Tuesday on YouTube<\/a>, she muses about the adventures of the modern day working woman, aging, the horniness of the 40s, sugar daddy aspirations and why women shouldn\u2019t be called gold diggers.<\/p>\nRobinson, who got her start in stand-up in 2008, has always juggled a myriad of projects that has constantly made people laugh at not only her outrageous laugh out loud punchlines but also her honesty and confidence. Besides stand-up, Robinson also was the co-creator and co-star of the podcast turned HBO series \u201c2 Dope Queens\u201d with Jessica Williams alongside other podcasts including \u201cSooo Many White Guys\u201d and \u201cBlack Frasier.\u201d In 2019, Phoebe launched Tiny Reparations, a production company whose first series \u201cDoing the Most with Phoebe Robinson,\u201d premiered April 2021 on Comedy Central. In 2021, Robinson also published her third book of essays \u201cPlease Don\u2019t Sit on My Bed in Your Outside Clothes,\u201d the inaugural title from her imprint, Tiny Reparations Books, which works to champion writers of color. Her debut hour comedy special, Sorry, Harriet Tubman, premiered October 2021 on HBO Max.<\/p>\n
The Times caught up with Robinson about her stand-up special, how she\u2019s trying to get away from the internet\u2019s obsession with content creation, breaking free from being a girl boss and what male comedians can do to make their jokes about sex funnier.<\/p>\n
Who are you now as a stand-up comedian compared to when you started?<\/b><\/p>\n
I started out sort of trying to find my confidence as a person, as a performer, as a writer, as a joke teller, sort of needing to prove to myself that I was worthy. I think now with the age that I am, and my approach to stand up is just I don\u2019t need that sort of validation from stand-up. I think my relationship to comedy it\u2019s more about the craft and sort of figuring out how to take an idea from something that\u2019s in my head to something that\u2019s funny, rather than it being like, if I make people laugh that\u2019s a bonus in terms of my character. I stand up in a much more confident way, in a much more calm way. Coming up where it\u2019s like, \u2018you have to kill\u2019, \u2018every show has to be great,\u2019 I go, that\u2019s actually the antithesis of creating anything. A sculptor doesn\u2019t go into it like, this has to be the best fucking face I\u2019ve ever done that\u2019s not how you approach anything creatively. You go in with it being I want to do this. There are going to be happy accidents along the way.<\/p>\n
What has helped you let go of that search for validation?<\/b><\/p>\n
You get to a point where you\u2019re like this is all a bunch of straight white guys. I\u2019m never going to be them. I\u2019m never going to have their full acceptance. So what does it look like if I just accept myself? How will my stand up comedy be? How will I enjoy this process? Because for a long time, I didn\u2019t really enjoy doing stand up. I was just always dreading every time I got on stage, because it\u2019s dealing with misogyny and the nonsense and all this other stuff that is truly getting in the way of this is a really cool job. I get to get on stage and make people laugh, be this joy spreader, and then I\u2019m dealing with all these other things that have nothing to do with what I\u2019m here to do. I can either do this thing that doesn\u2019t really bring me joy in the way that I\u2019m doing it, or I can figure out what works for me and create my own path. And nobody has to understand what my path is like. I\u2019m just trying to be doing something that I enjoy, as opposed to it being this misery filled sort of thing, or a thing where it\u2019s so contingent on fitting in with everyone else. I don\u2019t fit in with everyone else, and that\u2019s okay.<\/p>\n
What made it important to talk about girl bossdom in this moment?<\/b><\/p>\n
I think we are at a place where it seems like even when we\u2019re trying to be less girl boss and take more time for yourself and more self care, it\u2019s like that\u2019s such a business now too. Everything just has this tinge of capitalism on it, without any actual substance to it in a lot of ways. I feel like with this special I don\u2019t provide the answers, because I think the answer is different for everybody. They have decided for themselves. But I think it\u2019s just let\u2019s sort of unpack these things that we all sort of just blindly went along with like everyone\u2019s on the ground everyone\u2019s hustling. I also just am as we\u2019re going into whatever we\u2019re in right now, whatever this is, I have no idea what we are living in. I am holding on for dear life, like I\u2019m in the trenches with everyone. I think it\u2019s good to stop and and ask these questions, or just stop and think. I think that\u2019s one of the things I don\u2019t love about content all the time. It\u2019s just constant distraction, little something on our faces, so that we\u2019re not ever actually dealing with anything, contemplating anything, being with ourselves. It\u2019s just all a desperate need to avoid. And I go maybe avoiding is not the best. Maybe being a girl boss is not the best.<\/p>\n
I feel like this has been happening more since the most recent election cycle where you see more Black women talking about how they\u2019re trying to rest. How do you see that playing out in your life right now?<\/b><\/p>\n
