I am Elliott Morgan and I do things on the internet. It's not (all) porn. AMA

Hey Elliott When do you think you will return to that gReat show?

Leave please.

I swear to god.

Leave.

Hey Elliott! I've been a huge fan of yours since your Sourcefed days. How do you think your humor has changed/matured since then?

Hi, Bloody lamp! Thank you for watching me on SourceFed and whatever else. My humor has definitely gotten a lot darker. Since kinda falling into the YouTube game, it's been a constant game of "Okay, will people hate me for this joke? Do I care? Is it funny enough? Is it a reflection of my world view or solely done for shock value?" The result has been, as I'm more open about what I find funny, people seem to be more attracted to it. Weird how that works. Like... be yourself or something? Is that the moral? I don't know. This is my first answer, so it's a little longwinded and I apologize for that. The last thing I wanna do is ramble. When I ramble, I accidentally forget put linking verbs, and it just becomes unreadable. I'll try to make sure Id don't ramble or put typos hate tpos

Who was your favorite editor at SourceFed and why was it me?

IGNORGED!!! I dunno if your are norg but I like the pun....

God, I wish I was Norg.

You were up there, for sure. Always so full of knowledge.

Hey Elliott! Would you rather fight 1 Steve Zaragoza sized duck or 100 duck sized Steve Zaragozas? Thanks, love your work! :)

You can't have more than one Steve in a universe at a time, so I guess I'll take on the giant duck.

If you were to be one of the four kids from Willy Wonka (Charlie excluded) who would you be and why?

That little dick from Texas.

Also, am I dreaming, or is there a scene in that movie where they're all floating up toward a giant blade that could dice them to pieces? God I love that movie.

Hi Elliott, huge fan! Now that you have a comedy special, what do you have planned next? Are there any long term goals/aspirations that you're working towards?

I don't look too far into the future, but a Grammy is obviously next on the docket.

what is your favorite thing to eat for lunch?

Holy shit, Steve. Lunch is like this weird challenge for me. It's the one meal that actually affects my day. So I try to eat something healthy. But honestly, I'm a sucker for fast food. But lunch is just this forgettable meal, what is it even trying to be? Do you ENJOY it or do you just eat something to stay alive? That's the conundrum. I will probably eat a roast beef sandwich today. That'll do.

Hey Elliott! I've loved you since SourceFed. What's your favorite story from those times?

Closed door writing room times. We were all going mildly crazy there, and that insanity manifested itself in all sorts of ways.

I believed, behind closed doors, I'd pretend to be a mentally challenged stripper and give someone a lap dance. Joe and I would find horrendous, disgusting, vile photos on the Internet and send them to Steve with captions like "New Breaking Bad news!" or something, and it would be a photo of... stuff I refuse to conjure in my memories.

Hey Elliott! Have you figured out why Prince likes your face so much? I think it's the funniest thing in the world.

I KNOW! It cracks me up. Like, I doubt he'd even recognize me, because I'm making such a weird face, but man....

Him using my face as a meme is like... I don't know. It's like a microcosm for the randomness of the whole internet. I love it.

No idea. But it's the best thing ever when I see that on my feed.

Who are your comedic inspirations? My dad is starting to do standup, and I'm interested to see how his compare to yours, since you two are similar in style.

Awesome! I love standup so much. I always have, and I view getting to do it as a huge honor, whether it's an open mic or an hour-long special called Premature, available now on Vimeo on Demand.

As for my comedic inspirations, I don't think I'll shock anyone by listing some names: Pete Holmes, John Mulaney, Bo Burnham, Steve Martin, Joel McHale, and Bill Burr. There's kind of this generation of comedians who I love watching grow and try new things. They really inspire me. Mulaney got flack for his show, but he was really experimenting with it. That spirit of doing an old thing slightly differently is super cool to me. And Gallagher.

Always Gallagher.

Hey Elliot! How exactly did you go from sourcefed to your comedy special?

I quit SourceFed and started doing stand-up. I bribed a series of higher-ups in showbusiness. I started doing cocaine, so I'd fit in with a lot of other budding stand-up comedians. I sold one half of my soul (other half is for a sitcom later). I performed a sexual flavor, which is like a sexual flavor, but... banana-flavored. Haha, I just made myself smile at how stupid this answer is. I'm so sorry. Epic fail here. Please forgive me.

Even effed up the flavor joke. Nice, Elliott. elliottmorganspecial.com

My girlfriend is in class and busy with finals preparation so I'm here asking for her.

Hi Elliott! I've truly enjoyed all the work that you've put out since I discovered you on SourceFed. I love your sense of humor, but I'm curious where your style of delivery comes from. How did you develop the character of Elliott C. Morgan? Because it was so different from your delivery during Happy Hour, but you still gave us your opinion in a hilariously thought-provoking manner. So excited for your special, I will indulge once college finals are over!

