SHANNON FIEDLER

TIKTOK'S FAVORITE COMEDIAN

SHANNON FIEDLER

By Adam Kluger

Why comedy?

I've always been a performer, I acted as a kid, I worked a little bit I was a figure skater for many years...I was a dancer I did a lot of theater in college so I always had this sort of performing element in who I was...there's never been a spotlight I didn't like. After college, I really started to gravitate toward writing and creating instead of just taking someone else's words and performing them. I started to want to write my own content and put my own thoughts into the world. I sort of stumbled onto stand-up and I was like "oh! this is perfect!" I've always loved to make people laugh

How have you been able to come up with so many characters?

Being able to mimic is a study in observation. Mimicry for comedy is finding the smallest element or the sort of unthought-of truth and blowing that up and making it larger than life. To me, that's where the comedy comes from by being able to say, for example, this New York City woman will have her eyes dart to her phone every three seconds because she wants to check that email, so how can I take that and make it larger than life to sort of shed light on these little idiosyncrasies that we all are picking up on but perhaps not quite so acutely as I am when I am going out and trying to watch people and do what makes them who they are. I may be biased but New Yorkers are the most interesting people in the world because they live in the most interesting place in the world. From a comedic standpoint, New Yorkers are always going to tell it to you like it is they are never going to sugarcoat things, they are going to be 100% themselves at all times.

Why is your New York City woman on a first date so hilarious?

In some ways, a first date is all about dilly-dallying, it's just small talk, it's just getting to know you, it's just talking in circles and for a New Yorker that's torture in some capacity because they're thinking I want to get to the point, are you a good person do I want to date you I don't know --Let's just get this over with!

Your characters are all so spot-on and laugh-out-loud funny you would make a terrific cast addition to Saturday Night Live. Is that a goal?

Well, of course! Doing comedy is something that I love, and that I hope will be a part of my life forever. Right now I do stand-up and TikTok. I see myself as a writer-performer.

Who are some of your most popular TikTok characters?

Everyone seems to love Manhattan woman, Chicago girl and Connecticut girl who might be one of the most over-the-top parodies.

Why TikTok?

I think TikTok is really about finding people with interesting talents or skills to share. What's so great is that everybody has an equal chance to go viral on TikTok.

www.shannonfiedler.com, @shannonfiedler13, tiktok.com/@shannonfiedler13