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New Delhi, Mar 19 () Social media app Likee on Thursday said it has crossed 115 million month active users globally and that it sees a huge growth potential in India. The short video platform, developed by Bigo Technology, claims to have recorded 208 per cent growth in its active user base. "According to the report released by the company for October-December 2019 quarter, the monthly active users (MAU) of Likee reached 115.3 million from 37.4 million in the corresponding period of 2018, representing an increase of around 208 per cent on yearly basis," Bigo Technology Pte Vice President Mike Ong told . Ong attributed the growth in MAU to expansion of geographical coverage, augmentation of monetisation capability, among others. "We continued to expand Likee's geographic coverage, refine its content offerings, and augment its monetisation capabilities. As a result, Likee's total MAU swelled, representing a whopping increase on yearly as well as sequential basis," he said. The company, which now operates across 180 countries, sees India as a promising market with a large growth potential. "Likee is growing rapidly and has seen a strong momentum globally. Likee is evolving to be the most favoured short video platform among its audience. India provides a huge scope for growth and will stand to be a promising market for us in the future as well," Ong said. Likee was released in 2017 after which the Singapore-based Bigo Technology partnered around 10 Bollywood production houses to push user engagements in India. The company's Bollywood partners include Salman Khan Films, T-Series, Fox Star Studios, Red Chillies Entertainment, Jjust Music and Ashutosh Gowariker Productions Pvt Ltd. PRSRVK

Likee crosses 115 mn monthly active users globally, sees huge growth potential in India

<ul class="summary-list"><li>Both United States Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and President Donald Trump have said that the government is "looking at" banning <keyword id="6762469" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="TikTok">TikTok</keyword> in the United States.</li><li>While it's unclear what a TikTok ban would look like, TikTok users have been reacting to the news.</li><li>Insider spoke with several <keyword id="8637178" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="tiktokers">TikTokers</keyword> who had varying reactions to a potential ban.</li><li>Many TikTokers are worried about losing their followings and communities on the app.</li><li>Users are telling followers to connect with them on other social media platforms. </li></ul>On Monday, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/pompeo-says-us-certainly-considering-banning-tiktok-fox-news-2020-7">United States Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Fox News that the US government was "certainly looking at" banning TikTok</a>, citing security concerns (TikTok is owned by Chinese <keyword id="6358815" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="tech">tech</keyword> company ByteDance). President Donald Trump <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/donald-trump-considering-banning-tiktok-2020-7">echoed Pompeo's remarks on Tuesday</a>, implying that banning TikTok in the US would be a kind of punitive measure against China for the coronavirus.While information about any kind of potential ban is muddy at best, TikTokers have been taking to the platform to share their feelings about a potential ban. Many seemed to take the idea of a "ban" in the most extreme sense of the word — TikTok being entirely shut down in the US — prompting people to make contingency plans and reminisce about the good times they've had on the app. Insider spoke with several creators about their reactions to Pompeo's claim that the United States government is "looking at" banning TikTok, and what would change for them in the event that they were fully cut off from the app. <h2>TikTok creators, especially those with smaller platforms, are worried about losing their followings</h2>For many creators, TikTok has afforded them an opportunity to connect with other users, grow their online platform, and create content that may not have had a home elsewhere. "I really like TikTok because I've made a small platform for myself here," Matthew Yescas, who has nearly 5,600 followers and goes by <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@matthewyescas3">@matthewyescase3</a> on the app, told Insider. "So when I saw that they were trying to ban TikTok I was so disappointed because I had amassed a pretty decent following and met a lot of online friends."Other creators echoed the sentiment on the app, posting videos about the people that they had gotten to know and the way that the platform had helped to build a following for other projects. "The concept of TikTok getting banned in the US is a scary thing to me and a lot of other creators I know," Will Mahony, who posts videos to an audience of approximately 1.4 million on his account <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@wahony">@wahony</a>, told Insider. "A lot of people's careers are relying almost completely on TikTok… Teenagers, in general, would also be devastated, the vast majority of people I know use TikTok for hours a day for memes, drama, and even politics."