We recently connected with D’anice Dishmon and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, D’anice thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Let’s start with what makes profitability in your industry a challenge – what would you say is the biggest challenge?

The biggest challenge is remaining relevant and keeping supporters engaged without enraging anyone. The attention span of most fans is a good 10 seconds. Getting the audience to follow you past that you have to have a captivating opening and make them want to follow the story you’re telling. Less details is always best unless the details are necessary. Reading the crowd is a learned task. I always look out during my performance to see if the crowd is following. Don’t let me find someone crying laughing in the crowd, that person becomes a focal point because I see they have a sense of humor and most of the time it works and creates crowd engagement. This is how I turn strangers into fans. Engagement on social media is how to get paid!! The internet has made it easy to get an income from your business. But having a million followers means nothing if they’re not actively engaging with your content meaning liking, sharing and commenting on posts & videos. So in my industry I have to keep up with the trends & latest news to create fresh content. In today’s world it’s so easy to get cancelled from the simplest things. After watching other comedians under pressure from jokes that a few years ago would have been fine now they’re being ridiculed for, that made me switch up how I did my set. I set my jokes on myself. I joke on motherhood, the struggles of failed relationships, struggles of going back to school at almost 30 years old, and being apart of the LGBTQ community. Channeling all the jokes on myself Kees less risk of offending anyone because I’m talking about myself. It makes me now relatable to my fans and helps me too when other moms or women understand what I’ve been through. Laughter brings people together.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

My name is D’anice Dishmon I’m a comedian, plus sized model, and hostess. I go by the name Shaesoexxtra because once I get in front of a crowd Baby I do the most! From my appearance to my bubbly over the top personality I make sure that I entertain my crowd to the fullest! After going through a bad domestic violence situation & depression I found comfort in the fact that I still was able to bring joy & laughter to other people’s lives. Working in the public, prior to Covid, I met strangers that clinged to me because they loved my jokes & enjoyed my stories I told. Then one day while sitting & talking to some guys in a band from Illinois I expressed my dream of wanting to be a stand up comedian & was told to go for it! So I did! I started my own entertainment company Sophisticated Happy Entertainment & I started being more funny online and getting more attention. I started researching to understand the algorithm on each platform to get the best engagement and grow my numbers. Slowly but surely I got results and networked and became friends with other comedians & digital creators like myself. Covid really took a toll on me because I had a big event lined up for the summer that got cancelled it also cancelled my first invitation to Rolling Loud and I fell into depression again. But what better way to get out of depression than with laughter. So in 2021 I picked back up the mic and started teling jokes again. My first big show was with who I call my Comedian Godmother Lotus B. When she called me & asked if I wanted to perform at the Flaming Skillet, which is like a high class restaurant & nightclub in Greenville,MS, I jumped at the opportunity. As nervous as I was to get back out there I had so many great reviews from that night I just knew I couldn’t put the mic back down. I’m forever grateful for that opportunity! After that show I did an open mic with one my best friends who is an infamous rapper & DJ Poppy P. I performed my first parody song in front of a live crowd at Spectators. I’d remade Erykah Badu’s song called Tyrone and renamed it Call the Laws. It was story of me becoming a crazy obsessed woman over a man and him calling the police on me. The crowd loved it! It just brings me so much joy to see how much joy I bring to other people. My best accomplishment has to be getting the call from the University of Mississippi Valley State which is an HBCU in Itta Bena, MS. The college where Famous Amos attended and my paternal grandmother’s Alma Mater! When I got that call I bout fainted because I couldn’t believe I was being called to host at a college! Not little ole me with less than 10k followers!! I was hosting their back to school open mic event and I will be completely honest every piece of material I’d come up with to use I did not use it. Every joke that came out of my mouth was from the top of my head honestly it felt like it came from my soul. Most of the kids were shy so I had to coach them into performing but I really got some great talent exposed that night! That was my best hosting gig yet! The crowd engaged, laughed, danced and some of the students even posted reviews on social media for me expressing how good of a time they had. I really love what I do whether I’m modeling, doing stand up or hosting an event I put my all into what I do. I leave a tiny piece of me on the stage, gracefully.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

When Covid hit I could no longer perform in public and at the time I didn’t have a job because I was scared of being out in public. Shows I had lined up got cancelled and I became discouraged. My mom really pushed me to continue my journey and not stop posting my content. When Musically transitioned to what is now TikTok I took that advantage and hopped on again. An old Dave Chappelle joke that I posted an animation of on my page was my first viral post on TikTok. Then I had my first stage appearance performing at the Flaming Skillet, a local restaurant & nightclub in Greenville,MS. The feedback from the crowd was amazing. When I got the offer to become monitored on Facebook that’s when I knew I was making an impact and made the right move to continue comedy.

We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?

I love that my audience on social media is organically grown, I didn’t buy any followers. I try to stay on the latest trends or make jokes relevant to the current blog gossip. If you can create a video that makes a person stop for a second and laugh or learn something you can gain that person as a fan. But you have to be consistent with posting. Too long without posting can cause your audience to forget about you. The advice that I would give to someone starting out is to create a schedule for content creation so you can create it in batches but do not post it all at once. Keep some content in the drafts for those days you don’t feel like posting. Make sure you do your research on what’s trending at the time. Your video has a better chance of being seen by more people when there are many other people talking about it. Also timing is everything you have to jump on trends fast to be the first ones to get viral videos. Now once you build the audience and gain the followers the job is to keep them engaged so you have to remain relevant. Do not delete spammers or bad comments they still count as engagement for you and boost your numbers on your profile.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: @Shaesoexxtra
• Facebook: @DaniceDishman
• Twitter: @Shaesoexxtra
• Youtube: @Shaesoexxtra

Image Credits
Images shot by JayMac Productions