We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Vanessa Gomez Pereyra a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Vanessa, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Let’s talk legacy – what sort of legacy do you hope to build?

I hope the legacy of Paradox Comedy is that it encouraged the creativity of joy and the joy of creativity in the San Diego community. Stand-up comedy seems to be the stepchild of arts and entertainment. In reality, it is the vehicle for the most primal and involuntary reflex we have – laughter. Who has ever hated laughing? It is cliche to say but true nonetheless that laughter is a soothing balm for most of life’s impracticalities – however large or small. It is increasingly potent when done in community. Perhaps it is idealistic to think that a city can be changed by laughing and the art of making others laugh. But I hope Paradox Comedy is seen as the vessel for that daydreamy naiveté. Even if a disconnected community isn’t suddenly united in uproarious laughter, maybe Paradox Comedy will have been able to make connection with strangers through play and laughter seem more possible.

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?

Paradox Comedy was created to connect the San Diego community with the local comedy scene. As a comedy fan who was experiencing a great deal of grief and depression, I found myself going to breweries, art galleries, gyms, and even rooftops to catch a comedy show. I got connected to some comics who quickly showed me the way to the better show producers and open mics. It was fascinating to see local comics really treat comedy as the art form it is. There is so much persistence, vulnerability, time, and failure that comes with crafting a bomb-proof five-minute set. While the audience sits and enjoys it for those five-minutes, laughs, and then promptly forgets. If there even is an audience!

So that was the trouble. I began to be thought of as a comic because I was going to all these shows that I started getting recognized. “Nope, not a comic – just a fan.” I’d say. I felt like I had to rally the troops and get more people interested in watching comedy shows so I wouldn’t be the only one in the crowd.

I’m really proud of the messages I get from comedy fans in San Diego who go to a show I recommend and say they had a great time. Or fans asking for more information on certain comics who made them laugh. This also improves the quality of comedy. Hopefully, San Diego will be known as the new mecca for comedy.

Is there something you think non-creatives will struggle to understand about your journey as a creative?

That space on my feed can’t be bought. I don’t have a particular plan about my content or decide in advance who I want to target to feature. I just go to shows and share if I had a good time so that other people who might want to go know what it was like. But I get approached sometimes in a not great sales-y way to promote bad comedy just because they can write the check. I’m not interested in that. I want to feature funny local comics who can’t pay their way to validation. I know I am missing a monetizing opportunity, I know I can feature bad comics for money, but that kind of goes against everything Paradox was created for. I’m very much still the punk DIY anti-establishment gal from my teen years at heart.

What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?

Doing whatever I want. I’m not a comedy critic, I’m not a promoter, I’m not a comic – I’m a fan who lives in San Diego and wants to share ‘the comedy scene’ with the internet. There aren’t a lot of rules around what that should look like, so I get to make up my own path. I’ve definitely gone down certain paths that I probably shouldn’t have wandered down – but its overall a low risk to just say, “Meh, I don’t like where this is going so I think I’m going to turn around.” I do it a lot more publicly with a community of 125+ comics watching me. But surely they must know I don’t know what I’m doing, right? There is a lot of grace given in the relationships I have with the comics because I want to help connect them to audiences and am still learning how. I’ve made some missteps and quickly backtracked but overall – I’m glad I have the freedom to get messy and clean up and move on as needed.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.paradoxcomedy.com
• Instagram: www.instagram.com/paradoxcomedy
• Facebook: www.facebook.com/paradox.comedy
• Youtube: www.youtube.com/@paradoxcomedy