<h2>Many are encouraging their followers to connect with them on other social media platforms</h2>In the time since news about the potential ban began to spread on the app, TikTok users were quick to set up contingency plans, thanking their followers and <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@troubled_cryst/video/6846804955731365126">directing them towards their accounts</a> on other social media platforms. Others lamented the potential loss of unique spaces or archives that they had built on the app. In a <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@arbacn/video/6846879525180034310">TikTok video posted on Tuesday</a>, <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@arbacn">@arbacn</a>, who has 1.8 million followers, spoke about how the account served as "a digital diary of my last year of high school."TikTok creator <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@ironno">@ironno</a> also posted a video speaking about the potential impacts of a ban, and lamenting the potential loss of a platform that's been especially fruitful for BIPOC creators. "TikTok has been a complete game-changer for minorities," she said. "We've been able to connect with each other on such a fast and global scale, learn so many things about other people's cultures, and realize that we have a lot more similarities than differences." <h2>People have varying feelings about the ban, and there are plenty of theories about why it's being talked about now</h2>While many TikTokers appear to be stressed about a potential ban, others felt that the government's priorities should be elsewhere. "Speaking as a Muslim American, Mike Pompeo can go to hell. He's a racist, Islamophobic scumbag," Zahra, a TikToker whose account <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@muslimthicc">@muslimthicc</a> has approximately 2.7 million followers, told Insider, asking that her last name be withheld due to security concerns. "In regards to his comments about looking into TikTok and security concerns, I think it's absolutely ridiculous that our government is more adamant about banning a video sharing app than it is about banning assault rifles or dealing with much more pressing issues like police brutality or missing indigenous women in our country," she said. And while some creators lightly poked fun at those who were stressed over the potential ban, theories about the motivation behind a ban have run rampant on the platform. Some hypothesized it was a retaliatory measure after <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/tiktok-teens-and-k-pop-fans-tanked-trumps-tulsa-rally-2020-6">TikTok users and K-pop stans took credit for tanking President Trump's Tulsa, Oklahoma, campaign rally</a> by reserving tickets en masse. Others claimed that it was a measure to silence Gen Z. "I feel like the real reason that they're trying to ban the app isn't because of a 'security concern' but because the government doesn't like things that are foreign to them. They don't really have any control over what happens on TikTok," Matthew Yescas told Insider.<h2>TikTok users with followings on other platforms don't seem as concerned about a potential ban</h2>Some of TikTok's biggest names have been quiet about the possibility of the ban. Charli D'Amelio, TikTok's top creator, doesn't appear to have acknowledged the ban on social media and did not return Insider's request for comment. Both <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@joshrichards/video/6847545192245906693" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Josh Richards</a> and <a href="https://twitter.com/lilpapivoni/status/1280829788182073344?s=20" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Avani Gregg</a> have posted about a potential TikTok ban on social media but did not return Insider's requests for comment.Perhaps they're not too concerned. Most of TikTok's top talent have massive followings on other platforms like YouTube, Instagram, and Twitter. In the event of a ban, their fame and status likely won't see a major drop.Take Will Mahony (@wahony), <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@wahony?lang=en">a