Josh Johnson Answers The Web's Most Searched Questions

I'm Josh Johnson

and this is the 'WIRED' Autocomplete Interview.

[funky hip hop music]

How did Josh Johnson, it's weird to say your name a lot.

[funky hip hop music continues]

All right. Who is Josh Johnson favorite comedian?

Some of the top I think ever

are obviously like Carlin and Pryor.

Really enjoy Wanda Sykes.

I think that she's incredible and I really like, hmm.

Should have thought about this more.

Feels like an obvious question. Let me see.

I really like Bill Burr's stuff

and I really enjoy

basically if you had a Comedy Central half hour

in the early aughts, I watched it and I'm sure I loved it.

Who is Josh Johnson's uncle?

Yeah, my uncle, he's a lot.

Great dude, but he's got a lot of issues.

I like hanging out with him when I get the chance,

which is rare because he always offers up

some new perspective that probably no one else has.

And I mean that in both a good way

and he will say some of the most insane things

I've ever heard.

Not to harp on it,

but he legit one time was like, These people,

everybody over here believing in kangaroos.

And I'm like, You know when someone

says something, you're like, 'What?'

Because you're sure you didn't hear it right.

They're like, Yeah, everybody over here

believing in kangaroos.

I was like, What do you,

you don't think kangaroos are real?

And he was like, Come on.

And I was like, What do you mean, 'Come on.'

And he's like, Have you ever seen one?

And at the time I hadn't.

And so it was very frustrating to have to admit

that I had never seen one in person.

But it doesn't make you right.

Like just because I haven't seen it

doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

And then I was like, Who was making money

off of people believing in kangaroo?

Like if you have a big conspiracy,

there's usually like money behind it.

And so I was like, who benefits from this?

And then he's over here like,

I bet them zoos making a pretty penny.

I was like, All right, all right, you're out of your mind.

Who does Josh Johnson look like?

Man, this one.

Whenever you get to this type of question, this thing,

you can really get your feelings hurt real bad.

I've been told I look like a lot of people

where I saw no resemblance at all.

And this is usually, if I'm being honest

by white people who only know me.

Then they're like, Wow, you look just like Kobe.

And I'm like, In what way, how, there's no way.

But I have been told I look like

the nicest way I can put it is a less affluent A$AP Rocky.

Like I don't, I don't have the money or the Rihanna

or the height, but apparently I think it's just literally

that both of us have a twist that hangs down.

And this is just because it's short.

It's like it's too short to go up.

I'm not trying to look like A$AP Rocky.

Sometimes I wish I looked like A$AP Rocky.

He looks very good all the time.

[board clattering]

You can't throw all of them hard

because I feel like eventually

I am going to hit something important.

Can Josh Johnson sing?

Nah. I can like hum and I'm nasty with a kazoo.

All right, you get a kazoo

and you get me going and give me, give me the tune,

I'll hit the kazoo like you wouldn't believe.

Can Josh Johnson draw?

Let's find out, let's see.

You know, art is relative, I'll let you be the judge.

Okay, give me, okay, okay.

You want me to draw on the back of this?

Yeah, yeah. Okay.

All right. [chuckles] Get ready.

What do you think of this?

That's real emotion. That's real emotion.

And guess who it is? If you could guess who it is,

that's going to determine whether or not I could draw.

Do you know who this is?

No, nobody knows.

As soon as I say his name, you'll recognize the name.

It's Batman, yeah, yeah, no, it's Batman.

You know he always brood, look at him.

Come on, that's Batman.

Very impressive. Y'all know Batman

when you see him, brooding.

Strong, silent type, you know?

Clenching his jaw because there's crime afoot, you know?

There's some people

who live in low income housing to beat up, all right?

They think they'd get away with this crime, not today,

can you guess which Batman?

[Crew] Christian Bale.

George Clooney.

Thank you, thank you, George Clooney.

You don't see those cheekbones? Thank you, appreciate you.

Glad we cleared it up.

Can Josh Johnson do improv?

What do you think I've been doing?

I didn't even know that I was supposed to hold it like this.

All right. I showed up very ill-prepared.

I've watched like two of these in preparation

and I wasn't sure if they were going

to have me do the same things that the other people did do.

So I'm very thankful that they had me on.

But ooh, I have been fighting this entire time

to think of something funny

for every minute that I've been on camera

to make up for the fact that I am not prepared.

