Caleb Hearon tries not to think about his work. It’s not for lack of material; when we speak, Hearon is fresh off the September 19th premiere of his comedy special, Model Comedian, and in the midst of shooting the follow-up to The Devil Wears Prada (“a total dream come true — so crazy and kind of unbelievable”). Plus, he’s the host of a weekly podcast, So True With Caleb Hearon, which regularly features interviews with industry friends (Brittany Bronski, Rachel Sennott) alongside interviews with queer historians and union organizers. In fact, the gig earned him a spot on Rolling Stone’s “Most Influential Creators” list (much to Mr. Beast’s chagrin, for some reason.) Accolades like these are “surprising and humbling,” but they’re not a reason to get out of bed. “I try not to think too much about my work being important […] I think it’s just a quick path to becoming kind of obsessed with yourself,” Hearon laughs over the phone. “I guess that would be fine, to be obsessed with yourself — I just think that my work would suffer.”
It’s a Sunday morning, but Hearon is busy as ever; as we bounce from topic to topic, he rushes through his building and hops into an Uber. “I might lose you for two minutes,” he apologizes at one point. “So if you’re like, ‘where did he go?’ it’s just because I have bad service in the building.” Hearon proves an excellent multitasker — his attention doesn’t waver for a second. That’s no shock; stacked with projects and premieres, this year has given him plenty of practice. “Lately, my days have just been a bunch of conversations like this: getting to know people, talking about the special, and then trying not to read reviews of the special,” Hearon says. “You wanna say like, ‘OK, I made the piece and now once it’s out, it’s not mine anymore, so that’s none of my business.’”
Even so, a few reviews have inevitably snuck on his social media feed. For artists of any discipline, such is the reality: upon release, creative projects become commercial products. While it’s impossible not to look at comments and critiques (“I think reading everything is sociopathic, and I think reading nothing is sociopathic!”) Hearon tries to keep a healthy distance from the noise. “It’s kind of funny, being forced to engage with strangers’ opinions of you and your work. It’s like Plato in the fucking cave, where they’re not really looking at me — they’re looking at a shadow of me cast on the wall by the candle. They’re layers removed from who I actually am,” he says.
That said, Hearon is an expert in modern entertainment; he understands that connecting with an audience is key. “It used to be that the places that made things had the audience. You got hired by them to come and get in front of the audience. Now, it’s this whole reversal because of the internet where, like, no one’s gonna make your stand-up special if you don’t have an audience to bring to their platform,” he explains. “You have to either get with it or not — and I have been lucky enough to get with it.”
“I’m there in service of the larger idea and the larger goal of connecting with people. I feel a real pressure taken off my shoulders when I don’t let things be about me or make things be about me.”
Caleb Hearon
Hearon knows this better than most. As a writer for Human Resources — an equally-raunchy spinoff from Netflix’s crude comedy hit, Big Mouth — he watched the industry evolve in real time. Today, So True is among Spotify’s most followed podcasts; on TikTok, clips from the show regularly garner upwards of one million views. Hearon credits this to the genre. “Really good comedy is quotable and it’s shareable,” he says. Comedy gave platforms like Vine and Twitter their first viral moments; while they’ve fallen to the wayside, comedy has endured, breathing life into TikTok. It’s an inherent connection, Hearon says. Views come with quality work; he’s not concerned with optimizing clicks.
“I am just trying to tell the truth as I see it and be obsessed with the process,” Hearon explains. “In the culture, I think we have a real problem with being obsessed with the outcome. Everybody wants the outcome. This is why AI is so popular: everyone just wants the thing to be done. They just want the final product. They don’t want to pay a designer to make this image for them. They just want to type in the words and have AI make it kind of badly, but at least they have it right now. I think the antidote to that obsession with bad quality outcomes is an obsession with process. In my process, I’m trying to focus on building things I genuinely care about and not worry so much about the reception. It’s like I said — that’s just none of my business, you know?”
Then, of course, there’s the community. Between his weekly podcast episodes and on-screen appearances, Hearon’s followers are spoiled for content. Still, over thirty thousand fans subscribe to Hearon’s Substack for bonus content and subscriber chats. When Model Comedian premiered, it was a “really sweet space to be in.” Hearon stresses that his work is about building bridges, whether it’s in the shape of a stand-up set, HBO show or YouTube video. “All of this is about community and about connecting with each other. […] In all of these spaces, I’m there in service of the larger idea and the larger goal of connecting with people. I feel a real pressure taken off my shoulders when I don’t let things be about me or make things be about me,” he says. For Hearon, that’s one joy of getting older: navel-gazing loses its lustre. If there are fleeting moments where his work feels personal, it’s in retrospect.
“I think we’re in this really great moment where we can go even harder. There’s actually a point in being political right now. There’s a point in saying tough things.”
Caleb Hearon
“There were no fat gay people on my screens when I was growing up. There are some times, when a big thing happens, where I can think ‘Oh man, I wonder what that would have meant to me,’” Hearon says. He doesn’t dwell on this, though; if identity shows up in his work, it’s because it feels natural. “People will say very nice things to me about being in the closet and how much it means to them to see someone be so out. To be honest, I just feel distant from. My life is so… Like if I meet a straight person, I’m kind of shocked at this point, you know what I mean? I kind of forget that that’s going on.” I know exactly what he means.
In fact, Hearon’s posting and podcasting is every bit as authentic as our conversation. There’s no impulse to self-censor. In the wake of the White House v. Jimmy Kimmel, Hearon says it’s time to get brave. “The unfortunate thing about the Jimmy Kimmel situation is — well, there’s so many things — but one of the unfortunate things is that he barely said anything. It was hardly a comment. It was hardly a joke. It was hardly a comment, and he didn’t get taken off the air for being vile and offensive. He’s getting preempted and taken off the air because Trump doesn’t like him and he’s using the FCC to threaten who he views as his opponents — which is anyone who doesn’t glaze him,” Hearon explains. “I would hate for the response from artists to be that we say less or do less. I think we’re in this really great moment where we can go even harder. There’s actually a point in being political right now. There’s a point in saying tough things.”
For Hearon, who grew up with a religious background in small town Missouri, politics have never been abstract. His beliefs were forged from real struggle, and he calls progressive politics “the only outcome of that experience.” Hearon’s conviction is palpable as he tells me about comedy’s role in combatting today’s turbulence.
“People have asked me, ‘Oh, are you scared about speaking so openly about the things that you talk about politically?’ I’m like, ‘No, if anything, I’m excited. This is good. I don’t like these motherfuckers and I would love for them to feel uncomfortable about my work and I would love for them to get angry about my work because they’re bad people doing bad things! So, yeah: I think we should really not retract right now — we should really not shrink and cower,” he says. Action is imperative; the age of vague signalling is over.
“It’s an exciting time for people who have a platform to stop trying to live in or revive this style of celebrity that existed in the 80s or whatever, where you could just be very quiet and light and make sure that you donate to animals or cancer — just keep everything very agreeable — I think that’s dead. I think that’s over. I think that’s beyond us,” Hearon continues. “I think everybody should take this opportunity to get in the fucking game and say something.”
Feature Image: Caleb Hearon. Photo by Emilio Madrid.
