How '2 Dope Queens' co-host Phoebe Robinson found her place in comedy

PHOEBE ROBINSON, Comedian: I'm from Cleveland, Ohio.
I was the only black girl in my grade.
And I was just like really dorky.
Like, I wasn't cool.
Like, I didn't go to high school parties.
Like, I would later find out about all these parties where people were making out, and
I was, like, legit at home watching "The West Wing," being like, I think I'm like Donna.
Recently, I looked back at a clip of me doing stand-up at Gotham Comedy Club, and I had
this tiny, tiny baby fro, still as flat-chested as I am now.
I was like a size two.
Now I'm a 10.
What up, double digits.
It's really kind of cool to see myself from, like, a 24-year-old to now a 33-year-old doing
comedy and actually, like, having success at it.
Yes, so "2 Dope Queens," Jessica and I met four years ago.
We never really set out to have a podcast.
We just realized there aren't a lot of people at the Upright Citizens Brigade that talk
like us, that necessarily have the same pop culture references as us.
I don't ever recall like, you know, someone mentioning, like, "Living Single" or "Martin"
or the black "Cinderella" movie with Brandy and Whitney Houston as, like, a joke reference.
When the podcast first came out, we would get messages from white guys -- not to profile,
but it was from white guys -- and they will always comment on the way that we talk and
be like, your show would be so great, but you should stop saying the word like, all
these sorts of things where it was just like, do you, like, hit up Jerry Seinfeld?
And you are like, you sound too much like a rich white guy.
Like, I don't think you do, you know?
I also have another podcast called "Sooo Many White Guys," because guess what?
There's a lot of them.
We also have, like, a token white guy at the end of each season just for diversity.
LOL.
We had Tom Hanks.
And he actually recorded the outgoing message on my phone.
TOM HANKS, Actor: She's not home right, now so you know what to do when the beep goes
off.
Beep!
PHOEBE ROBINSON: I think people who listen to the podcast we're kind of like, oh, this
is what stand-up is.
It's not just what I'm being presented with, like, a guy in a suit jacket in front of,
like, a red curtain.
Like, there are people who are going to make jokes about having trans family members, and
it's really going to be smart and intelligent, and not just like punching down.
And people are going to talk about the female experience in a way that's interesting and
cool and different, and people can identify with it whether or not they're a woman.
Being in a male-dominated industry, you can feel, like, a little excluded.
That was making me feel like maybe I'm not funny.
I was really seriously considering, like, quitting stand-up.
I was like, I don't know if I'm good enough.
I don't know if I can cut it.
And I just had to really figure out that, like, you are good enough.
Just because you're not like other people doesn't mean that you're bad.
It means that you're different, and that's great.
I'm Phoebe Robinson.
This is my Brief But Spectacular take on being a dope queen.
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How '2 Dope Queens' co-host Phoebe Robinson found her place in comedy

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