ABBY GOVINDAN
Interviewed by Nicole & Hashika
January 23, 2021
This week’s highlight is stand up comedian and writer, Abby Govindan (she/her)! The NYC based 22 year old is probably the biggest Nathan For You fan you will ever meet & she will even offer to block your ex-boyfriends (if you so please). We love Abby. Enjoy!
Abby: I grew up here in Houston, Texas. I wasn’t proud to be a Texan. When I was growing up I was like “oh fuck this nightmare state” but… wait am I allowed to say fuck? Okay amazing, but yes, ugh this nightmare state. But once I left to go to college, I heard other people trash talking Texas and I was like “wait thats my home state, you keep Texas out of your mouth!” So yeah, I grew up in Houston and I wanted to go to New York or LA for college. My dream school from when I was little was the NYU Film School. From a very young age, I was very intrigued by film and comedy. But my parents very early on were like no this is not what Indian people do. Indian people don’t do film, they study biology, they study engineering, and they study business. They go on to be doctors, lawyers, engineers, etc. I think for a long time I did resent my parents for that but the more I thought about it the more I understood it. They really did sacrifice a lot to come here so that their kids would have more economic or professional opportunities. The way my mom saw it was the film industry is already super hard to break into and as an Indian person, it's pretty much impossible. I think when she was saying these things the only really prominent Indian filmmaker was M. Night Shyamalan and he is an anomaly for sure. An Indian person being in the business was not prominent at all.
I got a huge scholarship from Fordham University and fortunately I was able to go to New York like I had always wanted. I am really really grateful for that because I do not think I would have done stand up comedy were I in any other city. New York is quite literally the stand up capital of the world. So many people from all over the world move to New York to pursue stand up. And it worked out really well for a while.
So, I have told this story so many times. I got into stand up because this guy that I was dating for like a year, I really thought he was the love of my life at the time, broke up with me out of nowhere. I had all of this sadness and guilt and I needed an outlet for it so I enrolled in stand up classes.
I love when people ask me why I started stand-up because the answer is obviously always the same, so I’ve told this story like a million times. My ex boyfriend, the one who broke up with me, he and I aren’t friends by any means but we are acquainted. He is always the one ex I say I cannot trash talk, because he is genuinely a good guy and it just didn’t work out. I don’t know if he keeps up with me at all but I just think it is so funny that he broke up with me in 2017 and thought he had seen the last of me but I ended up being everywhere when I went viral in early 2018. But literally every single interview they ask me what my story is and I wonder if he reads them and asks “why can’t this crazy bitch keep my name out of her mouth?!” It is truly the dream of someone who has been broken up with but I wish it had been about a worse ex-boyfriend honestly. But if there is one thing that I could trace back that would be the very cause of my stand up journey, it really was him. Regardless of it being one of the more devastating heartbreaks of my young life, I am grateful that it happened.
Nicole: So a boy got you into stand up but you have always loved comedy right? Where did that come from? Who was the first comedian you watched and you were like “yes this is it”?
Abby: This is a question that I also get a lot but one that I love because the answer is Russell Peters. Russell Peters started comedy in 1989 which was 8 years before I was born. He was the first Indian stand up comedian in the entire world. He broke into it back when seeing a working class Indian man do comedy was absolutely unheard of. I was at temple camp when I was 9 with my cousins who were 14 and 16. They were significantly older than me and as a kid, I loved sticking with them because they were such cool teenagers and I wanted to be like them. At camp there was a curfew and of course my cousins would sneak out and hang out with their friends and watch a bunch of stuff. I would always tag along with them, I didn’t really give them another choice. Once night it was me, little 9 year old me, with all of these teenagers and they were just sitting around talking and one guy was like “hey guys, let’s watch Russell Peters!” and everyone was like “yeah for sure”, so they turned on this ancient computer monitor, one of those old Dell ones from the early 2000’s that took 10 minutes to turn on. He pulled up Youtube and I still remember him double clicking the internet icon and then waiting forever for Youtube to load. And of course that time on Youtube there was only what, three videos on the site? Definitely less than 1,000 I would say.
