On TikTok, comedian Lucas Zelnick often posts videos of his smackdowns with his hecklers. They are accompanied by captions such as “Comedian vs. 4 preppy whites,” “Heckler loves OJ Simpson,” and “Jewish comedian vs. woman named Cookies.” These clips, which have received more than 26 million likes, have earned him more than 400,000 followers on TikTok and 215,000 on Instagram.
“You can go from not being able to sell tickets to rooms of people that want to see you just from your clips,” says the 28-year-old. But jokes don’t always land on social media.
Last year, Zelnick posted an Instagram photo from a Florida gun range to promote a show in the state. He lost 5,000 followers in one day, and he’s still baffled by it. “I’m not pro-gun. I’m pro–selling tickets in Florida!”
Zelnick, who lives on New York’s Lower East Side, grew up on the Upper East Side. His father founded the private-equity firm ZMC, and Zelnick enjoyed a privileged upbringing, a fact he frequently mentions in his comedy sets. Attractive, white, straight, and well educated—he has an undergraduate degree from Williams College and an M.B.A. from Stanford—Zelnick often makes jokes about hot-button topics, from race and gender to sexuality.
“Those dynamics of political correctness help comedy [because] comedy is just a release of tension,” he says. “You wouldn’t have so much tension if it weren’t for the fact that people are sensitive now.” On February 21, Zelnick brought this heat-seeking brand of stand-up to Comedy Central Stand-Up Featuring, a digital series that spotlights a new up-and-coming comedians.
In college, Zelnick auditioned for an improv group because he had “a fascination for performing in some regard.” A friend in the group helped him bypass the first round, but he bombed in the callbacks. “I was terrible,” he explains. He didn’t return to comedy until after graduating in 2017, when he was working in corporate strategy at ViacomCBS (now part of Paramount). While he enjoyed the work and the stability of the job, “it just didn’t feel like the thing I was uniquely good at.” He started taking improv classes and attending comedy open-mikes around New York.
“I’m not pro-gun. I’m pro–selling tickets in Florida!”
By September 2019, he was doing stand-up regularly, mostly at coffee shops late at night. But he still wasn’t ready to pursue it full-time. “I had the impression that if I chose to pursue comedy, it was going to be very intense and hard, and emotionally damaging,” says Zelnick. “I’m going to end up lonely and bitter and single.”
The pandemic, which temporarily shuttered the city’s comedy clubs, put the decision on pause, and Zelnick used lockdown to get his M.B.A. The summer of 2021, after his first year at Stanford, Zelnick and his friend Jamie Wolf, a fellow stand-up comedian, decided to start their own New York comedy club. They were tired of wooing bookers and being pigeonholed into performing the same sets over and over. By starting their own, they could perform whenever and whatever they wanted. Taking advantage of pandemic rates, they rented out an empty retail space on the Lower East Side and called it Sesh Comedy.
“Selfishly, it was just for us to have a stage to work on things and try things out,” Zelnick says. “If you’re not trying new stuff, you’re not getting better.” Being able to pocket the earnings from ticket sales was a bonus.
After a slow start—their first show sold just seven tickets and had to be canceled—news of Sesh Comedy spread like wildfire. The offer of $10 tickets and free drinks buoyed sales. By the end of the summer, Zelnick and Wolf had sold more than 2,000 tickets.
In October 2023, Sesh opened a second location, on Chrystie Street, just a few blocks away from the original location. Tickets have doubled in price, to $20. Comics from late-night shows and who have Netflix specials regularly perform at both venues.
Zelnick, meanwhile, is on the road for his own nationwide tour, with shows scheduled in almost every major U.S. city. He still makes it back to Sesh every Tuesday night for a show with Wolf. As for his prediction that pursuing comedy would be intense, hard, and emotionally damaging, “that was all correct,” he says. But his outlook isn’t entirely bleak. “My goal with comedy is to convey who I am around my best friends to strangers … and when you succeed, people feel like you’re their friend, and that’s a good feeling.”
Lucas Zelnick’s stand-up special is available for streaming on Comedy Central
Paulina Prosnitz is an Associate Editor at AIR MAIL