Mean Gays Talk the Business of Being Mean (And Hilarious) on Their First Tour

@aarongoldyboy You almost saved our life 👀 @Jake Jonez ♬ original sound - Aaron Goldenberg

EDGE: How long have you been doing the Mean Gays?

Aaron: I think our first video came out in August of last year, and the fourth or fifth one is the one that really blew up. Jake and I have separately been doing content creation for a few years. We met last July and that's when we joined forces.

EDGE: Did you meet as fellow content creators?

Jake: Yeah, he slid in my DMs on Instagram. It's kind of a rare thing to find somebody specifically in Atlanta. I think LA and New York have tons of content creators, but making gay, original, comedic sketch content it was kind of a rarity to have somebody here. So when he reached out, I said let's go. We sort of started incorporating our ideas and the Mean Gays was probably the second or third one. We thought it was just going to be another idea.

Aaron: My intention reaching out to Jake was maybe we'll do one or two fun, cute videos. But we've grown to be collaborators. Even though the Mean Gays is the majority of what we're known for, we still help each other with camera work when we're not appearing in the videos. It's cool because I don't have anybody else in my immediate circle doing this full-time who is willing to help out and not always be on camera.

EDGE: Are you both actors?

Jake: To be honest with you, I would consider myself a comedic content creator first, now segueing into acting as we work and grow. My first ever acting gig was this year, and I just recently signed to an agency. I'm a baby when it comes to acting. I've never been in live performance before this year. I was just an internet personality who started to morph his content into more scripted things, whereas Aaron was the complete opposite.

Aaron: I started out as an actor. I've been doing it since I was a kid. The comedic online content came later. When my agents and managers pitch me now for different shows I want them to emphasize I'm trained, have a degree and a theater background. I am an online content creator, but I am an actor. You're not just going after an influencer that doesn't know what the hell they're doing on set.

@aarongoldyboy Oh not that kind of camp 🙃 @ashleyameswashburn @Jake Jonez ♬ original sound - Aaron Goldenberg

EDGE: What did you do before this, Jake?

Jake: I managed a restaurant for four years before quitting. Once my internet work started to build quite an audience there was a nice natural segue into diving in full-time. Before that I was an accountant. Before that I trained people on how to go live with medical records software in hospitals. It was a great job and I really liked it, but when it comes to email correspondence and being super professional, I have a disdain for it. It was the old me. It's not me today. Clearly, I was really meant to do this.

EDGE: How many followers do you have on social media?

Jake: On Instagram, I'm around 360,000, on TikTok, I'm around 600,000 and those are the primary platforms.

Aaron: Currently TikTok, I'm at 1.3 million. And Instagram, I'm at, I think, 340,000. Those are the main two that we get the most followers and opportunities with, but on Facebook I've got 70,000 something and on threads 50,000 something. It all adds up.

EDGE: You both have huge individual social media followings but you don't have a separate account for the Mean Gays. Why is that?

Jake: With the Mean Gays we post in a collaborative feature on Instagram, which means our post is together on both accounts. TikTok has a similar collab feature where we can post together on certain things, and I think we might start doing that soon.

Aaron: A following and algorithm and all that stuff doesn't happen overnight or even because the content is good. I know plenty of people who have stellar content, and they've got less than 20,000 followers. There's no guarantee that having one account where we post all the Mean Gays stuff would be a success. It also feels more natural to just keep the momentum going on the accounts we have.

Jake: It also would be a disservice to our versatility and our talent if we just pigeonhole one comedic concept into one page on its own. It wouldn't be strategically wise from a business perspective allowing an audience to see only one dimension of our work. If you like the Mean Gays there's a high probability that you would enjoy our other concepts and comedy. No one is one dimensional and these accounts that Aaron and I have separately are a living portfolio of what we've created.

@aarongoldyboy Replying to @Kat ✨brb grieving✨ #comedy #fyp #gay #pov @Jake Jonez ♬ original sound - Aaron Goldenberg

EDGE: Did you have any inspirations when you began?

