The dick pic in the comedy group chat

Is everything fair game in the business of being funny?

A bit over a week ago, at around one in the morning, phones belonging to around 200 comedians received a notification.

They were all members of a group chat, setup to notify people when spots were available at one of the Melbourne Comedy Festival’s open mic rooms. The gigs weren’t paid, but when you’re trying to break into comedy, or get people to see your show, you’ll take any opportunity to get jokes in front of an audience.

It had been busy there at one point, but the messages had slowed down as the festival had drawn to a close. Even at its peak, the conversation had largely been bland and logistical. A bit of banter, sure. But nothing much more controversial than your average office chat.

On this fateful night, the conversation had been revived after someone suggested an informal afterparty at Luna Park.

“That actually sounds like a sick idea,” one man wrote. “But check this though.”

He then sent a photo.

Imagine everyone’s surprise, when they opened their phones, looked at their message, and saw a picture of someone’s dick, pissing against a wall.

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I hardly have the scoop when I say that the Australian comedy scene often skirts with controversy. Many would say that’s the point. But there is a difference, of course, between edgy jokes and overt harassment. Over a year ago The Guardian’s Steph Harmon wrote about Australian comedy’s impending ‘me too’ moment. She asserted there were ‘open secrets’ in the industry many thought would soon come out.

But that cresting wave never crashed. There was no reckoning, and no names publicly came to light. Many people say that the comedy industry is still rife with bad players and bad behaviour. Nothing in this article amounts to the seriousness of the allegations made by Harmon in 2023. But in researching this story, I have heard several examples of offensive behaviour that swing between unprofessional and straight-up harassment.

This is a slippery issue, though. Categorising exactly where on this spectrum certain conduct falls is difficult in any industry. In comedy, it’s almost impossible.

Of all the arts, it’s comedy that most boldly toys with societal expectations, and works in areas that are uncomfortable or taboo. This is part of its power. “Jesters do oft prove prophets,” wrote Shakespeare. If there is a line (and some would argue there isn’t) it’s drawn in sand, not concrete, constantly shifting, and ever dependent on context. Some examples of poor behaviour are clearly more egregious than others.

Which brings us back to the group chat.

After posting the urinating photo, the same male comedian followed up with several laughing emojis.

“Just clownin,” he wrote.

Before anyone could respond, he followed up with another photo. This one featured a man with a towel draped over his erection, taken in a bathroom mirror.

“Nah but for real though”

To make matters worse, the photos he posted were not of his dick, They belonged to another comedian who had already left the group chat. Whether or not this man consented to be part of this prank, remains unclear. He either did not see, or chose not to respond to my message asking for clarification.

Several people on the group chat voiced their disgust.

“This behaviour is completely unacceptable,” wrote one man.

“Grow up and have some respect,” said another.

The administrators of the group booted the offending comedian out of the chat.

“So is the trip to Luna Park still on?” someone asked.

A few days later, comedian Freddie Arthur made an Instagram reel about the incident.

“Hello and welcome to today’s episode of who’s the worst man in Melbourne comedy,” she chirpily begins the video.

Freddie then recounts the story, giving the comedian the pseudonym of ‘Spew’.

“After Spew’s message, about eight people left the chat. Around half of them are male. So if you think this is just an issue the chicks are getting upset about, you’re wrong,” she says.

“Spew, if you see me around the scene, don’t come and talk to me. I have no interest in you. You’ve only got three jokes, none of them are funny, and I hope I never see you again, honestly.”

This video was the first time I’d heard of the dick pick incident, but the story had spread like a virus through the open mic scene by the time it ended up on my Instagram feed.

I got in touch with Freddie, and we had a chat on the phone. She reiterated that it wasn’t just women who were offended by this incident. Plenty of men reached out to her in the aftermath, expressing their disgust at this type of behaviour.

Of course this isn’t surprising. Who would welcome an unsolicited picture of some random bloke’s knob at one in the morning? It didn’t even arrive with a joke.

