Short Form Comedy - Aaron Wood
A conversation with UK Comedian Aaron Wood about his career, short form content, and chasing your dreams
This week I got to interview someone different from who I normally interview. I got to interview a comedian! I interviewed Aaron Wood, a comedian and podcast owner based in the UK. Aaron is a comedian, and also owns the spread negativity podcast with Liam Tuffy. Aaron and I got to talk about his story, some of the intricacies of podcasting, and the importance of short form content.
Aarons Story
Aaron is from Stockport and his start in comedy begins similarly to many other performers. Aaron adopted comedy as a way to make friends and to keep people from messing with him. “It helped to sort of deflect some of the heat, and I made a lot of friends with it.” Aaron realized he was good at comedy later in school and got most of his enjoyment from “making his mates laugh at the lunch table.” After graduation Aaron went on to start his comedy career a few years later where he met Liam Tuffy. Liam and Aaron became fast friends and Aaron was able to make a successful career out of comedy, as a part of his journey for a while he was a host at the Amp Comedy Club in Stockport, and the Disorder Comedy Club in Manchester. At the time of speaking to Aaron he was preparing for 8 shows in one week! On top of that he has started a podcast with Liam called The Spread Negativity Podcast. Aaron is extremely busy with his schedule between recording new episodes, editing, and doing live shows to continue to make his dream a reality!
The Spread Negativity Podcast and Short Form Content
The Spread Negativity Podcast was started by Aaron Wood and Liam Tuffy 2 years ago. It's a comedy podcast where they share stories, talk about current events, and have guests consisting mostly of other comedians and influencers. It’s absolutely hilarious and is where I found Aaron to interview! I got to talk to Aaron about how he’s gotten to thousands of viewers per episode. It turns out that most of his viewers came from short form content! Short form content is becoming increasingly popular in the world of marketing and advertising and can completely change a business (or podcast’s) success! I asked Aaron what specifically he did in his reels and videos that made him stick out from his competition. Aaron went on to explain that he used popular trends such as reading reddit stories originally and has since branched off to start accepting viewer stories! This has brought plenty of new viewers and viewer engagement to the podcast. Aaron uses the same method for promoting his own comedy on his account. On his personal account Aaron posts mostly crowd work clips. Crowd work clips work well for comedy because they are niche to each individual person and won’t affect the comedian's actual set. The fact that Aaron uses short form content to not only promote his podcast but to promote himself really emphasizes the importance of it!
Aaron’s advice
I asked Aaron for any advice that he might have for people either wanting to become a performer or in their careers in general. “Just go out and start even if you won’t be good at it at first.” Aaron thought back to his first ever comedy performance at a “gong show.” The purpose of the gong show was for multiple comedians to go up and get taken off as soon as the crowd feels that they aren't funny. Aaron shared that he lasted around 40 seconds the first time he went up but didn’t let that discourage him, as soon as he walked off stage, he scheduled another gong show and kickstarted his comedy career. He says if he would’ve never continued his path and pushed through those first couple of failures that he wouldn’t be at the sport he's at now. Aaron also emphasized the difficulty of having a work - life balance as a performer. Aaron’s personal brand is based on how often he posts not only him doing comedy but him being funny in his personal life. This causes issues when it comes to balancing his personal life with his work life and he believes it happens with any performing career.
All in all, my conversation with Aaron was extremely insightful and I really enjoyed it! I'm a huge fan of comedy and was able to get some information on the insides of podcasting and the comedy world. It also says a lot about short term content that it’s being used in so many different parts of the business and entertainment world. With the lowering attention span of younger generations, the best new forms of advertisement may all be short form content!
Find Aaron at different places below! You can also find the Spread Negativity Pod anywhere you listen to podcasts!