TikTok user with over a million followers</a> on the app who told Insider that he "wouldn't be so far gone" in the event of a ban given his followings on both YouTube and Instagram. He also said he was planning on investing more time into his YouTube channel regardless."That's not the case for so many creators who base their career off TikTok," he added.Melissa Ong, who posts to approximately 2.1 million followers on her account <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@chunkysdead/video/6846839089174433029">@chunkysdead</a> and is the<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/26/style/step-chickens-tiktok-cult-wars.html"> leader of the "Step-chickens cult,"</a> told Insider that she was against a ban, but in the event of one, she would move her videos over to YouTube, Instagram, and Twitter. In a recently published video, she said that she's focusing on other platforms, saying that she doesn't feel as motivated to post on the app if it's "just going to abort all [her] content." Zahra (@muslimthicc) told Insider that she wasn't sure if she'd continue making content in the event of a TikTok ban in the US. "I'm a senior in college studying computer science and I plan to pursue a career in my field after graduation, so I don't think content creation is a long term plan for me," she said.Ultimately, many TikTokers simply don't want to lose the community that they've built. While it's possible to move to other platforms, for those who have found a home on TikTok, the experience won't be the same."[A ban] would suck for TikTok creators such as myself, as well as for the bajillions of people who come to TikTok every day for the unique entertainment that it provides," Melissa Ong, a.k.a. <a href="https://slack-redir.net/link?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.tiktok.com%2F%40chunkysdead%2Fvideo%2F6846839089174433029" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">@chunkysdead,</a> told Insider.<h2>This isn't the first time members of the US government have raised questions about TikTok</h2>Pompeo and Trump's comments come on the heels of <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/india-bans-tiktok-dozens-of-other-chinese-apps-security-concerns-2020-6">India blocking TikTok along with other Chinese apps</a> that the Indian government said posed a security threat.It's also not the first time <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/apple-and-tiktok-had-empty-seats-at-the-senate-hearing-2019-11">anti-TikTok skepticism has arisen in the United States government</a>: Senators like Josh Hawley, one of TikTok's biggest critics, have <a href="https://twitter.com/HawleyMO/status/1191138973252493313?s=20">called the app's ties to China into question</a>. Other lawmakers, including <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/us-senators-worried-tiktok-bytedance-national-security-risk-investigation-2019-10">Sen. Chuck Schumer, Sen. Tom Cotton</a>, and <a href="https://twitter.com/marcorubio/status/1181907273918099457?s=20">Sen. Marco Rubio</a>, have called for investigations into TikTok. The app has been <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/us-government-agencies-have-banned-tiktok-app-2020-2#5-the-marine-corps-expressed-similar-reasoning-for-a-ban-in-january-5">banned by a number of United States government agencies</a>.TikTok <a href="https://newsroom.tiktok.com/en-us/explaining-tiktoks-approach-in-the-us">said in a November 2019 blog post</a> that its content moderation policies adhere to local laws and guidelines, and that it stores the data of United States app users in the US and Singapore, not China. The company <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/donald-trump-considering-banning-tiktok-2020-7">recently told Business Insider </a>that it has "never provided user data to the Chinese government, nor would we do so if asked."Currently, there's no definite information as to whether or not TikTok will be banned in the United States. And, as <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2020/7/9/21315983/trump-pompeo-ban-tiktok-bytedance-chinese-social-media-national-security-censorship-methods">The Verge's Adi Robertson reported</a>, there's not even clarity on what exactly a "ban" would mean, and any action that would fully cut United States users off from the app's network seems unlikely.<ul class="read-more-links"><li>Read more:</li><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/donald-trump-considering-banning-tiktok-2020-7">Trump said he's considering banning TikTok to punish China over the coronavirus</a></li><li><a href="https://www.insider.com/tiktokalypse-tiktok-drama-chase-hudson-lilhuddy-charli-damelio-2020-7">A falling-out between TikTok's biggest stars led to a wave of creators unfollowing and subtweeting each other</a></li><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/tiktok-police-law-enforcement-requests-2020-7">Leaked documents show what it looks like when TikTok hands over a user's data to police</a></li><li><a href="https://www.insider.com/tiktok-teens-to-shut-down-trumps-online-merch-stores-2020-7">TikTokers are attempting to shut down Trump's online merch store, but their tactic may not work</a></li></ul>

