Page to Stage: Funny Lady ‘Socializes’ Her Way to Fame

Open mics may be the standard path to comic cred, but Rebecca O’Neal’s no standard standup. Back in 2011, The Huffington Post ranked her No. 10 on its 18 Funny Women You Should Be Following on Twitter list—a full year before she ever set foot onstage. “I was still a comedy journalist, editing Splitsider’s humor section. But I had a lot of humorous comments I wanted to put out myself and the quickest way to do that was through Twitter,” she tells Black Girl Nerds host Jamie Broadnax. “Soon, high-profile writers like from Conan and The Daily Show were following me and re-tweeting my jokes.  Then one day I noticed I had like 400 extra followers, and I found out it was from The Huffington Post list, where they put my alongside people like Mindy Kaling, who writes for The Onion. Then I realized I had to be extra funny, because all these eyes are watching.”