During his appearance on the Creators Inc. podcast, comedian and content creator Malik Bazille was asked directly whether he believes white and black audiences consume content differently. His answer came without hesitation, and he pointed to a specific podcast appearance as the experience that solidified that belief for him.
“A thousand percent,” Malik said.
He then reflected on his time appearing on TFATK, the podcast hosted by Brendan Schaub and Bryan Callen, explaining how being on that platform made him more aware of cultural differences in humor and audience reactions.
“I was on this podcast called TFATK. It was a podcast for Middle America,” Malik explained. “It was Brendan Schaub, Bryan Callen. They had the likes of Theo Von, Bobby Lee on there as guests. And I was a black guy on there.”
He continued by describing moments where certain jokes did not necessarily resonate with him personally, even though he still understood the conversational dynamic behind them.
“And certain jokes they’ll say were kind of like, oh, okay. I didn’t really laugh,” he said. “But we consumed it in a conversation. So it’s funny. Bobby Lee is universally funny. All these guys are universally funny.”
Malik then contrasted that experience with the type of humor and conversations he naturally gravitates toward.
“But certain things when we laugh at, I’m on a podcast talking about, I’m like, what is going on?” he added.
The host followed up by asking Malik whether he has ever walked onto a comedy stage, looked out at a predominantly white audience, and immediately felt the need to recalibrate his material in real time.
Malik laughed while admitting that the feeling is very familiar to him.
“Oh my god, I feel like I’m in court,” he said. “Like every time I get on and I see a lot of white people, I’m like, hey, did y’all, who you know who you came to see?”
He then joked about how he adjusts his material depending on the room.
“And I was like, yo, I pull out my white jokes like, okay, let me see Epstein files, guys,” Malik said.
