Indecent with Kiki Andersen: Where NFW Meets LMAO

 Have you started watching or listening to either a podcast, TV show, or musical artist and after that initial encounter, the show or performer instantly shoots to the top of your favorites list? 

That's only happened to me a few times. The latest occurrence is when I watched the first episode of The Last of Us on HBO. The show immediately shot to my top five and will stay there until season two begins, and I reassess.

I had the same reaction when I first listened to the Indecent podcast with Kiki Andersen. At the beginning of every episode, Andersen begins with, "This is Indecent, where we're peeling at the wallpaper of polite society, and where NSFW meets LMAO."

It's an excellent description of the show in summary form. Check out the show's artwork here. It is an uncannily accurate portrayal of the topics, tone, and sharp-minded core of the show. It's intelligence wrapped in humor engulfed by precociousness.

Here is the marketing scoop on the show:

 "Comedian Kiki Andersen finds the funny in the most uncomfortable corners of our culture. Sex. Politics. Religion. But in the digital age, what can and can’t be talked about at the dinner table has changed dramatically. Indecent is a podcast all about what’s off-limits and who sets the boundaries for today’s taboos."

 

 The podcast began in May 2023 and has already produced numerous noteworthy episodes. The July 19 episode with Viva Ruiz, who uses her artwork to fight for reproductive rights, was one of my favorites, especially the use of art to legitimize abortion as a vital part of healthcare.

In the search for conservative comedy on August 9th episode, Andersen offers a simple but brutally effective point about comedy: "Jokes are only funny when they have a semblance of truth to them. If they're completely false, there's no joke there."

Throughout her episodes, Andersen does intellectual battle with anti-woke comedians who claim that their careers are jeopardized by cancel culture, and "wokeness." Andersen does not inflexibly battle wokeness and cancel culture. Instead, she questions their core and their meaning. To her credit, Andersen recognizes an essential truth. You can't be against something if you have no idea what it actually is.

As a comedian, Andersen elevates over other comedians on podcasts because she doesn't try too hard to be funny. Unlike other podcast comedians whose diatribes sound more like a bad "Best Man Toast" at a wedding, Andersen allows her sharp humor to flow freely from the conversation. She's funny, sharp-witted, caustic at times, perceptive, and observant. Shepard and Rogan could learn quite a bit from Kiki Andersen.

I loved her October 13th episode about the Satan hysteria in the 80s and 90s. I had forgotten about this 30-year-old conspiracy theory from the religious Right on how Devil worship was corrupting the youth. According to these religious zealots, Pentagrams and Satanic rituals were more popular than Beanie Babies. Her guest, Chelsey Weber-Smith, used the recent tale of moral panic over the alleged spread of devil worship as a morality lesson for today, as we witness so many call out LGBTQ+ people, immigrants, and minorities as convenient scapegoats for the complex problems in our world.

 Andersen's road to this podcast is a definitely one less-traveled.
Before she was a comic, Kiki Andersen was an Emmy award-winning news reporter under her real name, Kelly Andersen, but after enough people confused her for Kellyanne Conway on Twitter (yes, really) she decided to change her name, her career and do something way less depressing.

"Now she uses everything she learned about how the world works to make people laugh."

Kiki Andersen lives in Los Angeles, where she does standup and sketch comedy seven nights a week. Since moving west, she has rapidly moved up the comedy ladder, performing regularly at the Laugh Factory and other clubs on the West Coast. 

Andersen was recently the featured act in a string of sold out shows for Nate Jackson. As a former member of the Supernova comedy productions team, Kiki Andersen has shared the stage with comedy’s biggest stars including Bill Burr, Whitney Cummings, Jim Jefferies, Nick Kroll, and others.

 Check out Indecent. It's comedy with a brain, insight with intellect, and perception without prejudice. Have a belief you cherish? Well, hold on tight because Andersen can shake up people without shaking them down.