Jaboukie Young-White on Fixing Matt Rife and the Death of Twitter

Twitter recently lost one of its premier chaos agents: Jaboukie Young-White, the ace comic responsible for maybe the best single act of trolling in the hellsite’s history.

The Illinois native attracted a large social media following in the 2010s thanks to his Instagram posts and tweets brimming with sardonic wit and diablerie. He was branded “gloriously extra” (BuzzFeed’s words), featured on Rolling Stone’s 25 Under 25 list, wrote for Big Mouth and American Vandal, and spent a few years as a Daily Show correspondent. And then it happened: In 2020, on Martin Luther King Day, Young-White changed his Twitter avatar and name to the FBI and tweeted, “Just because we killed MLK doesn’t mean we can’t miss him.” His account was temporarily banned, but that only made his legend grow. It was eventually reinstated, only to get banned a couple of months later when he imitated CNN Breaking News to mock Joe Biden.

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Cut to Elon Musk, one of the least funny people on the planet, buying Twitter for $44 billion in October 2022, making one of the most pathetic stabs at comedy it’s ever seen, unironically declaring “Comedy is now legal on Twitter,” and killing the vibe. Nuance was dead, and Young-White was out. Late last year, he tweeted, “i cannot in good faith get jokes off on elon’s twitter. at least jack was gay.”

But the 29-year-old has kept busy. He’s starred in films like Mike Mills’ C’mon C’mon and Disney’s Strange World, as well as the TV series Only Murders in the Building and Rap Sh!t. He started performing more stand-up, is developing some “top-secret projects” with comedy creatives like Issa Rae, and released his debut music album last year, All who can’t hear must feel, a compelling mélange of rap, pop-rock, and R&B.

Rolling Stone spoke with Young-White about the death of Twitter, trying his hand at music, and more.

How did you weather the writers’ and actors’ strike? That must have been surreal.
I don’t think I’ve had a non-surreal day since maybe five years ago, so at a certain point there’s no more sur — it’s just real. It’s been a tense time. I feel we’re at the precipice of so much. We all have our conjectures, but it’s difficult to pinpoint exactly what we’re headed into. I hope that, moving forward, we can continue to prioritize humanity in art, which I feel has always been at the center of the struggle of mass entertainment even before AI came into question. It was very heartwarming to see everyone come together and see labor rights platformed in a way where it becomes a topic of conversation.

Let’s talk about your debut album, All who can’t hear must feel. It’s an interesting mishmash of genres.
I’ve been making music here and there, then when 2020 hit, I had so much time to sit down and start churning stuff out, and then the opportunity came to make an album and put it out with label backing. I was like, I can’t say no to this. I had a lot backed up that I was ready to mess around with. So much of it I made not intending to really share with a wide audience. When it came time to share, it was an exercise in vulnerability, in a way. People think, “Wow, comedy stand-up … that’s so brave,” but a joke is inherently guarded and detached. Trying to be funny is tough, but once you have stuff that works, you’re not really being vulnerable. You’re playing the hits.

I’m so obsessed with the dynamic between performing comedy live and performing music live. The differences were really jaw-dropping to me. I’ve done karaoke maybe three times since the fourth grade, so performing music was interesting. With comedy, I’m used to the audience being nervous and guarded. Especially if they don’t know you, they’re like, “Am I going to cringe for the next 10 minutes?” They’re scared for themselves and for you. With music, everybody there has kind of already heard the material, so they’re already on your side and ready to receive what you give them. That lack of combativeness was disorienting for me.

I like the song “hit clips pt i.” There’s a fun line in there, “He came twice that’s Jesus-like.”
That’s for the Catholic school girlies. That’s definitely for us.

You also thirst after Tom Hardy on that track. Is he a celebrity crush?
Oh, my God, yes. Are you serious? I was put onto him through Bronson, of course. I would definitely say, 100 percent celebrity crush. I don’t even know if they were confirmed him, but those photo shoots he used to do back in the day [on Myspace]… They were iconic. He has nothing to be ashamed of. It’s society that’s the problem. I support him.

We didn’t know how good we had it with Myspace. You got to know basic HTML, there was a blog, there was music …
I think people are looping back around. There’s a lot of stuff on Substack that’s starting to approach Myspace singularity, like those guys Perfectly Imperfect. I feel it coming back. I feel we need social media again. These are not social media apps. These are digital shopping malls. We’re not on there to connect. They’ve kidnapped our friends and family and are holding them hostage. You post something now and your friends and family aren’t even seeing it anymore. You have to work and put enough content up just so the algorithm will reach the people who you met and the relationships that you have formed. It’s actually crazy. I know I sound like an old man screaming at the clouds at this point, but it’s wild. The internet has always been such a watering hole, community builder, and utopian answer for the queer condition, so I’m invested in it on that front.

Twitter is a disaster. And it’s a platform that used to be fertile ground for comedy. You’ve certainly benefited from it in the past. There used to be so many fun days on Twitter. I think the last fun day I had on there was when that lady crushed 48 oysters on a date.
But even then, that’s TikTok! I have a theory that with every U.S. election, a social media platform culturally dies. 2012 was Facebook. 2016 was Tumblr. 2020 was the beginning of the end for Twitter, and I don’t think it’s surviving 2024. It’s a pattern that I’ve noticed. The platform becomes so charged that it stops being fun to be on and then people find a new place to have fun after that. I don’t see Twitter lasting that much longer. I also don’t see culture coming from Twitter as much anymore. It’s happening on TikTok and then spills over onto Twitter. Twitter is not the origin of a lot of the cool stuff I’ve been seeing recently. I’ve been seeing cool stuff on TikTok, Discord, and Substack. People are forming little communities now, which I love.