Russell Peters was one of the first to go ‘viral’ before we even had a sense of what ‘viral’ was. Anyways I saw this guy on stage exuding confidence, making all of these funny jokes. These jokes if he were to say them today definitely would not age well but I think that the observations he was making were accurate to the time. But it was just really cool, it was very validating. For so long I had looked at people on TV and said I wanted to be like them but none of them look like me. Like it didn’t even click that Indian people could do comedy until I saw Russell Peters and was told that he was Indian and I was like “this is unreal.” What is crazy is since then, I have had the opportunity to meet Russell Peters and actually open for him once and he let me crash another show that he did recently. Literally he is one of the nicest people. Pretty much every single established Indian comedian has at one point met Russell Peters because of course he is an icon and you are going to come across him. But pretty much every single Indian comedian also has very nice things to say about him which is hilarious because on stage he is this “don’t fuck with me, I am going to roast you” type of person but in real life he is just so kind and always makes sure everyone has something to eat, something to drink, and he always has something to ask people: how their day is going, what their profession is etc.
At the show I opened for him, as well as the one he let me crash, I saw dozens of people waiting, even after they evacuated the theater and the show was over, dozens of people waited in line and wanted to take pictures with him. I have seen a lot of comedians rightfully be like “no this is my time off.” Comedians or entertainers don’t really owe anyone anything after their allotted time slot is done. But Russell is just so patient and he would talk to each person and ask them about their day. Truly is one of the nicest people ever. And I say all of this because it was really full circle. He was one of the reasons I am a comedian and finding out that he is actually really nice and legitimately treats me like a daughter, well it's been one of those ‘happy endings’ that I previously thought only ever happens in movies.
Hashika: I think it's really interesting how you were saying with immigrant trauma, it can be a part of your set but it doesn’t need to be all the time.
Abby: I did an interview with Funny or Die a few weeks ago. I told them this story about me posting these text exchanges on Twitter between me and my parents. They had found my Narcan and when my parents texted me, their English was crazy. My dad texted me a Daily Mail article and was like “Aboo. Shocking. Found this? What is? Why do you have it?” So I posted it on Twitter being like “haha, my parents found my Narcan!” and all of these Indian kids came out of the fucking woodworks and they were like “Abby Govindan is making fun of her parents broken English! They came to this country with nothing but $4 in their pocket and no English speaking experience!” And a lot of these people were just drawing conclusions about my life.
My parents are fluent in English! When you listen to them speak, they talk so fluently that you wouldn’t expect them to not be from this country. The fact that everyone just assumed that their English was broken… Whereas if I posted that and I was white that whole situation wouldn’t have happened. Everyone’s parents text in a weird way, but just because mine were Indian, they couldn’t speak the language. It was super frustrating because I have friends who are not Indian who post text exchanges with their parents all the time and they are always given the benefit of the doubt.
No one is ever assuming they are making fun of their parents. But because I am Indian I had both Indian and non-Indian kids writing entire think pieces on my identity as replies to that tweet. Like ya’ll need to fucking relax.
That is my favorite story to cite because South Asian kids are just as guilty of this as non South Asian kids. We tend to just assume that immigrants and children of immigrants are always traumatized when that is not really the case. My life has been pretty good! My parent’s immigration here has just been a facet of my identity and is not at the very core. I would much rather just be honest and say “I have had a happy life” than be grasping at trauma straws to try and make my story more palatable. I have also seen a lot of Indian kids do that. I have seen a lot of kids in my position who didn’t really have any difficulty but they kind of over exaggerate the difficulty they do have to elicit sympathy. I feel like that is disrespectful to people who actually did struggle when they came to America. I also do know a lot of Indian friends who came here whose parents didn’t have a college education, whose parents don’t speak english, people who really had to struggle to kind of establish themselves in this country and I feel like me lying would do a disservice to them and I would never want to undermine their experiences like that.
Nicole: How has your relationship with social media changed since your platform has grown, especially when everything is so volatile right now and people are so ready to fight, what has your experience been with social media when one tweet or comment can send people spinning?
Abby: Oh boy do I have so much to say about that. When I first started blowing up on Twitter in 2018, I was definitely a lot more snarky than I am now. I used to “roast” celebrities saying they were corny for XYZ, blah, blah, blah. And I am not really proud of it. It really is so easy to fall into this internet black whole of cynicism and be mean to people just because it is funny. Of course I have been the target of people just being mean to me because they think I am being corny, and I was like wow this kind of sucks because I didn’t do anything problematic they just decided that. I have friends now who regularly get attacked for being corny. When you are on the inside looking out and are close to people who are really inherently kind, you just have to sit there and watch thousands of internet strangers pick them apart just because they feel like it. And me having a moment being like wow, I used to contribute to this. And anyone who has followed me for more than two years will probably be able to say the same thing. I used to be a lot more snarky, a lot more like “oh fuck you guys,” whatever. More recently, I found that being kind is just the way to go.
Nicole: Do you have a separation of your personal life and your presence online? How do you approach that?
