Hey, I’ve done a funny!

Here’s a picture of me doing stand-up. It was from a gig I did last week. I was not particularly happy with my performance, but it doesn’t show in these photos. I also got one of my favourite pieces of feedback when a young woman said that she loved my bit on intersectional feminism.

Once I had the photos, I did my usual thing of sharing across social media sites. They appeared first on Facebook, then on Instagram and I sent a couple to a friend on WhatsApp.

I’m guessing most people know that feeling of posting something on a website and waiting for the response; the dopamine that we are supposed to garner from likes and hearts.

I also have a Twitter account. It’s my biggest social media platform, but I’m struggling to know how to use it at the moment. I started on Twitter as a fairly anonymous academic. Over the years, I built up a following because of my research into domestic abuse. I also followed others in that field.

But now, I’m a stand-up, I’ve gone from the deadly serious to the ridiculously silly. So, I’m not sure what to post there anymore. It’s all quite incongruous. Most of my tweets these days fall into an ocean of obscurity. But I posted the pictures anyway and they’ve had a few likes.

Then there is LinkedIn – which feels like the Parents Evening of social media – grown up, sensible, looking more like a formal dinner party than a rave. I sometimes do some free-lance teaching and sessions on using creativity in domestic abuse practice or other areas of social welfare and that is why I have an account. I haven’t really worked out what to post there. I haven’t posted the pictures, yet…

I also have a TikTok account. What’s that all about? Comedians often post short reels of their stand up. But I don’t have the editing skills for that. Plus I’m really bad at videoing myself. But, Rachel, you’re supposed to film yourself, so that you can appraise your performance. Take your art seriously. Joke-telling is a craft to be honed. Or maybe, don’t, because you’d spend too long obsessing about the way your hands move and cringing at your voice sounding like a 12 year old. If audiences laugh I’ve got the feedback I need.

But it’s all very odd isn’t it – social media? It’s a weird mutation of human communication and connection that can leave us feeling lonelier whilst being bombarded by voices.

Sometimes Twitter feels like a graffiti-laden toilet wall, just insults shouted at people you’ve never met. It’s an angry place.

Instagram feels sweeter, but is basically a self-generated PR machine. (Although without it I wouldn’t know that my pictures have a particular appeal to US ex service man who like to slide into my DMs with messages that start with the creepy “Hello, Dear”. I still don’t know what to do what that insight).

Sometimes I go through a brief social media detox, because I can feel the comparisons, insults, polarised points of view, the self-aggrandising turds clogging up my self-esteem. But I always go back. And one of the reasons is that I’m interested in how much people are willing to share of themselves, their opinions, their image, their private lives.

I have boundaries. I play around with them, especially in stand up, which can be quite a confessional art-form. But there are things I know I keep in a locked box of my private life, that isn’t for you.

And deep down, I know I’m not entitled to know about your life too.

Social media and academic research versus social media and comedy are not really that different. It is just a way of shouting “Hey, I’ve done a thing.” “Look at my thing that I’ve done.”

But being funny is so much harder than being serious.

Demanding attention because you have discovered something about the perpetration of fatal abuse seems worthwhile.

I done pulled a face and wrote a funny, fades in comparison.

But here I am pulling a face and doing a funny. And it would be grand if you could follow me on Twitter (@DorisDayRobbins) or Instagram (rachel.robbins.comedy). You can watch me struggle to find my new voice on social media. (Quick edit - I'm no longer on Twitter/X because, you know, facism... but I can be found on BlueSky @rachelrobbins.bsky.social)

On stage I describe myself as a professional flirt, who used to be a professional feminist. So, can I just say you look lovely and I find it really sexy when you treat women with respect and grant them all of their reproductive rights.