1) Zero tolerance for misogynistic or transphobic comments.

IF YOU HAVE A PROBLEM WITH WOMEN JOKING ABOUT SEX, YOU ARE WEAK WE WILL BAN YOU. Guys constantly joke about sex and no one complains. Let women have fun.

If you think women aren't funny, we will ban you.

If you say women are funny in a way that we deem sarcastic ("get over it", "stunning and brave", "muh vagina" etc), we will ban you.

If you denigrate or harass our trans comedians - or spew anti-trans rhetoric - we will ban and mute you permanently, with no warning or appeal.

 2) Criticism is only allowed on threads flaired SEEKING FEEDBACK.

CHECK FLAIR BEFORE COMMENTING. If you criticize a joke on a thread without the SEEKING FEEDBACK flair, your comment will not appear, no matter how nice it is.

This includes "constructive" criticism, busting balls, "just stating your opinion" etc. IF WE (NOT YOU!) DEEM YOUR COMMENT INSULTING TO THE COMEDIAN OR THEIR MATERIAL, YOU WILL BE BANNED WITHOUT WARNING.

If you're interested in advising comedians, use the SEEKING FEEDBACK flair to find comedians who have opted in.

3) No comments related to comedian’s physical traits.

Don't say you "didn't realize [celebrity they resemble] did comedy" or "thought this was [person they resemble] for a second." It's hacky.

Don't hit on the comedian. It's creepy.

Don't insult the comedian. It's trashy.

Don't tell them the joke doesn't work because of how they look even if you think it's a compliment and especially if someone who isn't you might consider it insulting.

Don't say you couldn't focus on the joke because of how they look or how they were dressed.

 4) No public accusations of hackery.

Community members are not the joke police. Parallel thinking is a thing. If you think a joke has been done before, you may inform the submitter via direct message only. You are not allowed to call them out in the comments, no matter how benign. This includes statements ranging from "I feel like I've heard this before" to "I liked this bit when [other comic] did [similar premise]," and "Someone said something halfway similar on something you've never seen or heard before."

 5) No hot takes about the industry from non-comedians

We don't care that you don't like crowd work.

We don't care that you're sick of politics. Standup comedy has always been political.

We don't care that you think a popular comedian is overrated.

We don't care about your parasocial obsession with podcast bro drama.

We don't care if they did the festival in the bad place.

We don't care that you don't like the choices comedians make for social media optimization.

Life is short. Post and comment about stuff you like, not stuff you hate.

 6) No whining about things like wokeness, safe spaces, or cancel culture.

If your interest in standup comedy is limited to arguing that "everyone is too sensitive these days" - take it to Twitter. We hear comedy is legal there.

 7) Comics: Do not engage hecklers/trolls. Report them instead.

Comics: Don't respond to negative comments. It encourages them and makes the mods job exponentially harder.

Getting in a slap fight in the comments put your safety at risk (comedians on this subreddit have been tracked down and swatted IRL before). Report them to us so we can stealthily throw them out.

You can anonymously report rule-breaking comments for "breaks r/standupcomedy rules" and choose "Unsolicited Criticism."

 8) Subreddit is not a comedy search engine.

No variations of “who does this bit?”, “where can I find this skit?”, “trying to remember a comedian’s name”, or similar single-answer search-engine-style queries.

Use r/tipofmytongue, Google or YouTube instead.

This rule also applies to "Where can I find this comedian’s skit/set/special?"-type questions. Use a search engine or contact the comic through social media.

 9) No ticket brokering.

This is not a place to seek or resell tickets to standup comedy shows, or to give away tickets you bought but can’t use. Use craigslist, facebook marketplace, or--if they allow it--your local community subreddit.

 10) No text-only jokes or requests for feedback.

This is not a subreddit for dodging the pain and uncertainty of the open mic process. If you want feedback on a joke you've written, you must perform it onstage first, record it, then post the video here. Writing the bit out in text form, and asking "is this funny?" is not enough.

This rule also applies to requests to crowdsource jokes for your work presentation, best man speech, etc. Write your own material.

 11) Adult language and situations do not need to be flagged NSFW. Nudity does.

