Chris Hardwick is a comedian, journalist, radio DJ, television host, author, bowler and entrepreneur who’s podcast “Nerdist” as become a highly successful YouTube channel that garners nearly a million subscribers.
Now, Hardwick is hosting another television show, “@Midnight,” which tackles the irony and comedy of social networking. The show focuses on Hardwick the host and his three comedic guests who read tweets, watch videos and skewer Craigslist to tell jokes and laugh about the obscurity of the internet.
During a conference call interview, Hardwick helps those in need of help with time management, over coming procrastination. the process of his show, and the state of the Internet.
Hardwick is an extremely busy person. Along with being the host of “@Midnight” he is the host of “Talking Dead,” and his own podcast, “The Nerdist,” which is also a television show on the British Broadcast Company.
With the amount of work he has done Hardwick discussed his success with time management and fighting procrastination.
“Time management is pretty easy and cut and dry you just figure our how long you do each task. My calender looks like a Tetris board. It’s color coded work, press, personal and stand-up and you fit everything like blocks. Its modular and you just figure how to balance everything and get a natural sense of prioritizing,” Hardwick said.
One of the keys Hardwick discussed was the ability of policing yourself and making sure college students throw their energy in the write direction, while allowing a few hours to relax. “I think you need to schedule leisure time to make sure you don’t go crazy.
The hardest thing for any college student is to fight the urge to procrastinate, which Hardwick says is just ticking your brain. “You can ignore your brain and go ‘well I’m going to this work anyway even though its going to suck.’ And once you get the wheels turning and you get the momentum going you’ll start to get things done,” Hardwick said.
Unlike his previous show “Web Soup” that focused on Internet videos, “@Midnight,” focuses on stand-up comedy and social media.
“It’s not an internet video show. We show some videos, but we are basically pulling from any social media and social interaction place. That’s where the heart of the show is…” Hardwick said.
After a taking a year to develop a new show for Comedy Central, Hardwick was told that the show wasn’t picked up. Fortunately his friends Tom Lennon and Ben Garant were developing a similar show that Comedy Central was being green-lit.
“[Comedy Central] wanted me to come in as a creative executive and redevelop..and I said ‘yes of course.’ since then we started re-imagining to cover all of social media…” Hardwick said.
“It started [last] October for essentially a month long pilot, and we had to prove to comedy central that the show could work and the day of the last episode they picked us up for the rest of the year,” Hardwick said.
Hardwick has dedicated most of his professional career to the internet, with his YouTube channel, Podcast and television shows revolving around them, but its a polarizing place to be where negativity can fester over positivity.
“There is a lot down side to leading larger portion of our lives interfacing with a machine and not connecting with people and not having to take responsibility for the things that we say because we can comment anonymously.”
“On the other side we of the sum total of human knowledge at our finger tips. In a lot if way the internet as localized the world made it into a community and allowed us to see thing we wouldn’t normally seen and discover people we would have normally discover,” Hardwick said.
Hardwick is happy to be on the front line of the Internet, enduring criticisms on a daily basis. But this won’t stop Hardwick because he sees the Internet as a playground and material for his hilarious new show. “The pros out weigh the cons, even though the cons are serious. And [@Midnight] will be there to mop up after words and make stupid jokes about it.”
“@Midnight” is on Comedy Central Monday-Thursdays at Midnight.
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