones.
ASS GUY on YouTube. Subscribe to his channel, support what dude does. We need more creatives like him.