Abby: When I started out on social media I was going for more of the Kim Kardashian approach where I was like “let me share every aspect of my life, this is so much fun!” Now I am going for more of a Donald Glover approach. He literally only posts when he absolutely has to just so his followers just know he is around. Or when he has to promote something or talk about something important or a cause he cares about. Recently he had a new show come out and did his first interview in like three years or something crazy and then radio silence. I always say when I get my first TV writing job or I sell my first movie, I am out of Twitter! Or I am at least going to take the Donald Glover approach, I will leave you guys to your own devices and I will check in on you when I need to check in on you.
Nicole: I love that approach.
Abby: People just go crazy speculating, some of these men have some hard core stans! I go on the Nathan Fielder subreddit - I don't really like Reddit because it is filled with men who think they know more than you - but anyways I go on the Nathan Fielder subreddit to get some behind the scenes scoop or see if I missed some obscure reference in an episode. Every single time I check in there is some sort of speculation about who he is dating, where is he living, would he date me, what's his type? He got divorced in 2014 and I found an entire thread about who his ex-wife was and what she does now. And none of it was confirmed. I mean everyone speculates but no one knows anything about his personal life and I think that is such a genius approach. Oh man. Once I don’t need social media anymore I really am not going to use it unless I have to.
Nicole: Being so elusive is genius. It's like, no one knows but we are still talking about it!
Abby: Exactly! Like with Donald Glover, he used to live online and now he tweets once a year and we all lose our shit.
Nicole: Will that be the ultimate surreal “I have made it” moment?
Abby: When I can delete my social media and it doesn’t affect my prospects at all, yes that’ll be the moment I made it moment for sure.
Nicole: What has your life been like in quarantine? How have you adjusted? We know you were just featured on some podcasts - in what ways have you been able to keep creating content & perform despite everything being virtual?
Abby: I actually didn’t do online shows for a long time, literally for 8 months. The last shows I did were opening for Russell Peters and Hari Kondabol, separately. They each had a show on different days over a weekend in Houston so I opened for them. Then, I didn’t do stand up for 8 months until this last Friday. I did this online stand up show and it went really well and I was like I don’t know why I have been avoiding internet shows this whole time so I am definitely trying to get into doing more of that. I want to have polished material. I think for the first few months of the pandemic everyone was just like “oh stand up will reopen so we don’t really have to adjust.” But then June or July came around and everyone realized this was going to last for a while so they started doing internet shows. Podcasts have definitely made a surge, I have done a few very cool podcast interviews.
I mainly have been taking these last few months to write and develop stuff. I am currently in the process of developing two web series. One is being pitched to a bigger production company but the other one is a smaller app. Hopefully I can share more information on that soon. I am also developing a podcast with a friend and fellow internet comedian Dana Donnelley. She is another chaotic, political, Asian woman who just tweets about everything and is one of the nicest people I know. Anyways our podcast is going to be called “No New Podcasts” and it is where men will call in and pitch us their podcast ideas and we tell them why it sucks. I actually tweeted the idea a few months ago offhandedly and people seemed to be into it. It got like 2,000 retweets and someone replied that I should do it with Dana and I texted her the eyes emoji being like hey? These last eight months have given me a lot of time to develop comedy on my own terms at my own speed with no stakes.
Nicole: Wow that is a lot! You are getting it done. Good for you that all sounds so exciting.
Abby: Hopefully something gets picked up!
Nicole: For anyone who wants to start out in comedy, you said overall being kind and genuine, not shady, is great advice, but is there any other piece of advice you would like to give?
Abby: Someone who knows more than I do is Priyanka Mattoo. She is just such a super cool lady. She does an advice column with Vulture for people who want to start out in comedy. I was studying abroad in Ireland and crying because I was super depressed. This was second semester junior year so all my friends had really figured out for the most part what they wanted to do with their lives. I had decided to go to law school not because that is what I wanted to do with my life but because that was the only thing that I could do that would make everyone around me the most happy. I read her Vulture column and it really de-mystified Hollywood for me. Anyone who asks me for advice I always tell them they have to read Priyanka Mattoo’s Vulture column because it literally changed my life. I know at least 5 other people who said it changed their lives as well. It has a lot of really good advice for how to write your first script, how to get noticed by execs, how to network with people, how to talk to important people in the industry. Things like that. She had one really good column about how you shouldn’t message someone and ask to “pick their brain” because it’ll drive them crazy. You would be one of hundreds of people doing that. And that was super valuable information because I didn’t know that! Until that point I was messaging people all the time asking to pick their brain! So that is the number one piece of advice I give everyone, that advice column is very valuable.