TikTok creators are worried about losing their followings as the Trump administration considers banning the app

<div type="image" title="jane fraser citi" height="2206" width="2942" msid="78128245" hostid="261"></div>Last week <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/citigroup-ceo-michael-corbat-to-retire-jane-fraser-president-replacement-2020-9">Citigroup announced</a> that <keyword id="1680080" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="Jane-Fraser">Jane Fraser</keyword> would succeed Mike Corbat as CEO when he retires in February 2021.Fraser will be the <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/citigroup-jane-fraser-first-woman-ceo-major-us-bank-diversity-2020-9">first woman</a> to lead a major US bank.Her promotion is a symbolic step up for <keyword id="624" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="60" keywordseo="Women">women</keyword> across industries, and not only in finance. Just 6% of CEOs at S&amp;P 500 companies <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/why-women-almost-never-become-ceo-2016-9">are women</a>, according to the research and <keyword id="6363690" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="Strategy">strategy</keyword> development <a href="https://www.catalyst.org/research/women-ceos-of-the-sp-500/">nonprofit Catalyst</a>.There's no single, direct path to shattering the proverbial glass ceiling. But one thing's for sure: Women won't wind up in the C-suite by chance. Organizations need to be deliberate about addressing the systemic <keyword id="6358360" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="gender">gender</keyword> biases that preclude women from advancing in their careers.<h2>Welcome to <a href="http://newsletter.businessinsider.com/join/4np/gender-at-work&amp;hash=a0ddc3deacecce666f50b7f5e87aa230a230">Gender at Work</a>.</h2>This is a twice-monthly newsletter that takes an expansive look at how your gender identity informs your career. <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/gender-at-work-bipoc-women-coronavirus-pandemic-economic-success-challenges-2020-8">Last week</a> we explored the unique challenges that BIPOC women have faced during the pandemic. This week we're talking about ways to cultivate gender diversity in <keyword id="34454" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="60" keywordseo="leadership">leadership</keyword> roles.We won't promise to cover every single strategy. But we've outlined some of the most pressing below.<h2>Direct women to jobs where they manage profit-and-loss</h2>Among Fraser's previous roles at <keyword id="44473" type="CITY" weightage="60" keywordseo="Citigroup">Citigroup</keyword>: running the bank's strategy division during the financial crisis and steering the bank's Latin America division through several crises.It's crucial for women leaders to gain experience that involves managing a business' profit-and-loss. Earlier this year, <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/why-so-few-ceos-are-women-you-can-have-a-seat-at-the-table-and-not-be-a-player-11581003276">The Wall Street Journal</a> published an analysis of executives at the biggest public companies and found that men were more likely than women to get these jobs, which directly affect the bottom line. The people who hold these positions are better positioned to eventually be CEO.The Journal analysis found that women often get funneled into different tracks, like human resources and legal. These functions are important to a business' performance, but typically don't lead to the CEO job.<h2>Be aware of implicit biases</h2>Implicit biases are the unconscious stereotypes or assumptions that people can hold about others. For example, "an effective senior banker is (wrongly) imagined to be aggressive, dominating, transactional," Astrid Jaekel and Elizabeth St-Onge, partners at management consulting firm Oliver Wyman, wrote in <a href="https://hbr.org/2016/10/why-women-arent-making-it-to-the-top-of-financial-services-firms">The Harvard Business Review</a> in 2016. These characteristics "are stereotypically masculine," they add.People who hold these assumptions might feel that a woman isn't "management material," simply because they feel more comfortable with the image of a man in charge."Firms are more willing to take risks on men. With a woman, she has to prove it first," one senior woman in finance told The <a href="https://hbr.org/2016/10/why-women-arent-making-it-to-the-top-of-financial-services-firms">Harvard Business Review</a>.