Cum Town was a comedy podcast that was hosted by New York City-based comedians Nick Mullen, Stavros Halkias, and Adam Friedland, and produced between 2016 and 2022. During its run, it was consistently one of the most popular podcasts on Patreon and concluded as one of the top 25 comedy podcasts on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. In July 2022, it was succeeded by Mullen and Friedland's spin-off podcast and interview show The Adam Friedland Show.[2][3][4]
History
In 2016, Cum Town was created by Mullen, the primary host and producer of the show.[5] Halkias was the first co-host; Friedland became a second co-host, starting as a frequent guest and first appearing in the show's second episode.
The podcast concluded in June 2022 after months of the hosts suggesting its end as well as their renewed interest in stand-up comedy, particularly Halkias, who released his debut comedy special that month. On June 25, 2022, Halkias announced that he was no longer part of Cum Town.[6] Subsequently, Mullen and Friedland revealed their plan for a spin-off podcast—The Adam Friedland Show—to be hosted by Friedland and produced by Mullen.
Many of the show's riffs come from crude puns and rhymes—for example, "Louis SeemsGay"[9] for Louis C.K.—and involved sexually explicit scenarios or ethnic and racial stereotypes.[2][3] Conversations generally centered on the hosts' personal lives, the news, the worlds of stand-up comedy and social media, and pop culture history.[1] Friedland often served as the butt of Mullen's and Halkias's jokes and insults.
Weekly free episodes of the show were available via Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and Audible, among other services.[12][13][14] Subscribers who contributed at least $5 per month via Patreon gain access to additional weekly premium bonus episodes.[15] During the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic, the show was conducted via Zoom; episodes were broadcast live via YouTube.
As of June 2022, Cum Town was the 10th-most popular podcast on Patreon and the 12th-most popular creator on the platform overall; with more than 20,000 paying members, it had around $100,000 in monthly earnings.[16] It was the number one podcast on the platform for most of 2017 and 2018.[16] On Apple Podcasts, it was the 17th-most popular comedy podcast in the U.S. and 126th overall.[17]
A nationally touring stand-up, Mullen earned recognition in the early 2010s;[21][22][23] he was a two-time finalist for the Funniest Person in Austin contest (2010 and 2011),[21][24][22][25] was selected as part of Montreal's Just for Laughs festival New Faces program in 2012,[24][26] and was a finalist for New York's Funniest Stand-Up at the 2015 New York Comedy Festival.[27][28] After a break, he resumed performing in 2022.
Stavros Halkias (born February 11, 1989)[29] is a stand-up comedian and podcaster.[30] Active since the early 2010s, he is based in New York City and tours nationally. He released his debut comedy specialLive At The Lodge Room in June 2022, and left the podcast later that month.
Born to South African Lithuanian-Jewish immigrant parents, he primarily grew up in Las Vegas. Friedland got his start in the Washington, D.C. comedy scene by running and hosting comedy shows at the DIY venue Subterranean A; he gained local notability in the local comedy scene for his "alternative" performance piece-oriented comedy.[40][41][42][43][44][45] He performed at the Bentzen Ball in 2013 and 2014 and was named to the annual "Best of D.C." list by the Washington City Paper.[46][39][47][38] He moved to New York City in 2014.[48][37] Outside of Cum Town, he is best known as the host of the live alternative comedy show Funny Moms; the show began in Washington in 2012 with co-host Sara Starmour and moved to Brooklyn in 2015.[49][39][48]
Reception
Dirtbag left association
Cum Town was often associated with the dirtbag left, though it is not expressly political.[50][51][52] A February 2020 New York Times article described Cum Town (by allusion, citing its "unprintable name") as "bards of the new American left", alongside podcasts Chapo Trap House and Red Scare.[53] Several Chapo hosts, including Amber A'Lee Frost, Will Menaker, and Felix Biederman have appeared on Cum Town; Mullen, Halkias, and Friedland have made multiple appearances on Chapo.
