In a game of word association on the topic “millennials,” you’d probably get about three turns in — skinny jeans, moustaches, moustache finger tattoos — before someone came up with “Ilana Glazer.”
The comedian has been a touchstone of generational culture for over a decade, defining a particular coming-of-age experience as a 20-something trying (and mostly failing) to make it in 2010s New York in the seminal series “Broad City.”
In the years since the show ended in 2019, Glazer has remained a mirror for a maturing cohort: having a child and getting married, navigating career evolutions — launching a successful podcast alongside acting and writing — and living through wild world events, as documented in the comedy standup special ‘The Planet Is Burning.’
Now on the cusp of 40, Glazer, who came out as non-binary a few years ago, is still a translator and transcriber of their generation’s experience, currently via their Ilana Glazer Live! tour that comes to Toronto’s Elgin & Winter Garden Theatres on Sept. 1.
“I talk a lot in my latest standup hour about being a middle-aged Millennial. I’m really feeling it — and I’m really feeling it with my audiences,” Glazer told the Star. “We are growing older together. We are feeling it in our lower backs, in our heels. I need heel support now!”
There’s no shame in being a Millennial for Glazer, by the way. “We’re really smart. I talk about us being the hottest generation of middle-aged people yet,” they say. “But we were probably the scariest-looking generation of 20-somethings ever. Our hair was spiky; we were metallic for some reason.”
Glazer chatted with the Star by phone from their home in upstate New York.
As Millennials, we were the butt of a lot of, ‘Ugh, the young people of today.’ But we’re not the young people anymore. Do you think we’re headed for a collective middle-age crisis?
“Millennials are self-aware, we are therapied — even just whatever mainstream discourse therapy that we have access to. I don’t think that we’re going to have a collective crisis. I think we’re going to be the most humble aging generation. My hope is that we support Gen Z and Gen Alpha as much as we can, to hand them a world that is safe and healthy. We’re not going to be denying our mortality the way that Baby Boomers are. That is why the leaders of the Baby Boom generation are trying to destroy the world, because they’re facing their death, and they can’t face it — so they’re trying to make us all die. We’re not going to do that.”
Is it easier to make jokes the worse the world gets?
We’ve seen the world turn upside down in the last 10 years, so laughing at it is just right there. There’s no peeling away the layers. Things are just so absurd, and it feels so good to be together and laugh at s—t.
(Comedian) Atsuko Okatsuka was on my podcast and she said that in her world travels, touring, the worse health care gets, the harder the laughs get. I find that to be true. Laughter is medicine. The genuine, present dangers of being an American certainly make our laughter hit harder. I don’t even think the world has gotten that much worse — it’s just been exposed. I’ve been in comedy for 20 years, and people have needed to laugh this badly the whole time. We just haven’t figured it out yet, how to get leaders in place where everybody’s basic needs are being taken care of.
By that logic, in Canada where we have universal health care, what are those crowds like?
I find Vancouver, Montreal and Toronto — where I’ve now played many times — to be such fun-loving people, open-hearted. Y’all are sweet. It’s such good crowds. I filmed my last special in Toronto, and I’ve just spent a lot of time in Toronto over the last couple years.
Where do you like to hang out in the city?
Toronto is the vintage capital of the world. You guys have the most incredible vintage I’ve ever seen. So I do vintage shopping (at Mine and Yours Consignment on Yorkville Ave.) and then I get a croissant at a place across the street. It’s the best croissant I’ve ever had in my life, including in Paris. (Glazer couldn’t remember the café’s name, but we think it’s Coco Espresso Bar.) That’s my favourite thing to do: Do a show, make sure I’ve secured a cheque and then go blow some of that money on your vintage. I got a green Celine jacket that was to die for, and a little red c—ty Prada backpack that I never would have thought that I could pull off. I also have to shout out the 1 Hotel. It was so gorgeous.
You were in Europe for the tour a couple weeks ago. Did they find different stuff funny?
I was shocked to find that we are a global society now. Everybody got every reference. I also had this stereotypical idea that Europeans were going to think they’re above me; in Paris they’re going to be too cool. No! Everybody right now is really yearning for connection, has a really big, open heart. My audiences are incredible, always filled with thinking, feeling people. I was touched to see how connected we all are. But the vibe… Paris is a lot softer and sweeter than I expected. Amsterdam is riding you, like, ‘I get that reference.’ They’re all the f—k over it, and very free with their laughter. The Irish are incredible. Barcelona is giggling low-key. Like, they think they’re cooler than this but girl, you know you’re a giggle puss.
When you’re onstage, how aware are you of the audience? What are you paying attention to out there?
I can see far the f—k back. If somebody is not vibing, it has become a practice to be like, ‘It’s OK. I have no idea what they’re dealing with. If they hate my set, that’s OK.’ They’re most likely not laughers in the same way, and it’s not the audience’s job to perform pleasure for me. I definitely find my favourite laughers across the audience — left, centre and right — so that I turn to everybody equally but I ground myself in the people that are like, ‘Girl, I get every syllable you’re saying.’
Have your audiences evolved?
I used to have much more women in the audiences. It’s half-and-half now. I’m finding with men, rather than being dragged to shows, I’m seeing hot dad dates happening. And it’s so weird. Like, dads are hot now? Moms are hot now? It’s really accessible.
You’re passionate about resisting AI. Why is that?
Right now, my biggest fear as a parent is AI in schools. As a private citizen, it really frightens me that it is being non-consensually forced on the global population so quickly. It doesn’t feel good. I’m no expert. I don’t know anything about the positives, I’ll tell you that much. I know a lot about the negatives.
As Millennials, we were kids in the dot-com boom. We saw everybody copying Steve Jobs in his black turtleneck and a headset. It’s been this whole story that we’ve sold about tech making our lives better — and we just know that it hasn’t. And AI is this once-in-a-lifetime transformation technology that’s being spoken about as though it’s a new toaster, and it’s not. There is not enough care being taken. It just feels totally reckless to me.
