“Parasocial” was not the word of the year according to the Oxford dictionary in 2021 (that honor went to “vax”), but it very well could have been that way. That year, a batch of people acted as if John Mulaney He was a close personal friend who had completely betrayed them. That particular group took up the comedian’s time in rehab for drug addiction and subsequent divorce from his ex-wife. Anna Maria Tendler (and his relationship with his now-wife Olivia Munn) personally in a way that only a fan who had completely bought into a constructed persona could.

That part of his life “feels very distant,” Mulaney said in a new GQ profile; After all, he is now happily married with two children. Still, he insists that the perceived image of parasocial fans (that of neat people) tall boy that could never hurt a fly (it was on the bench!), never really existed in the first place. “I tried really hard to tell everyone,” he explained. “What I said… is that I look harmless.”

In retrospect, the signs (both of his dissatisfaction in his first relationship and his previous substance dependence) were there. This writer doesn’t want to fall into the trap of reading his jokes too much in the other direction, but some parts that are there in the specials include the “Why the cow?”marriage segment The comeback boy and the quote from wonderful child about living on “cigarettes, alcohol, and Adderall” (and no water!) throughout college. We wouldn’t bring it up at all, except for the fact that he said that the person on stage sometimes feels like “the most to me.” Fans don’t need to treat Mulaney’s monologue as pure fiction; it was never sold that way; they just need to take into account the fact that the person presenting it is as complex and layered as anyone else. We’re just seeing a small part of their world.

In retrospect, one thing that might have helped would have been using a stage name, something Mulaney says he began to regret not doing a few years into his career. “I don’t like it when they say the same name I had when I was 10 years old. “I don’t always like to read that name out there,” he explained. “I wonder if it’s nice when you see ‘so-and-so sucks’ and you’re like, ‘That’s not me, really.’ I always wondered if that helped artists say, ‘I’m not Dean Martin.’ So get mad at that thing everything you want.’” It is not surprising that he and Chappell Roan-WHO does using a stage name for exactly the same reasons; seemed to get along well when both made in SNL the other weekend.