Aaron: There are people I can point to who I really enjoyed watching prior to creating my own content full-time. Johnny Sibilly and Jimmy Fowlie were really big inspirations of mine, as well as Benny Drama (Benito Skinner). It was really inspiring watching their content at a time when I was still struggling to be public about my own sexuality. It was cool to see gay people be funny and have fun. Growing up in a Pentecostal church, the LGBT community was always so villainized. It was drilled into me that nobody gay is actually happy, they're all depressed, suicidal. Why would you want to accept that part of yourself? Seeing these people just having fun and being very gay was somewhat healing for me.

Jake: I would love to piggyback content creation inspirations, for sure Benny (Benito Skinner) and Brian Jordan Alvarez. They have been such trailblazers for me, seeing them create content online then segue into scripted material for larger platforms outside of social media.

Beyond that, and before the social media craze, women were my largest inspiration. Lisa Kudrow just blew my mind. I was gifted the recent ability to see "The Comeback" for the first time. Seeing its genius has been my current largest inspiration, even for a character I'm doing right now. I also don't think Cameron Diaz gets enough comedic credit as a golden light who brings comedy without having punchlines. I love seeing women in this comedic space.

Aaron: If we're going to before content creation, I will say Reese Witherspoon, "Legally Blonde" era, and Jim Carrey, two huge comedic influences when I was growing up.

EDGE: Do you draw from personal experience for the Mean Gays?

Jake: I think it started in locations and environments that felt really normal for real mean gays to be, like mean gays at the gym, mean gays pass you on a walk. And then people in our group started proposing new ideas like what if "the" Mean Gays went to your funeral or baby shower. Then we started writing for these new environments and we realized we can see these characters in any space, and that was kind of the magic to it. They can deal out shit to somebody who's literally dead or awake. One of the craziest ones we ever wrote was Mean Gays at the North Pole. We just pulled that one out of our ass and it kind of spoke to us. I think the one thing we've really landed on is passive aggressive speech seems to digest for such a large audience. So what's the most passive aggressive shit you can say in a given environment that displays that environment really well?

Aaron: Regardless of where we have the Mean Gays, one thing we've agreed upon is they're highly selfish individuals. So they're always trying to get something out of the person, even if it's just to get away from the person. They're first and foremost looking after themselves.

@aarongoldyboy Such a steal! @Jake Jonez ♬ original sound - Aaron Goldenberg

EDGE: Tell me what to expect at the live show.

Jake: We've been telling people that it's a variety sketch comedy show. In Boston, our first show, we've loved the response, "I didn't know what to expect, but I didn't expect that." Without revealing too much, I think we're showing that we're somewhat of a jack of all trades. We're comedic writers in every sense, and we do crowd work and improv, the whole nine.

Aaron: People were surprised that we were able to be up on stage for 90 minutes and present an entertaining, well thought out show that had a good flow. We put a lot of hard work into it. Hopefully it portrays two creators that can do much more than generate 60 to 90 second online videos. We write longer sketches and create content that keeps people engaged for a longer period of time. In Boston it was very cool to have so many people saying they couldn't believe it was our first time doing the show for a live audience.

Jake: The reviews are in baby, and they're great! (Laughs) It was my first time ever performing live, period. I don't think I was ever expecting to receive so much unsolicited positive feedback.

Aaron: It's a fast-paced show that's a lot of fun. If you come to the show gay, you will leave gayer. If you come to the show straight, you might question some things about your life. I hope that everybody just has a blast.

EDGE: Are you in character the whole time?

Jake: There's moments in the show where we are just ourselves, as well as playing other characters we've created outside of the Mean Gays. We have all these other concepts that are loved in a crossover way and it's really cool to bring on them on stage. It's what's beautiful about not just having one social media account for the Mean Gays.

Aaron: I would say the Mean Gays still get the majority of the show.