Though the hosts occasionally discuss their responses to current events and politics—with all three expressing support for 2020 presidential candidate Bernie Sanders—they deny any specific political agenda. In May 2017, Friedland tweeted, "Cum town is not a socialist podcast it's not a fascist podcast it's a podcast about being gay with your dad."[54]
In July 2021, the hosts disagreed with Andrew Marantz's characterization of the podcast as a "flagship product of the dirtbag left" in a New Yorker article.[55][56] Halkias instead suggested that its motivating force was not political but financial. The hosts initially believed the podcast would be unsuccessful, "and people are stupid enough to give us money, and we are trapped doing [the podcast]".[55]
Criticism
In association with their dirtbag left peers, the podcast and its hosts have been criticized for their use of ironic offensiveness.[2][3][50] Critical bloggers have argued that the hosts' use of slurs and edgy jokes, particularly Mullen's, perpetuates harassment and continually crosses the line into actual hatred and contempt.[57] Others have countered that offensiveness is subjective.[58] In 2018, the co-hosts jokingly compared the treatment of their podcast to Milo Yiannopoulos and Carl Benjamin, who both got their Patreon accounts suspended for similar jokes. Mullen jokingly noted, "we're the good guys...we're on the right side of history."[59]
Some online commentators have made a distinction between the podcast and their listeners, critiquing the show's fan base as opposed to the hosts, or critiquing both in tandem.[52] In 2020, the podcast's subreddit (which was not moderated or endorsed by the hosts) was removed from Reddit due to the platform's new policies on hate speech.[60]
^Lindsay, Kate (May 27, 2023). "My Boyfriend and I Are Closer Than Ever, Thanks to the Taylor Swift-Matty Healy Drama". GQ. Retrieved May 31, 2023. The niche comedians behind that podcast are now indirectly responsible for the soft cancellation of one of the music industry's biggest artists. The Adam Friedland Show, known in an earlier iteration as Cum Town, featured Matty Healy as a guest on February 9.
^ ab"Nick Mullen". The Stand Restaurant & Comedy Club. Retrieved June 16, 2020.
^Ari Shaffir's Skeptic Tank (April 26, 2015). #216: Tenement (Nick Mullen) (podcast). Apple Podcasts. Event occurs at around 1:30:00. It'll be ten years in October [2015] that I'll be doing comedy
^Halkias, Stavros. "A Tragic Mistake at One of Baltimore's Best High Schools". Marc Steiner and the Center for Emerging Media. Archived from the original on August 10, 2020. Retrieved July 10, 2021. CEM intern Stavros Halkias is an alumnus of Baltimore Polytechnic Institute... Halkias, Sondheim Public Affairs Scholar at UMBC & CEM Intern
^The Digression Sessions (January 2013). Ep. 62 – Stavros Halkias! (podcast). Spotify. Episode Description: ...And Mr. Halkias recently won Baltimore's New Comedian of the year for 2012 contest at Magooby's Joke House. Performing regularly in the Maryland, DC, and Virginia area, Stav is constantly on the grind, brah. He also produces and hosts monthly showcases at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County and co-hosts the Super Comedy show every third Friday at Dionysus in Mount Vernon, Baltimore.
^ abTolentino, Jia (May 29, 2023). "Who Is Matty Healy? For the front man of the 1975, fame is its own kind of performance". The New Yorker. Retrieved May 31, 2023. A month later, Healy went on a podcast called "The Adam Friedland Show." Friedland, whom Healy had befriended in the past couple of years, used to host the podcast "Cum Town," a title that reflects the "Borat"-esque level of seriousness that he and his co-hosts generally brought to the table. Friedland is part of a downtown New York scene referred to as Dimes Square, which, during the pandemic, became widely known for an ostensibly transgressive rejection of liberal pieties and a reactionary brand of post-left politics particularly associated with another podcast, "Red Scare."
^Bowles, Nellie (February 29, 2020). "The Pied Pipers of the Dirtbag Left Want to Lead Everyone to Bernie Sanders". The New York Times. Archived from the original on March 8, 2022. Retrieved June 16, 2020. The fivesome of "Chapo Trap House" are not the only bards of the new American left — there is "Red Scare" and another whose name cannot be printed — but they have led the way for a movement that together generates millions of dollars a year.