Can Josh Johnson speak Spanish?

[speaking Spanish] That is about where it stops though.

Josh Johnson, Zohran Mamdani.

One thing I like about Zohran Mamdani,

he'll tell in a second.

You know, when James Dolan was over here

canceling the Knicks watch party

because they had canceled the other Knicks watch party

and James Dolan always clearly trying

to not make it look like they canceled it

because Trump was coming

so he was like, Let me just cancel an extra one

just so that nobody blames my boy, right?

Zohran was like,

Hey, all you got to do is fill out the paperwork.

We already approved the paperwork

and he canceled it anyway.

That's the type of snitch that I like.

That's the, hey, y'all don't like him already?

I got more reasons.

I got like with Zohran tell all you,

he tell all you like a real hater, you know?

Josh Johnson, Drake vs Kendrick.

Let me start by saying neither one

of these men know I'm alive

so it's not like I, you know what I mean?

Like some people get so like invested.

They're just so like they, like it's in their heart

where they're like, you know, A.B. Graham is the greatest.

And it's like, All right, if you think that, that's fine.

But I just, I remember this rap battle

being like such an epic moment.

I remember the night that Kendrick dropped

right after Drake.

Like Drake dropped Family Matters

and then Kendrick dropped Meet the Grahams.

And it was, it was insane to watch the people's faces

when they shot their reaction videos

or if you were just with friends and you listened to both.

Because Drake did his thing.

Drake was over here

and he had you like kind of bouncing to everything

that he was saying

and he had like a good flow and everything.

And then when Kendrick finished, you were like,

Ooh, I hope Drake doesn't kill himself.

D'ya mean was like very bad.

And then he did the Super, then Kendrick did the Super Bowl

and then he did Not Like Us at the Super Bowl.

And then at the end it said game over

and you're like, Now I see why Drake left the country.

Josh Johnson, Rubik's cube.

I enjoy them. It's like a meditative thing.

I have fun trying to solve it.

I actually have a cube here

if you're interested in watching.

[Crew] Do you have a personal best? Do you time it?

I have timed it, but then I hurt my own feelings.

You can time it if you want,

but just know I'm doing this for fun.

[Crew] Well, what is your personal best?

I think my personal best is 49 seconds, yeah.

Okay, right.

[clock ticking] [cube rattling]

[Josh humming]

Okay.

[Crew] Damn, I'm impressed.

Oh, thanks. 50 seconds.

Oh, thanks, oh, sweet, yeah, good time.

These things are great.

How does Josh Johnson write so much?

Mainly I don't do anything else.

This is like the thing that I like to do the most is writing

and I'm a bit obsessive about how I can get better,

just be better in general.

I think that for the most part,

I make a daily practice out of writing

and then I put all the daily writing together.

I perform it on the weekend

and then I put out a video that is that performance.

But I think it's mostly about having something

to say about the things that you're interested in.

The news is going to do whatever the news is going to do.

And I understand that we all have fatigue

with politics sometimes.

And so I actually like to talk about everything.

Some people think I just talk about politics.

Some people think I just talk about hip hop.

Some people think I just talk about pop culture

and stuff when really I'm making an aim

to talk about everything all the time.

Where did Josh Johnson get his start?

So he started in Chicago and was just doing open mics

and meeting people and stuff like that.

That's where I really began doing any form of standup.

I did my high school talent show,

but I don't think you can really count that.

How did Josh Johnson get into comedy?

You know, the thing about comedy is you can just start.

No one's going to stop you, even if they should.

No one's going to tell you don't

or even if they tell you don't, you have to listen.

It is one of the lowest barrier

to entry professions that exists.

Where did Josh Johnson grow up?

I grew up in Alexandria, Louisiana

and it is in the middle of the state

and somehow no one has heard of it.

And then they lose all interests.

They move on to the next question.

So that's what I'm going to do right now.

What does Josh Johnson do for fun?

I like to watch MMA. I think it's really interesting.

I like watching people test their skills

against other skilled people.

I also watch a lot of cartoons.

Some would say that I see in cartoons, you know?

Like when I look out at the world,

I see like a very colorful sort of like cartoon world.

I think it's one from my love of video games

and then comic books and then cartoons.

So when you see me, when I see you out in the street

and you see me,

know that I'm looking at a very animated version of you,

you know, bright colors,

maybe a little rain cloud over your head

depending on your mood.

