Standing comedian: "The industry is dead right now"

Isak Wahlberg is a comedian and organizer of a standing club. He chose to cancel already two weeks ago, because it gets crowded in the small basement room. Since then, clubs have been closed and humor tours canceled.

- Many are freelancers, and they are smoked. All the money goes to the middle beer for the comics. There is nothing in the barns for anyone, he says.

Isak Wahlberg believes that comics are usually innovative and that they will find new ways to reach out with their humor. Several comedians have already started with web TV, podcasts and vlogs. Not infrequently, the jokes are about the corona virus.

Isak Wahlberg thinks that the joke is now getting old faster than usual. Previously, a meme could circulate for several weeks, but you can now see that the joke clearly follows the course of the corona crisis.

- Everyone follows the same thing so much, so you get tired of it so quickly, he says.

- First it was the bunkering joke, and then it was the toilet paper joke. Then came the Tegnell joke, says Isak Wahlberg.

Joanna Doona is a doctor of media and communication science and researches humor. She thinks that humor can act as an escape from reality, but that the corona joke now shows the opposite.

- We want to feel that we are somewhere. So the function is to remind us of the existence of the group. Especially for those of us who don't see the group as much right now, says Joanna Doona.

But after all, it seems that the threshold for what one is joking about is higher right now, even when it is about something as serious as the corona virus.

- I don't see the same kind of cursed reactions one can sometimes see when it comes to jokes about other diseases. People may have a little more acceptance that humor is needed in this situation, says Joanna Doona.