@Rachel_Sennott on Being Personal, Snarky, and Wanting to Be Liked

Rachel Sennott is a New York-based comedian, actor, and writer. She can be seen on HBO’s High Maintenance and in Shiva Baby, a film premiering at SXSW this year. She runs two monthly comedy shows, Puke Fest and Ur Gonna Slp Rlly Well Tonight. One is a charity show and the other is a drinking game, two different but equally important themes! To watch her *video content* or see her do standup IRL, follow her on Instagram @treaclychild

This week, Sennott talked to me about some of her favorite tweets!

I always use material from things my family and friends do for my Twitter. They usually think it’s funny but there have been enough instances where I have gotten in trouble for tweeting something that I thought it would be fun to make a collage of it.

How personal or honest do you get in your tweets? Is there any topic that’s off-limits because it’s too private?

I get pretty personal, to the point where the collage of family members texting me to take down tweets was easy to make. I don’t really think there’s a topic that’s off-limits but I like to make sure that there’s always a joke, so I’m making light of whatever’s happening instead of just live-tweeting every breakdown I have.

This is a joke but I have also done it at least 15 times. It’s great because when I call the guy thinks I want to hook up but then we end up having a 20 minute conversation where he has to explain why he didn’t share one of my sketches on Facebook.

How would you describe your voice on Twitter?

My voice is a little sarcastic and snarky but also pretty open about wanting to be liked and feeling confident.

I love memes but I feel like a lot of times people make the exact same ones. I started to make memes that apply to my personal life. I am an ATM mechanic and I live with my dad, among other things, and so they don’t really apply to anyone else which is what I think makes them funny.

Do you prefer evergreen or topical tweets?

I prefer evergreen tweets just because whenever I take a political stance in the form of a tweet it’s usually being said in almost the same way by a ton of other people at the same time.

I think the amount of times people change their mind and their mood in a day is a lot! I wrote down all my moods one day and was like “oh l o l I am crazy!” But probably everyone else is also like that. I hope haha!

Are you also active on other social media platforms? Which do you think is most conducive for your style of comedy?

I LOVE Instagram because damn it’s a rush. Twitter is definitely where I post actual jokes but I’ll do funny captions or post one of my memes on Instagram.

Karen Chee is a is a writer/performer who contributes regularly to The New Yorker and McSweeney’s.

@Rachel_Sennott on Being Personal, Snarky, and Wanting […]