Stand-up comedians from United States
1568 comedians
Stand-up in the United States runs on a club circuit that works every night of the week, and two of the rooms that set its manners are still open: The Comedy Store in Los Angeles, going since 1972, and the Comedy Cellar in New York. The apprenticeship there is unglamorous and almost entirely in English. A comic does open mics, earns a guest spot, then a paid weekend, and repeats that for years before anyone films it.
Television built a second ladder, and an odd one, because the American version seated comedians behind a news desk. Jon Stewart made The Daily Show into political satire delivered with an anchor's straight face, Conan O'Brien ran the same chair on absurdism and self-deprecation, Seth Meyers writes a monologue that reads like reporting, and Jimmy Kimmel has hosted a nightly ABC hour since 2003. Netflix later cut a shorter path to the same place, commissioning hours from comics who never needed a network.
A third route skips the ladder. Morgan Jay works a crowd with an auto-tune pedal and a sing-along, Kountry Wayne shoots Southern, faith-based sketches straight to a phone screen, and Akaash Singh spends as much time behind a podcast microphone as on stage. Gabriel Iglesias points at something else the country's size does to comedy: he performs in English and Spanish, and the bilingual act here is a career, not a novelty.
The map is wider than the two coasts. Brooklyn and Los Angeles are on it, but so are Valdosta, Youngstown, Fargo, Hattiesburg and Twin Falls, and the material travels with the accent. That is why one country carries Jewish humor, NYC alt-comedy, blue collar ranting, Southern storytelling and Latino culture at the same time, with birth years reaching from 1891 to 2003.
Jimmy Kimmel
🇺🇸Jon Stewart
political satire · media criticism
🇺🇸Conan O'Brien
absurdist · self-deprecating
🇺🇸Seth Meyers
political satire · late-night
Trevor Wallace
🇺🇸Morgan Jay Venticinque
Morgan Jay
musical comedy · auto-tune
🇺🇸Dave Rubin
🇺🇸Gabriel Iglesias
Fluffy
storytelling · character voices
🇺🇸Akaash Singh
stand-up · observational
🇺🇸Donald Glover
🇺🇸DeWayne Jamarr Colley
Kountry Wayne
sketch comedy · stand-up
🇺🇸Gianmarco Vincent Soresi
Gianmarco Soresi
observational · crowd work
Jeff Dunham
Matt Rife
Jimmy Dore
🇺🇸Theo Von
surreal · Southern storytelling
Jay Leno
Desi Banks
🇺🇸Taylor Tomlinson
Gen Z · autobiographical
🇺🇸Phil Hanley
crowd work · deadpan
Johnny Carson
Gary Owen
🇺🇸Jessica Kirson
character work · crowd work
🇺🇸Rene Vaca
observational · storytelling
🇺🇸Andrew Schulz
crowd work · raw
🇺🇸GloZell
Ben Brainard
Mario Leon Adrion
John Dela Cruz
🇺🇸Bo Burnham
musical comedy · meta
Deshae Frost
🇺🇸Trixie Mattel
🇺🇸Matteo Lane
LGBTQ+ · observational
🇺🇸Jimmy O. Yang
autobiographical · observational
🇺🇸Mark Normand
rapid-fire · absurdist
🇺🇸Pete Holmes
alt-comedy · philosophical
Hodgetwins
🇺🇸Steve Harvey
observational · family
Jamie Foxx
🇺🇸Stavros Emmanuel Halkias
Stavros Halkias
raunchy · self-deprecating
Ali Siddiq
🇺🇸Sebastian Maniscalco
observational · physical comedy
🇺🇸Sam Morril
dark · dry
🇺🇸Nimesh Patel
observational · political
🇺🇸Troy Bond
crowd work · observational
🇺🇸Thomas Kennedy III
Trey Kennedy
observational · clean comedy
🇺🇸Jim Gaffigan
clean · observational
🇺🇸Anna Akana
Hasan Minhaj
🇺🇸Broderick Dornell Smiley
Rickey Smiley
character comedy · prank calls
🇺🇸Bert Kreischer
The Machine
autobiographical · high-energy
🇺🇸Zarna Garg
observational · family
Sammy Obeid
🇺🇸Steve Hofstetter
observational · crowd work
🇺🇸Daphnique Springs
observational · autobiographical
🇺🇸Josh Wolf
observational · storytelling
🇺🇸Atsuko Okatsuka
stand-up · alternative comedy
Nate Jackson
🇺🇸Jacob Rodney Cohen
Rodney Dangerfield
one-liners · self-deprecating