Cole Escola is a writer and performer living in New York City. He created and starred in the sketch show Jeffery & Cole Casserole on the Logo network and can be seen performing live around New York as part of his comedy duo with Jeffery Self, in solo shows, and more, at places including Joe’s Pub and The Duplex. On Twitter, @ColeEscola’s posts include musings on New York City and pop culture as well as fictional facts and wordplay that shed light on other topics. I recently talked to Escola about three of his favorite tweets and the arguments for putting a joke in a tweet and for saving it for a live show.
Escola: I don’t have much to say about this tweet except that I have a lot of bad memories.
Is there a mood/place/time of day for you that lends itself the most to tweeting?
I tweet a lot from 2am-5am when I get scared about dying.
Do you ever write tweets as a way to draft or brainstorm for other projects?
Not particularly. The main subtext of my tweets I think is “HELP I’M ALONE!”
I’ve been interested in facts ever since Snapple and now I do a lot of my own research. One of the main reasons I love twitter is I’m able to share facts like this one about Jesus with the general idiot population who might otherwise not have access to this kind of information.
Can you remember your favorite thing that you’ve seen on Twitter?
I get a kick out of watching corporations tweet. They’re really pathetic. My favorite is when people respond with something crude or offensive. For example this gem from Quaker Oats.
Are there themes or formats that you especially like or don’t like to see in your feed?
I think celebrities retweeting compliments is criminal.
You never know what could come of something you put on the Internet. In 2008 my best friend and I made some YouTube videos and a year later we had our own sketch show on television called Jeffery & Cole Casserole. You just have to be careful what you put out there. Robin Thicke started out as a meme and now we’re stuck with him forever.
Have any of your tweets ever unintentionally inspired other projects, or if not do you think that’s possible/likely?
It hasn’t happened yet but if someone commissioned me to create a project based on tweets I think it would turn out really well. I would love to work on something like that. To create a one act show about sex and mortality based on the tweets of Hoda Kotb and @WheatThinsCA (that’s the twitter account of Wheat Thins Canada).
Can you remember any times where tweeting something has killed an idea that you could have developed further otherwise?
No. Sometimes when I’m about to tweet something I think is really funny I think “No! Don’t waste it on twitter! Save that for a show!” then I think “No! Tweet it! That way people will be entertained by your online presence and want to check out your show!” Then I tweet it and it doesn’t get a single RT and maybe only one or two fav’s and I go into shock for a few hours.
Jenny Nelson writes and lives in Brooklyn and works at Funny or Die.