From the vault: my third Instagram post ever. August 9, 2014. Caption: “@fuckgeorgiarae”
Three months after my first post, I was back, and this time I had discovered video. Five seconds of it. Silent, context free, and somehow even more confident than the photos.
Here is what happens in those five seconds. First, me, in a basement, wearing a black t-shirt that is a Ramones logo parody that says SOJKPWNS across the chest, talking straight into the camera like I am delivering a very important address. Behind me there is a dress form, a laundry basket, a purple exercise ball, and a vase of roses, which is a lot of personality for one basement. Then, hard cut, a woman in a kitchen, holding up a giant clear storage bin with both hands like she just won it on a game show, smiling like this is the proudest moment of her life.
That is the whole video. No setup, no punchline, no explanation. The caption is just a tag, @fuckgeorgiarae, which is either a shoutout, an inside joke, or a cry for help, and I genuinely could not tell you which one it was twelve years later. Early Instagram was the wild west. You posted a five second clip of your friend holding a bin, you tagged somebody, you called it content, and honestly, the algorithm had not even been invented yet to judge you for it.
I love how much faith I had in this post. Five seconds, no context, and I just assumed everyone watching would know exactly what was going on. That is the same energy I bring to a joke that is not working on stage. I just keep going and trust the room to catch up.
Same guy now, on the roster at Comedy Works, won their 2026 New Faces Contest, out on the road hosting THE DOSE. The videos got longer, the shirts got better, and I have mostly stopped filming people holding storage bins. Mostly.
Nic
Original post: https://www.instagram.com/p/rfoabniVuL/, see the current tour dates at nicdean.net