Hey, man! Hi to your girlfriend and good luck to her on finals. I remember those. #itgetsbetter

I appreciate the nice words about The Study. The Study was a fun show, and I belieeeeve we're doing more. There's talk of Elliott C. Morgan losing all his money, going to prison, etc. We'll have fun with it.

I think a lot of what I do creatively is reactionary to what I've been doing. So Happy Hour lost jump cuts and didn't use a teleprompter. The Study was a character-driven satire, because everything prior had been very strict hosting. The character of Elliott C. is very much me (just awfuler), but the idea behind the show was to make an ambiguous show. Like, I wanted there to be kernels of morality and rightness in the horrible things he was saying.

Whether that came across, who knows. We'll figure it out. Or we won't. That's always fun, too. :)

Also, yes, please indulge when you're ready! I will say it's a very chill comedy special. Someone else said it was good for unwinding. That's a very nice compliment. Good luck man!

Hey Elliott! Been a long time (relatively) silent fan. I loved all your vines and really enjoyed the study. I'm so excited to see what you come up with next. Have you ever thought about growing some facial hair to help with the baby face? Cause bud you look 19.

I'm 15.

Hi Elliott! Have you ever noticed you smile like Leonardo DiCaprio?

Read this as "smell like," and had so, so many questions....

Elliott, do you plan on continuing with that gReat show? Love you and Delmans chemistry on the show.

Yes! Haha, funny you say that... TGS is alive and well. We're just working on REALLY improving it.

When did you start writing jokes for your comedy special? And who did you work with to make it happen?

Hey, great question! The folks at Supergravity Pictures have been absolutely incredible, and I'm not just saying that because they set up this AMA. They've given me such a huge amount of support that it's really comforting.

As for the jokes themselves, I think any standup imagines a special at some point. So I guess the jokes came the first time I did an open mic. WHICH WAS TERRIBLE BY THE WAY. :)

What is your inspiration that gets you out of bed in the morning?

My back starts kind of hurting around 3PM, so I force myself to stand up. Fun fact: Tylenol doesn't work on bed sores! HEY OH!

Elliott!

I'll get down to it,

On the SF podcast, you mentioned how the whole Premature thing came from feeling like you got to this point way faster than you feel is reasonable (from what I gathered.) Lee also brought up the point of you (through a shit load of work) already having a substantial audience that perhaps aided all of this unreasonably fast success. So, my question is, if you had none of that exposure, and were just a guy with your genuine comedic talent (I think you're hilarious, and have done since day 1 of SourceFed,) do you feel you'd have gotten to this point? And how long do you feel it may have taken?

Also, how many times per day, on average, did you see Steve Zaragoza's balls and/or ass around the SF offices?

Thanks, you beautiful bastard.

Great question! This is a tough one to answer, because I'm not sure how I feel about the phrase "to this point." I think this industry is full of ups and downs, and I accepted that when I moved to Los Angeles five years ago. So "this point" kind of implies a solid trajectory, and I try to avoid that mentality in this industry. Otherwise you go crazy panicking about "what's next," etc.

THAT SAID, and let me just say that there's a chance this could sound egotistical. I do NOT mean it that way, I promise. I would never diminish or try to downplay the role having an audience has played in my fun little journey. I'm eternally thankful and amazed anyone watches my stuff.

That said, I do believe good stuff would have still happened, yes. In an alternate universe, with no YouTube audience, I do believe good things would have happened. It would look different, for sure, and it might have taken a little longer, but I think it would have happened. I'd also probably have two penises, because this is an alternate universe we're talking about, and you don't know how many penises I have in that universe, let alone how many Twitter followers.

In this universe, I have one penis and a nice group of people who support what I do. I hope they like the special and we can all keep having fun together. :)

Hi Elliot! I'm interested in acting as a hobby, and want to continue after high school. What would you suggest I do?

Go do theatre, man! I miss it so much. Study acting. Read about it. Oh, and write stuff! Have fun with it. I'm super, legitimately excited for you. :)

I have a long flight tomorrow so downloaded the special to watch then. People might think I'm crazy if it's too funny. My question is, if you had the power, which host would you give the next special to?

Joel McHale.

"Hey, what about like a ballistic where we just wrap it up and shoot it like a bullet?"

Is that... Amazon board room guy? Hahaha

Hey Elliott (with 2 T's!), I've been a fan of SourceFed since day 1 and was really happy to see you back, at least for a bit.

My question, how did The Study become a thing? Did you pitch the show to them, or did they approach you? Also, what are the odds of a season 2?

Thank you. They approached me, and I pitched it to them. I knew the stand-up special was coming, so I wanted to rebrand myself on the platform I started on. I'd say the odds are REAL GEWD.

hello mista morgan. massive fan.