I think rest is very important. I think we\u2019re living in a world that everything is so content driven, which I just hate the word content. We are not content. We are not just here to vomit and produce stuff. Even the notion of every year you have to have a new hour, you have to have a new special, what the fuck are we talking about every year? Every year is it gonna be good? Every year, you\u2019re not even giving yourself time to really hone in on stuff. And sometimes you can see with specials where you\u2019re like, \u2018yeah, if this person had maybe three more months, it would have been funnier.\u2019 We\u2019re not even experiencing what we\u2019re creating. We\u2019re not even enjoying the process, because it\u2019s just the end result. I know I\u2019m slower than other people, but I don\u2019t care. When you think about sometimes, music artists, take like five years off between albums, \u2013\u2013 not that I can take five years off \u2013\u2013 and then they come back with something that\u2019s phenomenal. They probably would not have been able to get to that place if every year they\u2019re putting out an album. I really just try to come from I want to create things that I\u2019m proud of, that I think are funny and not fall victim to I have to be in that cycle of constantly pumping stuff out regardless of how good the quality is.<\/p>\n
How do you want to see comedy change over time?<\/b><\/p>\n
I would want comedians to really admit and cop to the power that we do have in terms of the cultural. I think a lot of comics try to have it both ways. We\u2019re like, oh, I\u2019m just a dumb clown and I don\u2019t mean anything. And then, like, you know, certainly creating work for audiences that\u2019s going to get you ahead, and that is also sort of perpetuating ideas and ideology that\u2019s not great, that\u2019s toxic, that is destructive, that is unhealthy. I think the first step is sort of like changing this landscape of comedy a little bit. It\u2019s sort of just like taking ownership over this is the role that we play in things societally, and we get to choose the things that we want to talk about. And so when there\u2019s this sort of like, Oh, it\u2019s just words. I go, your whole job is words. That\u2019s your currency. You choose each and every word to elicit a reaction. So let\u2019s just own that.<\/p>\n
What does breaking free from being a girl boss look like in practice?<\/b><\/p>\n
I think not having this sort of internal kind of anxiety of I have to say yes to everything. I think I have learned to push some of the noise away in order to have clarity, in order to be able to really think about what I want to do mindfully. I love a good bed rot. I love a day of just staying in bed watching TV, not opening the blinds, or going for a walk with a friend or reading a book, or doing marathon running. Not being a girl boss has allowed me to have a fuller life, which I think is great, not only for my own personal happiness, but it does also then inform my work and the way that I approach it, and how it\u2019s coming from not a stressful place, but a place of this is but one part of my life. I think it\u2019s just allowed me to have more boundaries.<\/p>\n
You talked about how women have to oscillate between trying to be likable and lovable. How do you see your comedy pushing back against those narratives?<\/b><\/p>\n
People don\u2019t love women in front of a microphone so that right there. These are very well formed thoughts but if you think it\u2019s not, it\u2019s nonsense or noise, that\u2019s fine. I\u2019m in a place where I just don\u2019t care about being liked because I like myself and a lot of people don\u2019t like themselves. So if I\u2019m contingent on people who don\u2019t like themselves to then be able to like me, I\u2019m going to be in a world of just chaos and nonsense. I really just got to a place where I gotta be okay with me. I gotta like Phoebe when I\u2019m out on stage, when I\u2019m at home, and I\u2019m just farting in bed, and trying to find something to watch on TV, or I got zits popping up on my face. I think obviously the likability and the lovability is a trap for women almost always. When you see that so much of female likeability within society is based on how we can make ourselves smaller or not be as great as we are I\u2019m just like, screw that.<\/p>\n
What do you think is the difference between the way male comedians talk about sex versus the way female comedians are talking about sex?<\/b><\/p>\n
Most of them, I\u2019m like, oh, you\u2019ve never, probably authentically made a woman come and that\u2019s why you\u2019re making that joke, because it makes zero fucking sense what you just said. They\u2019re like, \u2018women are so hard to figure out.\u2019 I\u2019m like, just go down on us for like, 30 minutes. Just do a solid 30, 35 minutes, and you\u2019ll be fine. They like to act like we\u2019re so mysterious. Have you ever asked a woman what she likes in bed? Do you listen when she says, I don\u2019t like that? Just get educated about the female anatomy. Prioritize female pleasure. Understand that it\u2019s not a race to you getting your penis inside of a hole, but that sex is both people, not just a thing that\u2019s done to women. I think the material would be different from men if they bothered to care at all about our sexuality.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n
\u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.latimes.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Phoebe Robinson could see the potential appeal of being with a 72-year-old man. Not really, but kind of. It was a casual semi-joke she made to a friend months ago when her schedule was chaotic between traveling, moving to a new apartment, writing and more. An older wealthy man could be her ticket to the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2082446,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25172],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2082445","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Phoebe-Robinson-is-done-being-a-girl-boss-But-she.com2F212Fb32F3ea3de274a9f9de9a1033855.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2082445","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2082445"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2082445\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2082447,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2082445\/revisions\/2082447"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2082446"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2082445"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2082445"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2082445"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}