Originally from Toronto, Canada, comedian Ben Bankas now lives in the red state of Texas, where he can ply his trade as a self-described "anti-woke" jokester.
But lately the laughs have been at Bankas' desperate attempts to be edgy and relevant rather than any jokes he's written or for his crowd work.
Bankas' social media posts on X and TikTok of a recent gig in Toronto, Canada, also backfired, getting soundly mocked across social media including on at least four subReddits: TikTok Cringe, Sips Tea, The Mayor McCheese (for all things cheesy and lame), and Clever Comebacks (which featured some responses that skewered Bankas, not Bankas' comedy).
Bankas' post was described on r/clevercomebacks as:
"The video is a clip from a stand-up comedy show where the male comedian (Ben Bankas) is doing crowd work. He notices a young woman in the audience who is just sitting there quietly with a blank/unimpressed face and not laughing at his jokes."
"Instead of moving on, he starts mocking her facial expression, calling her out, making crude sexual jokes about her (including fantasizing about her getting gangbanged), and getting visibly more frustrated and agitated because she gives him zero reaction."
Bankas succeeded in going viral with his crowd work clip, but not for how great it was.
"Crowd work" is a form of stand-up comedy born of improvisational comics dealing with hecklers. It evolved into performers routinely engaging in direct, spontaneous conversation with the audience, creating jokes on the spot based on the audience members' responses, rather than relying solely on pre-written material.
Keegan Kelly of Cracked described the clip as "an angry man in ill-fitting clothes begging a woman to speak to him."
Kelly added:
"This isn't a comedian reacting to an unruly audience member and parrying their outbursts with perfect clap-backs – this is a desperate instigator hitting a hilariously unbothered target with every trick in the book, but ultimately failing to provoke that sweet, clickable outrage from her."
You can see Bankas' ill-advised TikTok and X posts here, captioned:
"Triggered girl at comedy show…"
TikTok Cringe featured Bankas' video with the caption:
"I thought comedians were supposed to be funny, not grifters. Why is he crashing out just because someone didn’t find his joke funny? She’s literally just sitting there not even a heckler and you made your whole show about her For a 'snowflake gotcha' moment?"
"this gotta be the [worst] crowd work ever"
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People felt someone was pretty clearly triggered, but decided it was the unfunny comedian, not the non-plussed audience member(s).
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Folks on TikTok got their digs in too.
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Bankas previously went viral for whining about "six sold-out shows" (all at one venue, a detail he failed to mention) getting canceled in Minnesota.
The club owner, a private business, valued his customers' opinions over a comedian almost no one had heard of who would only be in town for the weekend and whose whole act is just saying the most shocking things he can think of. Bankas cried victim and cited "free speech" across social media despite no First Amendment rights violation occurring.
For a member of the "f*ck your feelings" crowd, Bankas sure does seem to cry a lot.
Maybe he needs a trigger warning.
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