Todd Dakotah Briscoe and Anna Drezen both studied theater in college before becoming involved in comedy at UCB. The two now perform sketch and standup comedy regularly around New York City and beyond. Over two and a half years ago, they launched a hilarious website called, How May We Hate You? which was released as a book this week. I recently had a chance to ask the two writers a few questions about the origin of their book debut, their collaborative writing process, class structures in the United States, why not everyone should be a blogger, and other lighthearted matters.
Cathy de la Cruz: When did the two of you know you had to start your website, How May We Hate You?
Todd Dakotah Briscoe: Anna and I started posting guest interactions on our personal pages a year or two before the Tumblr itself launched. The interactions we had with guests were just too bizarre and hilarious to keep to ourselves. These interactions were far more popular than anything else we posted. We could have launched our own separate blogs, but one random summer day, Anna and I decided to meet for a drink at some terrible bar near Union Square to discuss combining forces. I’m so glad we did, because it’s great having twice the stories and another person to help do all of the work.
Anna Drezen: I’m someone who has big ideas about what I could do, but has trouble acting on them. When Todd was also posting goofy hotel stuff online, it was a relief because we both had the same perspective and both had similar comedic aesthetics. I was super relieved when we did meet up because it meant this theoretical idea was actually going to happen. I did try to pitch him some ridiculous unachievable ideas out of self-sabotage, though. I somewhat remember actively trying to convince Todd on why we should also do a comic strip even though neither of us can draw. This all could have gone very differently. Todd is the Felix to my Oscar and makes sure shit gets done. I’m pretty sure I would have kept saying “I should start a blog” forever if Todd hadn’t gotten involved.
CD: How did the two of you start collaborating? How long has the collaboration been going?
TB: The blog was basically the two of us working as independent entities. We didn’t really start writing together until we had literary agents interested in turning it into a book. We also started hosting live versions of How May We Hate You? in Brooklyn.
AD: We started posting to the blog in October 2013 and have been working together on the book and live shows ever since. It was like being in an arranged marriage: being in such an important partnership with someone you don’t fully know yet. We had mutual friends and moved in the same comedy/theater/college circles, but were essentially strangers when we realized we’d be working together longterm.
CD: Are the two of you from New York? Has anyone ever accused the two of you of making fun of people who aren’t from New York? What do you say to that?
TB: I’m from Texas, and I really try not to make fun of people just because they’re not from New York. The amazing thing is terrible people come from all over the world! You won’t see any posts making fun of people for not knowing how the subway works. The subway still confuses me. We’re more likely to make fun of someone who doesn’t understand that a subway train is not also a boat. We’ve been accused of mining humor from people who didn’t speak English well (“Donkey Donalds?” = “Dunkin’ Donuts.”) We’re not making fun of them for being foreign at all. We’re making fun of the humor that’s naturally going to come from language barriers.
Do I speak German, Chinese, French, Japanese, or Tagalog? No! Anyone in the world is allowed to make fun of me when I accidentally scream, “I have poop for breakfast” instead of “that man stole my wallet.”
AD: I’m from Long Island, but was fully clueless when I moved to the city. I try very hard to be sensitive to being elitist and classist and coast-ist and shitty, so I police myself pretty closely for times where I might be giving people a hard time just because they’re having trouble navigating this one tiny insane corner of the world.
I think when I worked in hotels I was a much nastier, more bitter, tired, cranky person, and I was also younger, and my legs were swollen from standing all day, so there were definitely times where I was impatient and distant and even a little catty to people who were just confused by New York. But most of the time I reminded myself about how when I first moved to the city, I thought there was a subway stop on every corner and that it would take you anywhere. If I could be that dense, as someone who speaks the language and grew up an hour away and had been to the city before, I had no business talking down to someone who came to this huge city from a small town 6,000 miles away. That said, I’m aware that the general tone of the blog is somewhat mocking and sarcastic (it has hate in the name) so I fully understand if it bothers some people and can sympathize with why they feel that way.
CD: What I really like about the concept of How May We Hate You? is that there is this amazing acknowledgement of class and power and how people “expect” to be treated versus considering how an employee might appreciate being treated. Have the two of you ever acknowledged that you actually write about class and privilege and that’s really important stuff that people are often afraid to talk about? Was there ever a moment where you realized there was a deeper meaning behind the need to publish these moments beyond getting laughs? Have there ever been moments too painful or “real” to publish?
TB: I don’t think we sat down and said, “We’re doing this to talk about class structures in America!,” but it’s hard not to notice when you work in a hotel. It probably made itself present subconsciously, but I’m glad people can pick up on that.
I wrote a draft of a piece that never made it onto a blog about a VIP guest who once told me it was an “epic tragedy” that people didn’t remember his name when he checked in. The post was basically, “No, sir. Not being treated as the VIP you think you are is not an epic tragedy.” I then proceeded to list actual epic tragedies going on around the world. At the end of the day, I didn’t post it, because it just wasn’t funny. It just felt angry.
There are definitely some posts in our “drafts” folder that we won’t post because you can tell they were just written in a moment of hurt. They’re not funny.
