There are many talented, great comedians out there who I admire greatly. My favorite stand-up comedian right now is probably Stavros “Stav” Halkias. He’s becoming more and more well-known, and I got to see him live once before. I thought of him because he came up on my YouTube suggested feed and I think he’s just absolutely hilarious. In terms of crowd work, I think he’s basically the greatest of all time, even though he’s only 36 years old. I know that’s saying a lot, but I think it’s warranted.

Similar to Jim Hacking, the immigration lawyer I previously mentioned, Stav will accept phone calls in of people having crazy hilarious stories, and give them comedic “advise” and air the funniest ones, on the Stavvy’s World channel. Today, I got a YouTube notification of him talking about what to do if a friend joins ICE (spoiler alert: Stav is a fellow snowflake lib like me), and I admire his audacity to risk alienating his “manosphere” type followers in the interest of a thoughtful message decorated in comedy. See here: www.youtube.com/watch

Unlike some comedians, I never get the vibe of underlying dickishness to his humor. Stav can hang with anyone, and even went on Joe Rogan’s podcast one time, shared laughs, and smoked a cigar with him.

I definitely recommend watching one of his crowdwork compilation videos to get a sense of how he can on the spot, just engage anyone and make it funny. Here’s one example: www.youtube.com/watch to see if Stav is your vibe too!