EDGE: Who's your audience?

Jake: I would say mostly humans, a little bit of AI, but we welcome all. I've been shocked at our demographic. There's a really good amount of gay men for sure, but there's also a lot of straight women who just crack the fuck up because, I think, a lot of them have met these mean, passive aggressive gays and they resonate with them. I don't think I've seen a straight man yet.

Aaron: In Boston there were a couple of straight guys that were there with their wives. I met a couple where the husband recognized me and the wife didn't. She said, "he loves your stuff." I hope that means we're getting to a place where straight men appreciate things that are funny and aren't afraid to have other people emasculate them for enjoying gay characters and gay content. If it's funny and if it's solid content why not laugh and share it?

@aarongoldyboy Our show will be better 😎 @Jake Jonez ♬ original sound - Aaron Goldenberg

EDGE: What's up next for the Mean Gays?

Aaron: We're in talks to extend the tour, most likely starting at the end of the year or maybe early next year. We'll visit some spots on the West Coast as well as other places where we know that we have a following. We're just excited to do this first leg of the tour.

Jake: In the middle of tour I have my very first musical performance of my original music at the Atlanta Pride Festival. I'm very excited about it. There's a lot of pressure because the park really fills with people that aren't showing up for me but showing up for the other people who I just happen to be sandwiched in between. I'll also be debuting in my first television series as a cute little co-star in the finale episode of Brian Jordan Alvarez's new comedic series on FX called "English Teacher."

Aaron: I just had an appearance in the show "Bad Monkey" on Apple TV+ and there are episodes still coming out. The show is doing well and has great reviews. I have not gotten word back yet from this other production about talking about it, so I'm just going to be safe and say you will see me in multiple episodes of a new TV series very soon. I'm also in a couple of Christmas movies this year, one family friendly film called "Festival of Trees" and one horror film called "We're So Dead."

EDGE: If you could go back to yourself as a little gay kid struggling to figure things out, what would you say to him?

Aaron: I would really want to let him know that first of all, you are correct. Your feelings are right. You are gay, and no amount of gaslighting and conversion therapy and all the shit that happened in the years later is going to change that. So accept it. It's not something that is broken about you. It's something that adds to your beauty and your uniqueness.

You might be different and be interested in different things than other people. That is valid and okay. Once you got to a place in your late 20s where you finally start accepting yourself you will truly start feeling real joy and stop putting on a happy mask for people.

Jake: I very much agree with everything Aaron just said. I think when it comes to me speaking to my younger self, I'm so proud of the decisions I made when I was young, and I think the one thing I want to do is just affirm little boy Jake, your instinct spoke to you and you trusted it. Continue to do that beyond where you're at now. You followed your instinct when you needed to get past your own family and made some really hard decisions. And I'm really fucking proud of you, you fucking did it, baby. And it's because you had an intuition that I don't know if everybody does, you trusted it, you followed it. The older you get, sometimes the more removed you feel from your intuition, but stay with it as long as you can because there is a reason. Something inside told me to leave that accounting job, the medical field and the restaurant, and I have never been as happy in my life as I am right now.

Aaron: Something else came to me as Jake was speaking. At the beginning of my acting career, I tried so hard to just be straight on camera. It was fed to me from a young age that you have to be straight to have a career, or be the love interest, or whatever. I hope that me now being a person of gay representation in media shatters that belief for anybody else coming up. I remember telling my mom that the more I've actually given into my natural flamboyance and my true pitch of voice, the more work I'm booking because I'm bringing a genuine character to my audition. It was a really important revelation for me, just be you and the right opportunities will come along.

The Mean Gays have three dates remaining on their tour of City Winery venues: October 23 in Atlanta; October 25 in Nashville; and October 27 in Pittsburgh. For ticket information, follow this link.

And watch Jake Jonez in this video that has gone viral:

@jjakejonezz

craig is saur dangeroussss....

♬ original sound - Jake Jonez