Eric André said something to me a few years ago about politics and comedy, and I think it applies to the current state of Twitter, since it’s been overrun with right-wingers and those are the accounts being boosted now. He said, “To be conservative is to not be comedic. To be comedic is to dismantle society and break apart institutions, and to be conservative is to uphold institutions.”
100. It’s funny because Elon was like, “We’re going to bring comedy back to this platform, and you’re going to be able to say whatever you want.” And it’s like, OK, but people were saying crazy shit before you came here, and I actually see less crazy shit being said. It’s more traditional stuff. Really, at the end of the day, the only god we have left is money and capital, and conservatism is the best steward of money and capital. It forces you to kill off parts of yourself that are not in service of money and capital. It teaches you to disregard the humanity of anyone who cannot aid you in your pursuit of money and capital. It urges you to get rid of anyone that’s in the way of money and capital. It fosters so much self-seriousness and paranoia. Money is not funny. Money is some serious shit. And that’s what Twitter has become now. It’s manufactured. Elon’s trying to nickel-and-dime it to hell now to get his money back. The freedom and casualness that Twitter once had you can’t bring back. Also, people getting money from comments is driving people to say the most inflammatory, fucked-up shit. They’re just clocking in to the Outrage Factory. That’s dark.

Is that why you’ve distanced yourself from the platform? Ever since you got suspended for imitating the FBI, it seems there’s been a conscious uncoupling of sorts.
I was like, “I think I did it. I don’t think I can get any higher than that. I left my mark here.” Also, in terms of my work and my career, it positioned me in a weird place. I’m giving jokes and thoughts away for free because I like making people laugh. As a young guy, I never thought, “These jokes are going to make me rich!” But I also do understand the practical aspect of it where people respect me less because I’m doing something for free. The unfortunate side effect of it was, if I do want to keep working, people aren’t going to take me seriously. And in addition to that, people would be like, “Oh, he’s really funny on Twitter!” And people in entertainment would be like, “Oh yeah? The website where people say nasty things about me? You’re funny there, right? They must love you, all the people who say nasty things about me. Good for you!” That was an aspect of it as the site got worse. People just hear “Twitter” now and cringe. It was time to create a little healthy distance and pour so much energy going into it back into myself.

Recently, there’s been quite a bit of hate for Matt Rife — not only online, but within the comedy community. Both John Mulaney and Pete Davidson said he’s their most hated comic.
I can’t really throw stones because there are some comedians who think I am that. I’ve straddled the line to where I’ve done comedy shows and thought, “This is a Twitter audience” or “This is a Daily Show audience.” With the video platforms, I haven’t ever liked posting video content because I feel there’s an overfamiliarity and a sense of disappointment if you’re not doing exactly what you’re doing. I’ve seen people talk about his shows and when he tries to do material, they’re like, “No, do the crowd work!” “Come back to us!” “Talk to us!” Honestly, he should just open up really expensive adult day cares. He could make so much money off of that. Rent out a convention center, get a big playpen, some toys, put some sangria in some sippy cups. Matt Rife, hit me up. Let’s collab. Let’s build. Let’s get this shmoney.

You went to Catholic school, and I’m curious what that experience was like for you as a queer kid.
It’s interesting having distance from it now and seeing how much it affected my worldview. I very quickly and intuitively came to understand how absurd power is — especially institutional power — and how people wield that so casually, and how intoxicating it is, too. And because I wasn’t Catholic, there were so many things that I was always calling out but were so excepted as normal. Things that I was excluded from. In high school, we would do school masses in the gymnasium and I would say, “I’m not going down there. Y’all aren’t gonna give me any crackers so … for what? I want to sit down.” But they wouldn’t let me. So, you would have to walk down and [cross your arms across your chest] so they would know not to give you a cracker. There was shit like that where I was low-level indignant at all times, and now, as soon as I see an institution, I don’t trust it.

Is that where you joking that you’re Italian comes from? Did people back in school think you were Italian?
[Laughs] No! It started as such a small thing that became so much bigger than the initial moment. I was doing an interview on a red carpet and said, “I almost slipped up and said the N-word, but I caught myself.” And the interviewer was like, “Are you even allowed to say that?” And I was like, “Well, I’m Italian … but my friends growing up were Black and they let me say it, so I still kinda say it.” Then I just kept going from there. So now, I’m kind of Italian. I went to the motherland, Italy, and it was pretty racist.

What happened?
I had one moment where someone was walking by and said, “Issi bissi bussi negro.” And I was like, “What did you say?” And he said, “I said, ‘Your jacket is black.’” And I was thinking, my jacket is black, but that’s not what you were saying. That was in Rome.

Robert De Niro is only a quarter Italian. I’ve spoken with him about this a bunch.
Well, it’s the 75 percent that’s really putting in the work because he loves Black women. If it wasn’t for the 75, who knows where we would be.

Who do you think should host The Daily Show?
I would love to see Ramy Youssef guest host. As far as a permanent host, you know what’s kind of crazy? I like the idea of rotating guest hosts. I don’t know how it’s working practically business-wise, but the idea of it being an SNL-type thing where you get someone new to come in, and have that revolving door of perspectives, is really cool. But in terms of who, I don’t know if I have anyone.

What about your acting? You did a great job in C’mon C’mon and Only Murders in the Building, and got to voice a historically significant character in Strange World’s Ethan Clade — the first openly LGBTQ+ main character in Walt Disney Animation Studios’ history.  
It’s been cool. I really love acting. The verb is way more interesting than the noun to me. Being a comedian or being an actor, I don’t care. But doing stand-up, acting, and doing voice-over work, I love those things so much. That’s what it’s always about for me.

There are a lot of itches you need to scratch.
I’m itchy, man! I think I’ve found all of my spots to scratch, though.

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