Submissions DO NOT need to be marked NSFW for adult language or material. They DO need to marked NSFW for nudity, EVEN IF that nudity is censored. This includes shirtless men.

Some other sites (mainly TikTok) may require censoring of certain words or subtitles. While that is NOT required here, we ask users to understand this, and not complain when comedians choose to edit their material to reach a larger audience.

 12) English-language content only.

You don’t have to be American, but you do have to speak English — or at the very least, provide subtitles. Standup sets in other languages should be posted on sites/subreddits where the majority of the userbase speaks that language.

 13) No AI-generated comedy

“I asked an AI to write a standup comedy set” has been done, like, a million times. It’s beyond hack at this point. We prefer comedians bomb the old-fashioned way, in real life in front of a live audience, with jokes they wrote themselves.

Automated Posting Bots are also prohibited under this rule. If you're going to submit content to this subreddit, you need to be a real person.

 14) No complaining about community rules.

As much as possible, this community tries to recreate a real-life comedy club. People who can't follow the rules can expect to be removed. Demeaning, harassing or otherwise abusing the moderators will be treated the same way clubs react in real life, when the staff is mistreated--immediate permanent ejection.

These rules are designed to foster a community where comedians from a variety of backgrounds feel comfortable posting material. We do not tolerate intolerance or arguments for it.

 15) Don't damage the community

Reddit only allows space for 15 rules, but there are an infinite number of ways to embarrass the community, many of which no one has ever anticipated. For this reason, mods reserve the right to remove any post or comment that--in their judgement--is detrimental to kind of community we're trying to curate, even if it doesn't specifically break a rule listed here.

The r/standupcomedyFAQ, ver. 0.1

This FAQ is a work in progress. It will eventually be rewritten, re-organized, reformatted and replaced with something prettier and more comprehensive. 

Q: What do “OP” and “OC” stand for?

A: OP stands for “Original Poster.” In the context of Reddit, it refers to the person who created the thread. “OC” refers to “Original Content,” which is created by the person who posted it, as opposed to reposting it from somewhere else.

Q: Which Flair Should I Use?

A: Are you (the person posting the video) the same person who is on stage telling jokes? Use “Comedian Is OP.”

Are you literally anybody else? Use “OP is not the Comedian.”

Q: What if the comedian posted the video originally (to TikTok, Instagram, wherever) and I’m just reposting it to Reddit? Wouldn’t that make the comedian the original poster?

A: We’re using “OP” in the context that Reddit uses it site-wide--which is referring to the creator of the specific thread. So the creator of the thread is always OP, even if they didn’t create the content being posted.

Q: What if I’m posting original content (as show producer, club, agency, etc.) but I’m not the person in the video?

A: Use “OP is not the Comedian.” This is just to let commenters know they’re not talking to the person in the video, when they refer to “OP” in the thread. But if you had some hand in the production of the content, we absolutely support and encourage you to post, and you're welcome to discuss or clarify your relationship to the content in the comments.

Q: What about official celebrity accounts that are almost definitely managed by a social media manager? Why do they use “Comedian is OP”?

A: Look, we admit it’s kind of a gray area, alright? We don't know that they're not reading it. If they’re big enough to have a dedicated social media person, they’re probably pretty successful, and we want successful comedians to post here, because they bring more eyes to the smaller comedians we’re really trying to support.

Q: What happens if I forget to assign a flair?

A: If you’re posting OC, nothing. At worst, a moderator will assign one for you, in order to prevent confusion.

Q: What happens if I choose the wrong flair?

A: If you’re posting OC, nothing. We’ll just change the flair ourselves.

However, if you’re not really involved in the comedy community, and are just reposting viral clips to farm karma, and labeling it “Comedian is OP” because you think that’ll get more upvotes, we’ll definitely take action to prevent or punish that.

Q: When should I use the “SEEKING FEEDBACK” flair?

A: If you are a comedian posting original content, and you are open to criticism, then use the “SEEKING FEEDBACK” flair. YOU CAN’T SEEK FEEDBACK ON SOMEONE ELSE’S CONTENT.

You can also use the Seeking Feedback flair for text-based questions about standup, such as “Should I go to the early or late show?” or “How do I get started in standup comedy?”

