Update: Due to damage caused by last Thursday's storms, Coonor Wood's appearance has been moved to an as yet undetermined date.
Original story.
Austinite and UT grad Connor Wood is making his way home to Texas.
Once best known online as @Fibula on TikTok, the now comedian and podcaster has been taking time offline to grow an in-person following, including a stop at Houston Improv on Tuesday, May 21 with Fibs and Friends.
Across the media landscape, Wood estimates that humor has always played a key role in his success. “Comedy has been around the whole time,” Wood says. “Pretty sure I got hired on all my jobs because I was like court jester, I think. I know my role said ‘marketing’ but it was definitely entertainment for everybody else.”
“Formerly, comedy came during COVID when I got let go from my job — so I hopped on TikTok. I was posting videos that I thought were funny, but I didn’t think they were like ‘comedy’ in a professional sense. But someone actually came to me to say, you know this is stand-up that you’re posting online. I said, I’m actually sitting down. It was so out of my wheelhouse, I didn’t know what it was. So I actually took that, about a year and a half ago now, and started doing small sets here and there. And in a year, it has turned into a full tour.”
For those slugging it out at comedy clubs, Wood’s story is a very fast ascension to headliner. But with his primarily digital background, the comic admits to hitting the learning curve when it comes to getting laughs live.
“Online, you can delete it, “ he says, comparing the two venues. “You are doing damage control – the only eyes that saw, you can see. In person, you don’t get that control. It’s kind of like jumping and just hoping the net is there. It doesn’t always work out of course, but that builds character too. That’s almost comedy too, when it doesn’t work out.”
Wood continues: “I guess the difference is the immediate gratification and in the same boat, that immediate disappointment. Oh my God, I thought that would work better. You just gotta move forward. That’s the craziest part of the difference. I think also the recovery, I have figured that out a lot better. It’s so human, and it actually connects people more to you. And the other jokes do better. In this set, I’m gonna remove this joke. If you make a mental note in front of everybody, they’re like: ‘oh, he’s aware of how this is going.’ I’ve seen it go the other way too where people say its funny, but its clearly not. It’s all fluid, it’s a learning thing for everyone. And my understanding is that never goes away when talking to veteran comics. Oh, no, that happens forever. Get used to it.”
One advantage Wood wields is the crowd knows a bit about him prior to coming onstage. “It is such an advantage, such a leg up on other comics,” he says as a concession. “Because all the leadup that you have – I don’t have to say ‘OK, I have a dog, I adopted him, his name is Max, he’s a year and a half old…’ I can just say ‘You guys know my dog, Max?’ I save so much time on stage because people have listened to the podcast. They know things I have forgotten about my personal life. Like, how’s your aunt’s big toe? I will be like, I forgot she had surgery – I should check in on her..”
Ironically, the moral of the story for Wood now is different than most aspiring influences might expect. “Now I am learning to share less,” he admits.
With the banner flying of ‘Fibs and Friends’, Wood is generous to share the spotlight with the other funny people gracing the stage each night. “For this leg of the tour, we’ve had a few people who have done more shows,” the entertainer teases. “Isabel Steckel has done a couple stops. Maggie Winters is gonna be on the Texas shows, excited for that.”
“But when we go city to city, if I don’t have any direct friends or anyone I follow who live in that city, we’ll ask the venue for close friends who are comics and they’ll come on the show. It’s pretty cool to go to DC or Chicago or Phoenix and have local comics, and a lot of the people at my shows, it’s their first time at a comedy show.
"It’s this mutually beneficial relationship where these people are going to get a great comedy show because these are great comedians from where they’re from. They’re speaking to their people. And these comedians are getting a lot of people where it’s their first comedy show. At the end, they’ll be like ‘if you liked this show, I have a show next week…’ and these comedians will text me to say ‘Dude, I just sold out my show in Phoenix, because I announced it last week.’ These people get hooked on comedy when they come the first time!”
Fans of Wood’s podcast, Brooke and Connor Make A Podcast which he hosts with online personality Brooke Averick, will be happy to learn that his new tour is not interfering with their production schedule. “We make it work, yeah,” Wood explains. “We’ll film and record in advance, or we try to record remote, which does not work as well. We like to be in person, it’s a way better experience for everybody. The listeners like it when we are in person. The podcast is so much more fluid when we’re in person. We’ve gotten lucky so far, with the dates, we’ve nailed it up to this point. No hiccups yet, knock on wood.”
But does Wood think Averick may one day follow him into live comedy? He seems hopeful. “In the future, that’s pretty likely. She’s been at several of the shows. The more she’s seen me do stand-up more, she’s like, this is literally what we do on the podcast. I can see a world where we end up working together like that.”
With much on the horizon, Wood is ambitious with pursing TV and Film work. “I want to sing, I want to dance, I want to have my own cruise! Anything and everything,” he says. “Nothing is not on the bucket list.”
But for the next generation of TikTokers, it will very likely be a different story – with the platform possibly getting evicted from America in the coming months. “We lose a platform, that’s all you can say,” Wood reflects. “We lose a lot of discoverability. It’s obviously changed a lot. We lose access to information. It’s unfortunate. It was a fun way for comedians to break through the noise, outside of Instagram. And Instagram has been a different beast entirely.
TikTok people are just trying to learn to navigate, especially as comedians. That’s been a bummer, but people always figure it out. We’ve gone through this before with Vine. We will adapt and overcome.”
Wood’s performance is scheduled for 7:30 p.m. and 9:30 p.m. on Tuesday May 21 at Houston Improv, 7620 Katy Freeway. For more information, call 713-333-8800 or visit improvtx.com/houston. $60-180.