AD: I fully feel the rage thing, too. I would get very frustrated with guests like that and had a hard time hiding my feelings. I was tired and cranky and had no money and couldn’t afford to travel, much less stay in a hotel, so even the most down-to-earth guests were on my radar as “people who are doing better than me.” Especially jerky business travelers. Also, people who live outside New York can have backyards and houses and marriages and kids and cars and stuff, so I would just see that in my mind’s eye while talking to them and get worked up. But I also grew up in the suburbs, and being broke after college is a rite of passage, so it’s not like I was down and out.
CD: You do a live show based on this blog. Can you talk about what that’s like?
TB: The live show varies. We’ll do readings from the blog or play games. We usually have guests, and then Anna will do stand-up and I’ll tell a story. It’s always centered around the hospitality industry. My favorite bit we ever did was have Michael Potts (Book of Mormon, The Wire, True Detective) read Yelp reviews of Times Square restaurants. We have this classically-trained actor with an incredible voice reading things like, “The Hooters in Times Square was very American.”
AD: They have the feel of a 70s variety show. Me and Todd host and banter and talk to the audience and play games with them and give out prizes, do readings, do our own sets, and have comedians, sketch groups, musicians, and other weirdos perform. They’re always a blast.
CD: From reading your blog, it seems like the concierge gets mansplained to a lot, though I can’t always tell the gender of the guests. Do you feel this is true or is there an equal amount of man and woman-splaining to concierges going on?
TB: Anna might have more experience being mansplained to, but I’d say 75% of the worst guests I dealt with were white men over the age 50.
AD: I feel so much revived trauma just thinking about how to answer this question. Men would tell me to my face I was wrong about something objective, like the subway or theater schedules or what time to get to JFK, despite the fact that it was their goddamn first day in a city they’d never been to before and I was a concierge. Like, the amount of confidence they have in their wrong selves, just because they’re male and I’m female, it made me completely insane. It still makes me mad just thinking about it. I don’t think men should exist anymore and that’s my official political opinion.
CD: Are the majority of posts written by the two of you? If so, what is your process? Did you jot down notes right away or try to write down the scenario as soon as you got done with your shift? How do you feel about keeping up the blog now that you’re no longer concierges?
TB: We probably wrote 97% of the posts. We’ve only posted a few submissions. For me, if it was a slow shift, I’d write down the interaction as quickly as I could, or at least I’d make a note. I’d usually keep it in drafts for a few weeks, then I’d come back and edit it to make the rhythm funnier. I wouldn’t make it up, but I’d cut out the fat to get to the funny parts. I still like keeping up the blog, but we had to go dormant for a few months to stockpile enough posts while we transitioned into different jobs.
AD: Yeah they’re pretty much all ours. We get a bunch of submissions but the majority of them aren’t super relatable for people who don’t work in hotels. They only seem ridiculous because we know the lingo.
CD: Have any of your guests ever found the blog? Has anyone ever gotten into any trouble because of these posts? You say that your employers were “okay with us being open about our own identities, as long as we don’t reveal who we work for.” That makes it seem like you had the best bosses ever. Would love to hear more about this.
TB: I had a guest once say, “You should check out this blog!” I just thanked him and said I would. If I may be honest, I think our bosses let us keep our jobs, because we were good. I think the reason co-workers and bosses were less angry at us than I thought they be, is that they secretly were happy that someone was saying the things they thought. They couldn’t do it, because they wanted long-term careers in hospitality. Anna and I always had an expiration date in mind, so we felt more liberated to speak our minds.
AD: I would not say we had the best bosses in the world, but they were 100% more supportive about this than they had to be, and we’re very grateful for that.
CD: You told the Daily Mail that you started the blog to “restore sanity” in your lives. Did you find sharing these moments therapeutic? Do you wish everyone who hated their jobs started a blog? Do you recommend it?
TB: I don’t recommend it to everyone! My friend works in HR at Apple and he says that after our blog took off, suddenly they had several similar Apple blogs pop up. Those people were quickly found out and there’s a reason you don’t see a lot of Apple employee blogs. If you’re in a job you love and want to continue pursuing, it may not be worth it.
Otherwise, that’s the beautiful thing about art. It helps express feelings. Maybe a blog isn’t the right idea for everyone, but if you’re in a job you hate, figure out how you can make it work for you.
AD: It definitely helped me, as I have an anger problem and a strong sense of justice. But I don’t think it’s for every profession. I saw one that was funny quotes from a speech language pathologist who works with kids. They kept all identities secret, but it still rubbed me the wrong way. I don’t know the particulars of what constitutes a HIPAA violation, but I just don’t think pediatric medical professionals should be openly posting the darnedest things kids say during therapy sessions.
CD: Can you tell us how the book is different from the website? When did the idea for a book come about?
TB: The book is drastically different from the website except in tone. We have probably 20 or so guest interactions, but the rest is games, photos, illustrations, stories, and short “bits” about the hospitality industry. It’s a bit like a travel guide or hotel guide in its layout.
In all honestly, we launched the blog in hopes of what could come next, such as a book or pilot deal, so it was something we quickly and actively pursued after the success of the blog.
AD: The major difference is you can use the book to kill a spider. Our blog will be of little use to you in that regard.
