The Comics Unseen
Press Kit
Stand-up · Satire · Street Performance
John Jacobs
Seven years into stand-up he landed on MTV reality TV, then went straight back to the stage. Since then: a 40-track comedy album, a satirical news team, and a masked character shouting outside the White House.
From
Chevy Chase, Maryland · came up in Tampa, Florida
Works in
Stand-up · Satire · Street performance · Comedy music
Known for
MTV’s Are You the One? · co-founder, Tampa News Force
Album
Summer at Southside — 40 tracks
Interview
Instagram interview · @thecomicsunseen
“I don’t try to upset anyone and I don’t like being negative on stage so I avoid that, but yea, if I think something is funny I’m going to make a joke out of it and say it on stage or in the street.”
John Jacobs — The Comics Unseen
Ready-to-use copy
Biography
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John Jacobs is a stand-up comedian, satirist and street performer originally from Chevy Chase, Maryland. He was the funny kid in school, and when his friends kept pushing him toward comedy he tried stand-up as a senior in high school and never stopped. College took him to Tampa, where he came up on the open-mic circuit. He grew up with Tourette’s syndrome and lost his mother at sixteen, but he does not describe his childhood as tough: he had good friends and a good family, and he chose to focus on that.
He had been doing stand-up for about seven years when he was cast on MTV’s matchmaking series Are You the One?, and later The Challenge. Afterwards he went straight back to performing, now with enough of a profile to tour colleges across the country. He has opened for Margaret Cho, Anthony Jeselnik and Nick Swardson, and co-founded the award-winning satirical news team Tampa News Force. Writing fake news, he says, is the easy part; live performance is definitely harder.
His comedy-music album, Summer at Southside, began with a song he could not get out of his head while working as a janitor at a gym. He had no musical experience; he and his producer turned that first song into 40 tracks over two years. He has done street performance for seven years and takes on one bigger project a year that pushes him out of his comfort zone. The latest is a masked character delivering satire outside the White House and the Capitol, which he says has drawn a more overwhelmingly positive response than anything he has done before.
The part other press kits leave out
What you should know before you book him
John Jacobs works from a simple position: with nothing to lose, he can afford to say what he finds funny. That holds whether he is on a club stage, on a college tour, or in a mask outside the White House.
Nothing to lose
He treats having no stable career and no financial safety net as a kind of freedom: he is not beholden to anyone and not worried about being judged, so he says what he finds funny.
Bold, not nasty
He goes to topics many comics avoid, but he says he does not set out to upset anyone and deliberately keeps negativity off the stage.
Civil with hecklers
Years on stage mean hecklers rarely rattle him, and he takes it easy on them. A 2025 incident in which a man came on stage and attacked him, and which he pressed charges over, confirmed that arguing with a heckler is not worth it.
Writes when it hits
Ideas go into his phone or onto paper through the day and get built into full jokes later; the set itself is a short list of topics on a scrap of paper he checks before going up. He does not believe creativity can be forced.
One big risk a year
Each year he takes on a larger project outside his comfort zone. So far that has meant a 40-track comedy album with no musical background, and a masked political street character.
Proven on campuses
Reality-TV exposure became a national college tour, and he has opened for Margaret Cho, Anthony Jeselnik and Nick Swardson. He says the headliners taught him no single lesson: each was unique, with their own style and fanbase.
For press · cleared for use with attribution
Quotable
01
“I had been doing stand up for about 7 years before I got on reality TV so it was a pretty natural transition.”02
“…I was already a performer and I didn’t care about anything else really just having fun so I wasn’t worried about how I was portrayed on the show.”03
“I was the funny kid in school growing up and I always made my friends laugh and I think I had a talent for comedy.”04
“In high school my friends kept pushing me towards it and saying I should try it so I did when I was a senior in high school and I never stopped.”05
“It feels amazing to make people laugh.”06
“Makes me feel like I have purpose. I say a prayer before every show asking God to let me do well for these people and give them a good time.”07
“I don’t think you can really force creativity to happen it just hits you.”08
“I’m not worried about my friends or family judging me so I just say whatever I want.”09
“…one day while I was working as a janitor at a gym a song came in my head that I couldn’t get out and I had to get it recorded it felt like the only way it would leave me.”10
“Again, I have nothing to lose and I’m not worried about how people will judge a thing I make so I love making whatever.”11
“I try to deal with hecklers in a pretty civil fashion because I’ve been doing it for so long and they usually don’t actually bother me or get under my skin so I feel like I take it pretty easy on them when I’m shutting them up or telling them to stop.”12
“Live performance is definitely harder. There is no heckling or instant feedback with writing, you just put it out and it exists. Like a painting in a gallery.”13
“They’re all different, they all do their own thing, there wasn’t really a pattern amongst any of it.”14
“I just try to do things that I think would make them proud.”15
“It’s definitely a life goal to meet Tom Green and Dana Carvey.”16
“I get to kind of be a tool or a mouthpiece and say things that a lot of people want to say but don’t have the ability or nerve to do directly in these political places.”17
“Pretty much everyone who’s witnessed it loves it.”18
“This project and character seems to utilize my abilities in a way beyond regular stand up or performance so I’m happy to be able to do something so unique and different in a moment when it feels so relevant and necessary.”
Attribution: John Jacobs, in conversation with The Comics Unseen. Read the interview.
Career
Selected credits
Television
- Are You the One? — MTV
- The Challenge — MTV
Music & satire
- Summer at Southside — comedy-music album; 40 tracks, two years in the making
- Tampa News Force — co-founder of the award-winning satirical news team
Stages
- Opened for Margaret Cho, Anthony Jeselnik and Nick Swardson
- National college tour
- Seven years of street performance, including a masked satirical character outside the White House and the Capitol
Influences
George Carlin, Dana Carvey, Greg Giraldo, Tom Green and Pablo Francisco — the only one of them he has met and worked with. Dana Carvey’s Critics’ Choice may have been the first stand-up he ever saw on television.
This kit was produced by The Comics Unseen. The interview and quotes are drawn from Meet John Jacobs, published on Instagram by The Comics Unseen. John Jacobs and their representatives are free to use any part of this document — the biography, the quotes — for booking, press and promotion, with credit to The Comics Unseen for the interview material.
The Comics Unseen shines a light on stand-up artists and spreads comedy across the world. Follow at instagram.com/hopforpop.
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