Jerry Seinfeld has discussed doing comedy in a post-COVID world, as well as his belief that New Yorkers are resilient and will eventually be just fine once the pandemic is all over.
Speaking in a new interview for 60 Minutes, Seinfeld discussed his love for the city, along with his reasons for writing a New York Times op-ed defending the city after a comedy club owner penned an essay on LinkedIn claiming it was “dead forever” and would never recover from the COVID-19 pandemic.
“I am so madly in love with New York City,” Seinfeld said to 60 Minutes.“I didn’t know how to be and in New York, they’d say, ‘This is how you do, this is what to do. Here’s how to be. Be cranky and be loud and be funny and complain and suffer. And make fun of everything and everybody. That’s how you be.”
“When you were a kid, remember kicking over the anthill? That’s what just happened to us. They just kicked over the whole anthill,” he continued. “And what do the ants do? ‘All right. Hand me the next crumb. Let’s get back to work,'” he said of New Yorkers’ ability to bounce back.
“Seinfeld added that it was nothing personal to the essay’s author, adding: “He’s fine. I didn’t like that nobody was rebutting it. Then I realised, ‘Oh, I guess that’s my job.’ Somebody, a real New Yorker, has to answer this.”
“I don’t even know what LinkedIn is,” Seinfeld continued. “That’s who that guy is for the rest of his life. ‘Oh, look who’s here. The putz from LinkedIn.'”
“I just don’t want New Yorkism to die,” he continued. “I don’t want it to be replaced by deep concern and over-sentimentality. You can have those things, but be a little badass, too. We don’t care if things are tough. Everything is always tough. It’s tough to live here.”
