From the vault: my fifth Instagram post ever. January 27, 2017. Caption: “I’m just a internet baby had no clue that Kelly blue book was a real book.”
This one is not even a comedy photo. This is a man having a genuine educational moment in public and deciding to document his own embarrassment.
Look at what I am holding. It is an actual, physical Kelley Blue Book, the Used Car Guide, 85th Anniversary Edition, covering 1996 to 2010, nine dollars and ninety five cents on the cover, gold letters, official seal, a little bow on top like it is a present. The copy I am holding is beat up too, scuffed on the corner, like it has been doing real work in the real world for years while I was out here thinking it was just a website.
Because that is the confession in the caption. I had heard people say check the Kelley Blue Book value my whole life and I just assumed it was an expression, or a site you pulled up on your phone. I did not know there was a literal book you could hold in your hand in a shop, surrounded by bins of other stuff people used to look through with their actual hands.
I called myself an internet baby and that is exactly right. If it was not on a screen, I was not fully convinced it existed. Books, maps, phone books, I was quietly suspicious of all of them. Then I find this thing, thick, official, older than some of the cars it is pricing, and I have to post it immediately, like I discovered fire.
Same guy now, on the roster at Comedy Works, won their 2026 New Faces Contest, out on the road hosting THE DOSE. I know a few more things are real books now. I am still learning the rest in public, one post at a time.
Nic
Original post: https://www.instagram.com/p/BPy_DMPBXS5/, see the current tour dates at nicdean.net