<a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/how-poc-white-women-twist-themselves-white-male-corporate-america-2020-7">Our colleague Marguerite Ward reported</a> that women and BIPOC often feel the need to change the way they look, act, and speak in order to fit in with the existing workplace culture.So it's critical for managers to be aware of how those biases can show up. Leadership might provide training sessions on what to look out for and how to establish inclusive hiring and promotion practices. Professional-services firm PwC, for example, is using <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/using-virtual-reality-for-diversity-and-inclusion-trainings-2020-7">virtual reality</a> to simulate office scenarios in which employees have to decide who to hire and promote, Business Insider previously reported.Any company that offers unconscious bias training should hold managers accountable for meeting certain DEI standards, Dr. Janice Gassam Asare <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-improve-your-companys-dei-unconscious-bias-training-2020-7">wrote for Business Insider</a>. <h2>Hold organizations accountable</h2>Ideally, companies would be intrinsically motivated to develop inclusive hiring and promotion practices. But they aren't always. So it helps to have a little external pressure.Fraser's promotion to her current role — president of Citigroup and CEO of Global Consumer Banking — happened shortly after the head honchos on Wall Street were called out for their (white) boys' club culture.At a <a href="https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/bank-ceos-dont-think-female-or-person-of-color-likely-to-succeed-2019-4-1028105382#">congressional hearing</a> in April 2019, Democratic Rep. Al Green asked the CEOs of some of the largest banks, including Citigroup, whether they believed that their likely successor would be a woman or a person of color. No one raised their hand.JPMorgan also took action, promoting <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/jpmorgan-promotes-117-to-managing-director-2019-4">a record number of women</a> to managing director in April 2019 (26% of the group, or 30 executives, were women).<h2>Focus on the first promotion gap</h2>According to a <a href="https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/financial-services/our-insights/closing-the-gap-leadership-perspectives-on-promoting-women-in-financial-services">2018 McKinsey study</a>, 8% of women in early-tenure jobs are promoted, while 10% of men are. But that first promotion gap leads to a <a href="https://fortune.com/longform/banking-finance-women-ceos-wall-street/">smaller talent pool</a> of candidates for executive leadership later on. Researchers refer to the lack of promotion opportunities for women, and especially BIPOC women, as the "<a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/sheryl-sandberg-mckinsey-research-on-broken-rung-for-black-women-2020-8">broken rung</a>." Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg said that diversity and inclusion efforts can't be effective if promotion efforts are concentrated at the top. "A lot of companies' programs and a lot of diversity efforts are focused at the top — how do we develop senior leaders? And that's super-important. But what we also have to focus on is what we call 'the broken rung,' that first broken rung from employee to manager," Sandberg <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/sheryl-sandberg-mckinsey-research-on-broken-rung-for-black-women-2020-8">previously told </a>Ward.Bridging the gender gap that first promotion is a key way to help women reach the C-suite. <h2>Change needs to happen at home, too</h2>We should note: These are all structural changes organizations can make in order to promote gender diversity in leadership. But women need support networks at home, too, in order to advance professionally. <a href="https://www.axios.com/how-citis-new-ceo-managed-her-worklife-balance-bc69a92c-2d0f-455c-a8ec-3279ab97ed8b.html">Axios' Felix Salmon and Erica Pandey reported</a> that Fraser's husband left his job as head of global banking at European bank Dresdner Kleinwort in order to help Fraser advance in her career.Still, managing work and family was hardly a breeze. Axios reported that Fraser worked part-time at McKinsey while her two kids were young. She'd often do her work in the kitchen at 3 a.m.

We need more women in the C-suite. It won't happen on its own.

