After ‘Adam Ruins Everything,’ Adam Conover does ‘a really magical thing’ with stand-up comedy

Growing up in a family of scientists, Adam Conover was a curious child, always encouraged to read, watch PBS and ask questions.

While working in the entertainment industry as a comedian and actor, this upbringing naturally led Conover to create “Adam Ruins Everything,” a show in which he investigates a variety of subjects, including weddings, the economy, nachos and music, often disproving misconceptions people have about the subjects.

After “Adam Ruins Everything” ended in 2019, Conover’s curiosity led him to create “The G Word,” which took viewers along as Conover looked into various topics, like food, money and disease, and their connection to the federal government.

Now back on the road as a stand up comedian, Conover is still explaining things, only this time the subject is himself. Conover headlines the Spokane Comedy Club for four shows on Friday and Saturday as part of his “Big Divorce Energy” tour.

Before “TV’s Adam Conover,” there was comedy fan Adam Conover.

The self-proclaimed funniest member of his family, Conover became obsessed with “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” series, gifted to him by his aunt, and was blown away by how funny and interesting the novels were.

Shortly after, his mother checked out a cassette tape of a British radio show called “The Goon Show” from the library. The “proto-’Monty Python’-style comedy” was another hit with Conover.

When a friend formed a comedy group while a student at Bard College, Conover wanted in. With the group, dubbed Olde English, created sketches they would film themselves then edit in the school’s computer lab and upload to YouTube.

What started as a fun way to make themselves and fellow classmates laugh started getting popular beyond Bard College, with the video titled “Ben takes a photo of himself everyday,” for example, reaching 2.9 million views.

After college, the group moved to New York and continued making comedy. Once Olde English broke up in 2013, Conover started performing stand up and writing for and performing in videos at CollegeHumor, a comedy website now known as Dropout.

While at CollegeHumor, Conover created videos about why engagement rings are scams, why tipping should be banned and why fingerprinting is flawed. He also “ruined” subjects like voting, funerals, the suburbs and mattresses.

The videos led to the creation of “Adam Ruins Everything.” Conover saw the show as a multiplier of what he was able to do with his stand up.

“Once I had a budget and could hire other funny people to help me come up with funny stuff and had a production budget to shoot the show with and they marketed it and made sure people watched it, it was a gift,” he said. “I still think of it that way.”

After the success of “Adam Ruins Everything” and “The G Word,” Conover initially felt like stand up audiences were expecting “TV’s Adam Conover” on stage – the version of Conover who wore suits and styled his hair into an impossibly high pompadour. And to some degree, that’s the version of himself he brought to the stage, performing material that was more informative than personal.

Over time though, Conover began to see himself as the subject again, sharing, for example, his childhood diagnosis of ADHD, with audiences in his special “Unmedicated.” After going through a breakup last year, Conover’s new hour explores his efforts to discover who he is now that he’s in his 40s.

“The fact-based stuff, I love doing it, but it wasn’t about me, right? It wasn’t my life,” he said. “It was always about the external world, rather than the internal one or the matters of the heart or what I was going through personally. I’m making a specific choice to get personal now, because that’s what I’m interested in and what I enjoy doing.

The audiences have really been into it. It’s been really awesome. I can tell that they’re seeing me in a different way and that’s what we’re getting out of it. People come to me and tell me it’s relatable. They’ve been through similar things themselves, and that’s really the best compliment I could receive on the new act.”

Connecting with audiences is Conover’s favorite part of performing stand up. It used to be fun to go on the Internet, Conover said, but now having his laptop open or phone in his hand feels like misery and pain that divides us from each other. There’s no soul, no humanity, just endless “AI slop” and “same-y robot content.”

Stand up, he believes, is the antidote. It’s an old artform, one that requires someone to speak and others to listen. Because of the way the speaker and listeners interact, each stand up set is going to be different, even if the material is pretty much the same from show to show.

“People see clips on the internet of stand-up and they think they know what it is or they watch podcasts, and the fact is that’s not stand up comedy,” he said. “Stand-up comedy is the thing that happens in the room that you’re in that a comedian put together and performed just for you. It’s a really magical thing, and it’s one of my real joys to be able to go out there and do it night after night. It’s my favorite thing in the world to do, and I encourage everybody to come out.”