Another is being true to yourself, which sounds really corny, but people will notice you. I mean, it's proven to be true because there are so many different types of comedians out there. Now there are avant garde comedians, there are punchline comedians, there are reality comedians, and surrealist comedians. It's because they kind of did their own thing, even if it wasn’t the most popular thing at first, but eventually the right people noticed them and gave them a platform to reach the audience who is the best fit for them. Another piece of valuable advice from Priyanka Mattoo’s Vulture column is lateral networking. If you are trying to network, never go above your level. Like never just email the VP of Viacom or whatever, you should focus on networking with your peers because the people you make connections with at your level are going to be the most valuable connections you make in your entire career. Either you will blow up and get some cool opportunities and you can bring other people up with you or other people you know will blow up and get opportunities and bring you up. If you have made the lateral connection and proved to them you work hard and are talented, when they are coming up with names for future opportunities they will think of you. It's hard for me to give people any kind of advice because I am just getting established but here is what I know and has been helpful to me.
Hashika: I think that advice can even transcend just the comedy industry, I know a lot of those things will be helpful for Nicole and I to think about as well.
Abby: Especially if anyone is interested in getting into screenwriting or even if you don't, I just think that column is so valuable. Especially for creatives, even when you lose hope, just reading that column reminds you to keep working and grinding and eventually this hard work will pay off. There are so many people who were able to get opportunities writing for TV shows and getting their foot in the door in the industry just because of this advice column. I think that is so cool. Priyanka is so cool.
Nicole: Last question, what are your go to shows for comfort right now?
Abby: Nathan for You, obviously. I just shared my wishlist online and someone sent me the box set that has two hours of unreleased footage?! I am HYPED to watch that. One show I watched in quarantine that I am super excited about is Umbrella Academy. I don’t know if you guys have seen it but it is a very diverse show. A very wacky, sci-fi show. It has one of the most diverse casts I have seen on television and it kind of proves that your story doesn’t have to be rooted in racial trauma. I have watched so many TV shows. I just watched Emily in Paris, that is a great show if you really just want to hate on something. There is a lot of pro-western propaganda, a lot of casual pedophilia, and a lot of work place harassment that gets passed off as cute.
My go to shows are American Dad, that is one of my favorite shows of all time. For people who haven’t seen it, it is created by Seth McFarlan, the same guy who created Family Guy. It is a show about an overzealous CIA dad who is so patriotic to a fault. It kind of satirises the CIA casually committing war crimes. His wife Francine doesn’t really agree with his viewpoints but doesn't really do anything about it. His son Steve feels alienated by his father’s intense expectations of masculinity and his daughter Haley is a liberal hippie but she doesn’t do anything substantial other than talking about her liberal hippie-ness. The epitome of white liberalism. I always thought it was ahead of its time because it aired in 2005, but that was actually during the Bush administration so the show was arguably very relevant if not more relevant then. A lot of the episodes are wacky but a lot are very satirical and how the US just refers to how anything they don't agree with as socialism. It's such a well done show. Bob’s Burgers. I really love animated television but Bob’s Burgers is one of the few shows to consistently make me laugh out.
Nicole: I agree with that.
Abby: I have been watching it since being in high school and I always wondered how it was so well written. The dialogue just feels so natural in a way that you really don’t see in any other animated shows. I recently read that a lot of Bob’s Burgers is actually improv. So they have the whole cast sit around a table together and do different takes. The guy who plays Gene, he is so good. Whatever Gene says I laugh out loud every time.
Nicole:I love that show because they don’t make fun of anything super mean they just make fun of themselves.
Abby: I remember reading an op-ed in high school that was like “why is Bob’s Burgers so good!” And it is because it's relatable, their scenarios are extremely ordinary. With American Dad the scenarios are just so ridiculous but Bob’s Burgers everything that happens to them could happen to us. Like Bob is so cynical, he is the only “normal” one in the family but he never sees his family as the butt of a joke. My favorite episode to this day is when Tina feels pressured to shave
Nicole: And Bob does it with her!
Abby: Yes Bob does it with her, it's not a punchline it's just something really sweet that he does for her. Probably the best animated show of our generation. And I can’t see any of it aging poorly, I really do think it’ll be one of those shows that I will show my kids and they will be like “Mom this is fucking amazing!”
Nicole: I completely agree.
Abby: I haven’t been watching too many movies recently but I did see Social Dilemma on Netflix. That freaked me out, I deleted my Facebook. I didn’t delete Instagram and Twitter because at least they are actively taking measures but oof.