<ul class="summary-list"><li>When clubs closed in March of last year, stand-up comedians couldn't perform and were unsure about their future.</li><li>Some drew audiences through online and outdoor shows but agreed that they didn't compare to live indoor sets.</li><li>As performers reach more people through social media, the <keyword id="6359193" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="comedy">comedy</keyword> landscape could change permanently.</li></ul>On a cold February night in Bloomington, Indiana, those in need of a laugh trickled into the Comedy Attic under an illuminated red awning. The audience members fanned around the stage, sitting in red-and-black stackable chairs.It was a night like any other at the club, which <a href="https://www.visitbloomington.com/listing/the-comedy-attic/879/">opened its doors in 2008</a> as the city's first and only full-time comedy hub. Carmen Lynch was headlining.Lynch, a comic in Queens, New York, who's appeared on "The Late Show With David Letterman, "Conan," and "The Late Show With Stephen Colbert," jumped into her set by rattling off anecdotes about used-mattress stigma, unprotected sex, and her middle-aged boyfriend.Though Lynch, in a messy bun and a black graphic T-shirt, seemed completely at ease, she had a nagging feeling that the comedy world was about to change. On February 29, the night Lynch performed her final show at the Comedy Attic, the US <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/Health/timeline-coronavirus-started/story?id=69435165">reported its first coronavirus-related death</a>, in Washington."It was one of those moments where I could just tell that we weren't going to be doing stand-up for a long time," she told Insider.<h2>Traditional <keyword id="171887" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="Stand-up-comedy">stand-up comedy</keyword> stopped during the <keyword id="43587" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="60" keywordseo="pandemic">pandemic</keyword></h2>As <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/coronavirus-pandemic-timeline-history-major-events-2020-3">COVID-19 cases in the US ticked up</a> in mid-March, restaurants closed their doors, Hollywood halted production, and Broadway shut down.Suddenly, comedy clubs went from being cultural staples to potential breeding grounds for the virus. Comedians, many of whom earn a living from touring, were left in limbo when venues closed across the country.<div type="image" title="comedy cellar pandemic" height="2761" width="4142" msid="80652955" hostid="261"></div>Lynch was accustomed to spending much of her time on the road and felt strange staying in one place for so long."I usually tour a lot. I'm on the road a lot. I was pretty much at the airport every other weekend," she said. "I went from not being home a lot to just literally being stuck at home."The "Saturday Night Live" star <keyword id="6077908" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="pete-davidson">Pete Davidson</keyword>, also a stand-up comedian in New York, canceled the remaining stops on his tour early in the pandemic.Read more: <a href="https://www.insider.com/hollywood-is-dying-pandemic-2021-1">How the $100 billion Hollywood machine is scrambling to come back after its worst year in decades</a>"It's been really rough because ... you could usually do five to nine spots a week," <a href="https://www.insider.com/pete-davidson-stand-up-pandemic-experience-performance-interview-2020-12">he recently told Insider</a> while promoting his partnership with Amazon Echo.The abrupt stop forced comedians to consider their next steps, Dr. Ildiko Tabori, the resident psychologist at the Laugh Factory in Los Angeles, said."Career stuff has changed. It's all been a waiting game for people," she said, adding that comedians "were trying to just figure out, what do we do?"<h2>Time away from the stand-up circuit forced comedians out of their comfort zones</h2>Limited to the confines of their own homes, many comedians tried to re-create the magic of a comedy club virtually.Festivals including <a href="https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/just-for-laughs-unveils-lineup-for-pandemic-era-virtual-comedy-festival">Just For Laughs</a> and the <a href="https://bostoncomedyfest.com/">Boston Comedy Festival</a> toyed with online formats. For comedians, Zoom shows seemed like the natural next move. The transition wasn't seamless, though."I did do a Zoom show, and it was very uncomfortable," said Melinda Hill, a comedian in Los Angeles who released a special called "<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=65hTkKeqjt4">Inappropriate</a>" in October, adding that there were technical difficulties throughout her set."It really turned me off of the experience," she said. "It's really uncomfortable, because if you're used to gauging how something's doing by