There's a lot going on.

Okay.

[board clattering]

My bad, okay, let's see.

Whenever there's one, like,

whenever it's just your name like this,

it seems like whatever I'm about to pull is going to hurt.

Just Josh Johnson, you know what I mean?

And then you pull it and it's like sucks, yeah.

Josh Johnson before Google.

Ooh, you don't want to meet me.

You don't want to meet me before Google

because honestly, I was that kid that asked why

for everything over and over again.

Like that was me when I was really little,

I'd be like, Why, why, why, why?

And then as soon as I discovered Google,

my mom got so much relief

because then I was just typing into Google, Why, why, why?

You go deeper. You can go forever.

Josh Johnson, crowd work.

When I see someone in the audience,

I still try to focus mostly on the thing that I wrote

that I set up to deliver and everything.

But if someone is like looking

like they're not from this planet

and they are within like my sight line,

which is not much,

you got to sit in the very front for me to see you.

Not just because the lights, my eyes also aren't the best.

And so I think in that scenario,

sometimes I will get distracted enough to ask what happened.

Josh Johnson quotes.

A timeless quote from me right now that you'll never forget

that I have had to say many times

is when people have walked up to me on the street

and told me that they loved my work

and then they described me to me.

And then I had to say, That's not me.

That's actually happened often, enough to hurt my feelings.

All right. Gonna give this a throw.

[board clattering]

What is Josh Johnson's 'Comedy Band Camp?'

So this is the new tour.

I'm very excited for people to see it.

We're going to have music, going to have dancing,

going to have comedy.

And one of the other features

that I'm really excited about is for everybody

to meet everybody else coming to the show.

So we have a personality quiz that you can take

and then you'll find out what troop you're in

and then you can meet people from your troop.

We're going to be doing special things throughout the tour

that build out the world for each one of these troops.

So I plan to have games and different meetups

and special work specifically for those troops.

So take the personality test.

You can take it at joshjohnsoncomedy.com

and we'll also have people able to take it at the show,

even if you want to take it right up until the show starts

and find out what troop you're in.

What, blank, Josh Johnson, blank. This could be bad.

This could actually, this almost feels like an insult.

Like it feels like a madlib.

I don't know if you remember madlibs,

but it feels like one of those madlibs

where it's like you end up insulting yourself.

Okay, What kind of hoodie does Josh Johnson wear?

That was better than I thought it would be.

Honestly, I was tensed up for a second.

I thought this was going to be like a

revealing personal truth or a nasty read on me as a person.

So the hoodies that I wear very much vary.

I will usually,

what started out when I started wearing gray hoodies

is I get them from vintage stores,

like thrift shops and stuff like that.

But then as I started wearing them more

and becoming known for them,

I really started to get them as gifts,

which is a very nice way of saying

that you forgot my birthday because now I have like 22.

What does Josh Johnson have in his pocket?

So right now in my pocket,

in my right pocket, I have my wallet.

There's a bit of a bulge there

and I can assure you that's not cash.

I have lots of coupons. I have a couple of cards.

I keep people's business cards in there

in case I'm ever in a pinch.

I don't know if you remember that scene from Fight Club

where he had like Tyler's card, so he called Tyler,

that's the type of thing that I hope I never have to do.

If you give me your business card,

I hope I never call you in dire straits,

but you need to know if you give me your business card,

not only will I keep it, but I may call you

when I need a ride, when I have an emergency.

If I really have nobody to talk to

and I got your card, that's a number I can call.

What is Josh Johnson favorite cereal?

Not to sound like a fair weather fan or anything,

but I am not big on cereal,

mainly because when I was little, a lot of the cereals

that we ate were not the name brand cereal all the time.

So I got a lot of they weren't Fruit Loops,

they were Circles, do y'all remember Circles?

It was like Circles, yeah, hardcore off-brand, just Circles.

If you didn't have Circles,

congratulations on having a pretty stable income

via your parents.

So we made it through all the boards

and I want to say thank you for one,

being interested in me at all, that's very nice of you.

You could be Googling anything.

There's a lot that we don't know, but you looked me up,

and so thank you so much.

And thanks for asking some really great questions.

I hope you enjoyed this and me,

and I hope to see you soon on the Comedy Band Camp tour

or just in life.

[electronic music]