1.whats your favorite pizza toping?

2.would you ever get another lady puppy for gilgin?

1. I go between gross Pizza Hut, with pepperoni, bacon, and onions, dipped in ranch, with whiskey/coke on the side. After that, I enjoy a nice dessert of regret and self-hatred.

2. Gilligan has bitches swoonin', so he's fine.

The thing I go between is, uh, this place called PizzaRev/Pizza Studio. Like a Subway but for pizza. I put jalapenos, and spicy topping, and then sriracha all over it. Not gonna even check if that's the right spelling of sriracha. Can't be right.

Hey Elliott! Big fan since about summer 2012! What has been the biggest moment on your online career?

When Steve Martin replied to one of my tweets.

Hi Elliott! This is literally my first time ever being at an AMA when it started because I am so eager to ask you a question, but I don't know what to ask... I'm kind of fan-girling (even though I'm a 26 year old male) because I loved your work on SourceFed, Mashable and looking forward to the comedy special.

Favorite part of Florida? I've only ever been to Destin.

Hey! Thanks for being here! And for watching stuff! Mashable was a great experience--those folks are amazing. My favorite part of Florida is Sarasota and those keys. Longboat Key, Siesta Key. Grew up every year going to Longboat and still go back most years. It's beautiful and eery. Read Duma Key by Stephen King, dude! So good.

You said in your first Happy Hour that jump cuts are the laugh track of the internet. You were hired by Mr Jump Cut himself, Philip DeFranco, do you think his video style is cheap?

Cheap?! Heck nah. His style makes for, uh, how you say... better videos? haha

Hi! First off, its awesome to have your comedy special magically appear on my Birthday, congrats on that! I have a reallllly important question for you...I know you are a WEEZER fan..so..whats your favorite WEEZER song? (I'm guessing from the Blue Album right?) Personally I love "El Scorcho" from Pinkerton

Favorite is always changing. Devotion, You Gave Your Love To Me Softly, Say It Ain't So, Hash Pipe (come at me!), and Had It Up To Here.

Hi Elliott! I like you as a person. Now that you've done your comedy special, do you feel like you can aim higher and get into the TV/movie game any more so than before? i.e will you be continuing to produce Youtube content or are you moving forward in the industry?

I like you as a person, as well! I mean, I don't know you, but you like me, and isn't that the most important thing to us humans? With our constant need for validation and approval?

ANYWAY. I'm excited to find out what's next. Ideally, yes, I'd be doing more television. I'll never stop YouTube, but I love television. Like, honest to God, I'd kick an actual baby for a role in the next season of Fargo. KICK.

A.

BABY.

You always seemed like the shy guy at SourceFed and I assumed that by the time you did Ultimate Pop Culture, you had gained more confidence. But then I saw that thing you did for Nickelodeon so I guessed that you must've always been a performer. Have you always been comfortable talking to a camera/audience? How can somebody improve their confidence for those situations?

Fun question, and big fan of your username.

It took me a little longer to find my voice. I think the missing factor was always that I cared too much. So when I stopped caring, it all happened more naturally. The same can be said for stand-up. The power to not give a shit about what others think is possibly the single greatest power a human can achieve.

Or so I've heard, and if you disagree, please let me know, and I'm SO SORRY if you think I'm wrong, seriously, so sorry, oh my god I'm embarrassed

(I'm finding many of my answers are structured the same way: sincerity, followed by a classic betrayal. It's like longwinded 'I see what you did there' stuff.)

Thanks for coming out, Elliott! I wish I had a better question for you, but the one thing that really has me scratching my head: what's your third favorite ice cream flavor?

I don't really like ice cream. SORRY. I AM AN ARTIST AND ECCENTRIC. FEIF4DDJEHEJWHFYY8

Seriously though there's a scene in Friends, where Ross is explaining why he doesn't like ice cream, and he whimpers, "It's too COLD!" And I agree.

Hey Elliott! Just heard you one the Jake and Amir podcast, and it was two fandoms colliding for me, so thanks for that.

My question is kind of a downer though sorry. I've heard you say you went through some depression while and after you were at Sourcefed, how did you work through that and still stay productive (doing stand up, your youtube channel etc)? Thanks!

"Depression" is a strong word. I've spoken on depression on Happy Hour and was certainly not in a good mental place through much of that time, but I've never been, like, diagnosed or anything, and I don't believe that's really what it was. I'd hate to self-diagnose like that.

I think, like a lot of people, I just have low lows. Nowadays when that happens, I try to consume as much as possible. Books, podcasts, youtube videos. I try to fill my brain. I also have other habits that aren't as healthy, like drinking scotch or killing pedestrians in my car.

Will you move to canada so we can be best friends?

We already are best friends.

Who is your favorite? Joe or Lee?...