audience response and now there isn't one or it's delayed, it's an uncomfortable transition."As the weather warmed up, some comedians experimented with socially distanced shows outdoors. Though they were able to interact with audience members on rooftops and in parks, many hadn't exercised their stand-up muscles in months.Davidson joined the comedians John Mulaney and Mike Birbiglia at the Twilight Concerts on the Farm series at South Farms in Morris, Connecticut, in September. Though he's been performing stand-up <a href="https://people.com/tv/pete-davidson-opens-up-about-getting-snl-gig-at-age-20/">since he was 16</a>, Davidson was admittedly out of practice, he said.Read more: <a href="https://www.insider.com/john-mulaney-investigated-by-secret-service-after-snl-trump-joke-2020-12">John Mulaney says he was investigated by the Secret Service after making a Trump joke on 'SNL'</a>"I hadn't been on stage at that point in, like, six, seven months," he said. "It was fun, and I had a great time, but I was super rusty, and it felt like my first time on stage ever."Beyond getting back into the swing of performing live, comedians yearn for the more basic aspects of the clubs - the tightly packed audience, the sticky floors, even the hecklers."It's funny how much you take for granted, like, a small room in a basement, which sounds awful, but it's amazing, because the ceilings, they're low, the people are jammed in," Lynch said. "When a joke comes out right, it feels magical."<div type="image" title="carmen lynch" height="4473" width="6703" msid="80652959" hostid="261"></div>Instead of performing at her usual spots, such as the New York Comedy Club or the Comedy Cellar, Lynch spent the summer testing new material at Stand Up NY's outdoor shows in Central Park. And while it was an improvement from Zoom gatherings, Lynch said, it didn't have the same energy as the clubs."Your ceiling is the sky, and sometimes your hecklers are just little kids celebrating a birthday party at a barbecue 10 feet away," she said, "and you just have to suck it up."<h2>While some wait for traditional stand-up to resume, others are finding opportunities and making headway</h2>Though restaurants in New York City reopened with restrictions months into the pandemic, <a href="https://gothamist.com/arts-entertainment/nyc-small-theaters-comedy-clubs-sue-officials-over-pandemic-restrictions">many comedy joints have remained closed</a>. With no foreseeable reopening dates, cold temperatures preventing outdoor shows, and widespread Zoom fatigue, many comedians' futures remain uncertain.Some have tried to adapt, using the time to master new skills.In addition to launching a Spanish podcast called "<a href="https://www.instagram.com/conversandoconcarmen/">Conversando Con Carmen</a>," Lynch teamed up with her boyfriend, John Reynolds, a late-night-comedy writer, to start a podcast called "<a href="https://audioboom.com/channels/5022032">The Human Centipod</a>," as they were "trapped" in a home with Reynolds' family."We would just record a bunch of episodes in his mother's car, because that was the only spot that we could be in private," she said.Lynch said she and Reynolds had always wanted to work together on something and now had finally found time to do it. SiriusXM's "<a href="https://www.siriusxm.com/channels/shes-so-funny">She's So Funny</a>" has since picked up the podcast.Hill also created a podcast, "<a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/lets-process-this-with-melinda-hill/id1508502765">Let's Process This</a>," in April. The comedian said the project, which focuses on healing, helped her stay "connected with people.""I just feel that thinking outside the box is necessary right now; that is the wave of the future," she said. "Saying something, adding value to the society … is always going to be in style, now more than ever."For some, the pandemic was a chance to revisit their roots.Read more: <a href="https://www.insider.com/lilly-singh-a-little-late-season-2-changes-nbc-2021-1">Lilly Singh promises to bring more of her 'authentic self' to season 2 of 'A Little Late'</a><keyword id="6386806" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="Lilly-Singh">Lilly Singh</keyword>, the YouTube sensation turned late-night host, rose to fame for her character work online before becoming the creator, executive producer, and host of NBC's "<a href="https://www.insider.com/lilly-singh-a-little-late-season-2-changes-nbc-2021-1">A Little Late With Lilly Singh</a>."But last October, she decided to leave the studio and return to her home in Los Angeles to parody her life during the pandemic by creating an NBC comedy special called "Sketchy Times.""For me, I really view comedy as something beautifully healing," she told Insider while promoting the whiskey brand Jane Walker by Johnnie Walker's "First Women" campaign."We're all locked down, and I'm sitting at my desk, and I think, I really want to make myself and other people laugh. I know how to do it because I've been doing these characters for 10 years now," she continued.Singh added: "We're in a moment right now where I can't have 20 people at my house. But you know what I can do? I can be 20 different people."