Comedian Amber Ruffin Is Nailing It

She is so hilarious! I sent this link to my husband – a white man who teaches in an all black school in inner-city Atlanta. He watched some of these clips with one of his classes today, and they all LOVED it (him included)!

I LOVE her. Everyone: quick – go look up her bit “How Not to Laugh at Jeff Sessions”. I can hardly breathe from laughing!

Is it just me, then, who goes through an extremely unpleasant experience and goes “well, let’s do everything possible to avoid experiencing that again”? Yes, it didn’t kill me, but that *really* doesn’t mean I’m enthused by the prospect of repetition…

That said, a comic set falling flat might be more traumatic in expectation and less traumatic in reality than some of the things I’m thinking of. Or maybe I’m just a pain-avoidant chicken.

She truly never fails to make me laugh out loud. My favorite segment with her is “Jokes Seth can’t tell” because the chemistry between Amber, Seth and Jenny (another writer) is perfect and the punchlines are pure gold.

I perform improv comedy and that “failing and surviving” part is why I love it so much! One of my previous groups used the mantra, “nobody dies.” Sounds morbid at first but it’s a great reality check.

Sometimes when I’m afraid to do something, I think of myself like a toddler throwing a fit because she’s CONVINCED she’s gonna hate broccoli before she’s even taken a bite. I think in adulthood we tell ourselves that the stakes are higher when they actually kind of aren’t. Just try one bite, and if you don’t like it, the world keeps spinning, nobody dies. In the context of a comedy show, that means the audience doesn’t laugh and there are strained moments of silence and you are haunted by some line you pulled out of nowhere that sounded bizarre. But the ripples don’t extend out beyond that. You just pick yourself up and try again in a few weeks.

Love her! She was so adorably funny on Drunk History.

She is so hilarious! A while back, I heard an interview with Sasheer Zamata discussing when SNL went through that phase where they explicitly were trying to add a black female cast member. They did showcases for black female comedians and Zamata (the one who ultimately made it on SNL) was talking about how powerful and amazing it was to see all of her sister comics all in one space together, because many of them knew of each other, but hadn’t shared a space like that till that point.

I remember her saying that Ruffin was one of the finalists, and while she didn’t make it on the show, it looks like she at least caught Meyers’ eye when he was hiring for his show, and thank goodness for that!

speaking of female comics, have you seen the Marvelous Mrs. Maisel?! AHHHHHHMAZING

This is so brilliant!

Haha, I need more of these to watch! She’s great!!

Well that was fun! I was clueless. Thanks for sharing, made my afternoon :)

How did I not know about Amber?? She is so funny. I need as much humor in my life as possible. Thank-you!!