No such thing.

Hey! Costarrican fan here! Any tips for an aspiring group of people trying to create awesome an engaging video content like yours, to plan ahead, keep in mind, don't forget (whatever)?

Hey, Costa Rica! My only advice is to ONLY create stuff you a) think is funny and b) haven't seen a thousand times. Good luck! Have fun! Life is fun!

Hello Elliot! I watched you from mid-Sourcefed times, I just watched your special and you're so amazing. What are your future plans, you're going to do what you do now or changing something?

Thank you SO MUCH for watching it! Seriously!

Next is touring, and I'm shhh working on a web series with my writing partner, Jon De Weerd, starring myself, Lee Newton, and Joe Bereta. Not gonna lie, I think it's some of the funniest stuff we've written.

Besides that, I wanna get better at hosting, stand-up, and I had a dream last night someone told me I should lose four pounds, so maybe I'll try that. Oh, and a grammy.

Hi Elliott, What breed is your dog and how much do you love her?

He's a maltipoo, which is a cross between a-- wait a minute. Watch the special!

Was the study in any way an homage to ultimate pop culture? I loved that show, it was my favorite thing on sourcefed!

UPC was my favorite thing, too! So thanks! UPC was more an homage to The Soup. The Study was more an homage to the dark recesses of my brain, and also, like, "If I do this, maybe they'll be more receptive to my standup special." Or maybe not! WHO KNOWS!

What's your favorite album of all time?

Hmm... album? Wow. The Blue Album, Automatic For The People... Want One by Rufus Wainwright. Hard to pick a favorite ALBUM! Man, so many factors.

My favorite song ever is Go Or Go Ahead by Rufus Wainwright and it has been since I was like 17. See? If I don't know an answer to your question I'll just answer an entirely different question.... MAN OF THE PEOPLE.

In what degree do you believe in the things you have said on "The Study" ?

Depends on what part of The Study. Are you talking about the "contractual oblination" segment? Or the racist, sexist, awful rest of the video?

Either way, 100%.

Hi Elliott! Do you have any plans for future shows on your main YouTube channel? Also you're hilarious! Stay awesome!

Right now, I'm vlogging and trying to get that to be a normal weekly thing, but you never know.

Hi, Elliott! How is Giligan?

Fantastic and easily excitable. He says hi.

Hey Elliott, mad respect with the two l's two t's btw. My coworkers and I are currently discussing this and wondered if you could weigh in, where do you stand on the whole is a hotdog a sandwich debate? Xoxo

A sandwich is something between two pieces of bread. A hot dog bun is one piece of bread. Case closed.

Do you still pweet ocassionally?

I might be doing it right now.

You never know.

Hey Elliot! I don't know if you have answered this already, but how did you deal with all those people who gave you have hate for The Study?

The Study was kind of designed to divide the audience, so I have nooo problem with people hating it. Interestingly, a lot of people are just like "Oh, yeah, not my thing." It's neat how the show that should elicit the most hate actually gets really gentle, honest answers from people. :)

Can you be funny again? Or at least stop ruining Mental Floss?

I always try to come up with answers to questions like these, because they're like fun writing prompts. I don't really have the energy right now, though, so I apologize. Best of luck in life, man!

Hey Elliot! Thanks for doing an AMA! Long time fan here, so it's cool to potentially have a question answered! Now I just have to decide what to ask you. I sure hope I don't eff this up... Uhhh, how's ... things? :I

Not too bad! My special just came out. Hows things with you?

What's the biggest thing keeping you from shaking off the last vestiges of Christianity? Also, got a torrent for your special? ;) I kid...

Haha, there's no shaking off the vestiges of belief systems we were raised with. I have some stuff on the Bible in the special. You should check it out, it's available exclusively and ONLY on Vimeo on Demand right now.

Hi Elliott!! I'm such a huge fan and you are one of my favorite comedians of all time. Your sense of humor is so on point. So here's a really hard hitting question. What are your thoughts on talking to plants to help them grow? Or talking to babies while they're still in the womb to help their social skills?

If a plant is growing because we're talking to it, it's probably doing so out of fear. "Crap... there's a human near me. I thought I was in a damn meadow. I better grow as quickly as possible because these idiots kill my kind by the forests-full."

One question. What's your current favorite band/album?

Gungor's new album, FOR SURE.

Elliott, what's the most scandalous thing you'd consider wearing or doing on a comedy or YouTube show? What about for something like Fargo?

For Fargo, I'd kick a baby. For a YouTube show? I don't know, be zany?!

Hello sir! A few months ago I tweeted at you, where can I get a signed poster of yours, you tweeted back saying, what's your shipping info, I'll send you something.

My question...is it still in the mail?

My bad, dude! I've been moving all around. So, no, it's not in the mail. But I love you. So.