Tonight, I went to see a test comedy performance by Hasan Minhaj, who I love and have seen live before in his one-man show Homecoming King, and of course, have also seen in The Daily Show. Chris couldn’t make it as he had a work trip that conflicted, and my friend who was supposed to come with me bailed on me right before the show because he was too tired to stay late enough. So it was just me sitting on my own amongst strangers.

It was actually really nice to be there on my own because I ended up having a decent conversation with an Indian-American guy who had traveled from LA for work. He works for Adult Swim, a film company, and was here this week for work. As someone who works in film and writes, he’s a huge fan of Hasan Minhaj and was on a mailing list that alerted him to this show. He looks at people like Hasan Minhaj, Aziz Ansari, and Russell Peters as inspirations. As the son of very traditional Indian parents, with his dad working and moving their family all over the country with his career in IT, he’s very well aware of how Asians are stereotyped and hopes to follow in these writer/comedians’ footsteps.

I’m excited to see a more colorful representation of talent now and in the future since it clearly was not something I grew up with. This guy at just 24 gives me hope, just like Hasan Minhaj and Ronny Chieng do.