<h2>On the other side of this pandemic, comedy might look different</h2>As comedians consider what stand-up will look like after the pandemic, they seem to agree on one thing: People will be hungry for laughter.Davidson predicted there would be "a big boom" when vaccines become available or the pandemic is over. "So it's coming to a head, because I think so many people are just going to be so anxious to go do anything," he said."All types of live performances and movies and even just going out in general is going to be on an upswing just because we've been cooped up for a year."<div type="image" title="pete davidson" height="3834" width="5472" msid="80652960" hostid="261"></div>The pandemic could change the medium, too.A stand-up comedian might do multiple open mics weekly when they're starting out. It can take years of repetition and hustle for a comedian to craft their material, find their voice, and become well known enough to gain recognition at major clubs.The pandemic has proved that there are alternative paths to success, such as leveraging social media.For example, Sarah Cooper landed her own Netflix comedy special, "Everything's Fine," in October after posting impersonations of President Donald Trump on TikTok. Melissa Ong gained fame and signed with United Talent Agency after using comedy videos on TikTok to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/26/style/step-chickens-tiktok-cult-wars.html">create an online cult</a>. Now her long-term plans include a stand-up special, a podcast, and a book. "You used to have to follow a system, but now it's like you create your own system," Hill said. "You create your own door and you walk through it, and you don't have to wait 10 years for something or wait for people to greenlight you or approve of you or validate you or give you permission."Lynch learned firsthand that nontraditional methods of telling jokes could reach larger audiences. After realizing that her Comedy Attic performance would be her final show, she released the set as her second album, "Vertically Obese," five months into the pandemic. Without any touring on the horizon, she began playing around on TikTok and went viral for a <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@carmencomedian/video/6882397330033757446?source=h5_m&amp;sender_device=pc&amp;sender_web_id=6893174453946697222&amp;is_from_webapp=v2om_webapp=v2">sex joke</a>, the first of many popular videos.In <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@carmencomedian/video/6895916848047492357?lang=en">one of the videos</a>, she tells an anecdote about her 50-year-old boyfriend. Lynch had <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NKpAY2X2OdM">performed the same joke</a> on "The Tonight Show With Jimmy Fallon" in January 2020, as <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/09/arts/television/tiktok-carmen-lynch.html">The New York Times' Jason Zinoman said</a>, and honed the bit during her Comedy Attic set."The other day he said, 'Please live with me,' and I said, 'Please live!'" she says in the TikTok video. The video reached 1 million users, an audience exponentially larger than the ones at 30 Rockefeller Plaza and the corner of 4th Street and Walnut Street in Bloomington.Lynch hopes to turn those likes and followers - she now has 31,200 - into ticket sales and to fill up more of the red-and-black stackable chairs."But most people on TikTok are probably not old enough to leave the house without their parents, so I don't think that's going to happen," she deadpanned.This story is part of <a href="https://www.insider.com/hollywood-is-dying-pandemic-2021-1">Insider's State of Hollywood</a> digital series, which details how the $100 billion <keyword id="4578" type="COMPANY" weightage="100" keywordseo="entertainment">entertainment</keyword> industry shifted in 2020. <a href="https://www.insider.com/hollywood-is-dying-pandemic-2021-1">Click here to read more.</a><ul class="read-more-links"><li>Read more:</li><li><a href="https://www.insider.com/how-famous-comedians-got-started-comics-stand-up-comedy">How 16 famous stand-up comedians successfully broke into comedy</a></li><li><a href="https://www.insider.com/the-best-comedies-from-2010-to-2020">50 must-see comedies from the 2010s, according to critics</a></li><li><a href="https://www.insider.com/pete-davidson-stand-up-pandemic-experience-performance-interview-2020-12">Pete Davidson says his stand-up performance during the pandemic felt like his 'first time on stage ever'</a></li></ul>

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