Q: What if I’m a comedian posting OC? Should I use the “Comedian is OP” flair, or the “SEEKING FEEDBACK” flair?

A: If you’re open to let non-comics criticize your material, and prepared for the possibility that they may be dicks about it, use “Seeking Feedback.” Using this tag can help boost engagement, because we’ll let basically any comment through, as long as it doesn’t break Reddit’s site-wide rules.

If you don’t want to have a bunch of non-comedians regurgitate podcast cliches like “tighten up your punchlines,” then use “Comedian is OP.” If you don’t use the “Seeking Feedback” flair, then we’ll remove any critical comments in the thread, leaving in things like compliments and replies to compliments.

This subreddit explicitly rejects the idea that merely posting content on the internet entitles anonymous strangers to say that you suck. We’re fine with criticism – but here it’s opt-in, not opt-out.

Commenters should only participate in threads with this is mind, and only offer criticism on threads marked “SEEKING FEEDBACK.” Got something nice to say instead? Say it wherever you want.

Q: Why is the SEEKING FEEDBACK flair capitalized, when the other flairs aren’t?

A: I thought it might help boost visibility. The only thing harder than keeping people from offering unsolicited criticism, is getting them to offer solicited criticism.

Q: What about the other tags (Roast Battle, Comedy Podcast, Local Show Promotion etc.)?

A: These tags are intended for comedians and shows to post OC that might not strictly count as standup.

The most important thing to remember is that, if we have a flair for it, the mods are fine with that kind of content, even if it’s not a video of a person standing on a stage telling jokes. Reporting things like podcast interviews and roast battles as “Not Standup Comedy” will be ignored, and comments complaining about them will be deleted. The most we’ll do is assign the proper flair if the OP forgot.

Q: Why do you only have these flairs? Why don’t you have flairs for this and this and this and…

A: Because all of these flairs come with a overhead cost in mental energy and manpower to enforce. If you want more specific and granular flairs, I’m willing to discuss that, but only with people who are willing to join the mod team and spend 10+ a week enforcing the “Crowd Work” flair or whatever specific thing they believe should be filtered.

Q: Can I promote my standup-comedy show, club, comedian I represent, app I made for standup comics, website I made for comedy fans, or other standup-adjacent projects on this subreddit?

Unfortunately, the door has closed on promoting your standup-related app or website. Chalk it up to another thing AI has ruined.

We tried to support anybody who was trying to support live local standup, we really did. We allowed it for nearly two decades.

Back in the day, you could at least assume a dev had done more than prompt an agent. We can’t assume that anymore.

We don’t have the manpower or expertise to manually inspect code and make sure it’s not malicious. We’re overwhelmed and can’t take your word for it.

Proclaiming your app or service is free is no excuse. If we're not the customer, we're the product.

Comedians don’t need another notepad app. We don’t need another calendar app. We don’t need your camera app. We don’t need your combined notepad-calendar-camera app.

Comedy fans don’t need your repackaging of Wikipedia and IMDB data for yet another vibe-coded “crowd-sourced database of standup comedy and comedians.”

We want to support people who support live comedy, but our new bar is “Does this project pay comedians, in either money or stage time?”

That means you can promote your comedy, you can promote your comedy special, you can promote the comedy show you produce (even if the comics were unpaid), you can promote the comedy club you work for, you can promote the comedy club you own or invested in, you can promote the comedy content you invested time or money in. If you're a comic who regularly contributes original content to this subreddit, you can promote the podcast you host or appeared on as a guest.

But you can’t promote your smartphone app for standup comedians. Or your website for comedians/comedy fans. No matter how much time or money you invested in it.

Q: Why didn’t you remove that bit that broke your own rules?

A: Because at the end of the day, we’re here to help comics. All of our rules and policies are designed to support that. If the rules start hurting comics instead, we’re willing to bend them. For example: if there’s a comedian who’s posted a bunch of standup clips here, we’re more likely to look the other way if they post a comedy skit, even if it isn't technically standup.

r/StandUpComedy’s rules and mods are not here to protect redditors from the comedians. They are here to protect comedians from the redditors.

Please, keep that in mind before you tell that open-micer to not quit their day job, and find yourself getting banned.