“Men have to be part of the solution,” Freddie says to me.

But not everyone agrees with how she’s chosen to deal with this incident.

“Freddie, please remove this,” one man wrote in the comments. “You’re not the judge, jury and executioner.”

But who is the judge, jury and executioner in Melbourne’s comedy scene? There are no professional bodies to go to with a complaint. No human resources. No standards committees. Comedians are a self-governing group of individuals in an industry that’s only sometimes paid. This is especially true in those early days where fresh talent hone their skills at open mic nights.

If you’re not even allowed to call out objectively bad behaviour, how will things ever get better?

Perhaps, that’s the point.

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Unfortunately the dick pic incident isn’t Freddie’s only brush with a poorly-behaved man on the comedy circuit. Her first bad experience happened when she was only around six months into comedy. Freddie attended a now-defunct open mic night, and was given one of the later spots.

“There ended up only being about six other people in the room. They were all men, and I didn't know anyone,” she said.

“And then the MC that was on the stage just points to me and says, ‘Well, don't worry about getting home safe tonight, love. You're too ugly to be raped’. It was really horrible.”

Freddie told this story to a few people after it happened. She was met with some sympathy, but nothing came from the incident. One person told her the MC in question had a problem with alcohol, and didn’t behave that way when he was sober.

In comedy, an industry rife with addiction problems and primarily run from pubs, this is often touted as a reasonable excuse.

But let’s just imagine, for a moment, that Jake from marketing made a similar comment to an intern while giving a presentation. Would anyone say: “Well, in his defence, he is an alcoholic. He was probably just drunk.”

In any other professional context this would be unacceptable.

But of course, part of the problem is that comedy only becomes a profession for a lucky few. To get to that point, you must first work for free in comedy rooms that operate out the back of pubs, tolerating drunken and loutish behaviour, not just from the audience, but also your peers.

For all that comedy is supposed to be subversive, plenty of effort seem towards keeping the laddish status quo. Several woman shared their experiences with me.

One spoke about doing a gig where a male comic said: ‘you’re lucky you’re still fuckable’. Others talked about being frozen out in green rooms, or having to take the stage after enduring set after set of deeply misogynistic or racist jokes.

Many women said they feel as though they’re already forced to start behind the mark whenever they do a gig.

“You have to double prove yourself,” one comic said. “You have to prove that you’re worth being there, and that you make good jokes.”

For a lot of people who don’t fit the straight, white, larrikin, bloke mould, it’s too much. They take breaks, or eventually just leave the circuit for good.

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But even if everything that is said on stage remains sacred, no matter how abhorrent, I’m sure we can at least agree that unsolicited dick pics to large group chats are bad. This should be a completely uncontroversial take, right?

Well, apparently not.

While some comedy rooms have said they won’t put ‘Spew’ on their lineups, at least one has publicly backed the comedian.

“In this house, Spew is a hero, end of story” they posted on their Instagram, riffing on a line from the Sopranos.

In another video, ‘Spew’ is greeted with applause by several male comedians as he sheepishly walks towards them, holding a beer.

It’s hard to say what, precisely, these men are standing up for. The right for their dick pics to be eagerly received in big group chats? This feels like an unlikely victory. But if this is what they really want, perhaps they should just create their own chat, where they can share and look at pictures of one another’s penises without fear of reproach.

Or perhaps their reaction was more nihilistic – a show of ironic appreciation for one man’s act of professional self-immolation. It’s hard to say.

Frankly, I find the dick pic in the group chat to be indefensible. Yes, there are the obvious reasons – the serious possibility he was not given permission to disseminate those photos for one, the fact posting them might amount to sexual harassment for another.

But that aside, my personal philosophy is that all comedy must abide by one golden rule. Before any debate takes place on whether a joke was worthy, or fair, or punching in the right direction, it must first be funny.

Perhaps more time spent trying to overcome this hurdle would save us all some grief.