Portlandia Stars Talk Twitter and the New Face of Comedy

Portlandia, IFC's little sketch show that could, has moved from quirky sleeper hit to beloved comedy darling and one of IFC's most-watched shows. Fred Armisen and Carrie Brownstein's loving, punchy, demolition of all things hipster and faux has struck a chord not just win Portland, Ore., where the show is based, but with a nation of people reared on organic foods, fiercely independent bookshops and smarter-than-thou know-it-alls.

The show's success isn't just about writing funny jokes and booking excellent cameos (including Aubrey Plaza, Jason Sudeikis, St. Vincent, Steve Buscemi, Kyle MacLachan and more). Portlandia strikes a fine balance of killing its targets with kindness. Every lampoon is both biting but delivered with just enough love that hipsters and their opponents can both watch the show hand-in-hand.

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Portlandia is also a hit on the Internet and the social web thanks to a flood of official clips posted on YouTube and the show's website. It's a show that understands the importance of the web even if its, you know, too cool to tweet about everything in its life. Mashable spoke with Brownstein (by phone) and Armisen (by email) about the show's recently launched second season and how the Internet is changing comedy.

Interview with Portlandia's Carrie Brownstein and Fred Armisen

Is it a relief to have the second season out to the public?

Carrie Brownstein: You start to wonder how people are goingto see it and how they perceive it, which you can never predict. So in some ways it’s a relief when it finally "exists," it has this validating property.

[It's like] you’re releasing one track every single week and you're just kind of waiting to see what song people like. In the first season we were creating in in a vacuum. There were no expectations. It was a trial by fire, throwing things at the wall and seeing what sticks. Going into the second season we knew what ideas worked.

What's hard is that there's the pressure is that expecations exist, not just your own but the audience’s and you don’t want to lose that messiness because, I think with comedy especially, when there’s a little clumsiness or when something's a little off kilter it makes it a little more interesting.

Fred Armisen: We had a better idea of what worked best. We knew what to avoid, shooting-wise. We had a little more time to write endings.

At some point do you think you'll run out of things to parody?

Brownstein: I think putting characters more at the center of it made me thing, "We have a few seasons left in us." You’re not just going around town looking at what we can make fun of you, you now, that’s a blog post, that’s a tweet.

I think the people that we portray are not targets, because that would be self-loathing. They’re characters that embody traits of [me and Fred]. I think if there’s anything there’s a greater fondness for them. It’s definitely more of a love letter

Armisen: We are like them. We don't change the way we talk very much when we do them.

Do you have a set goal for the show?

Brownstein: Of course my barometer for successs is that people watch it but it would certainly be flattering if this show could sort of catch the imagination of somebody, that they would sort of desire to share the world of Portlandia.

Why do you think this generation has so taken to improv as a form of comedy?

Brownstein: I think there’s something about improvisation that kind of matches the pace of our conversations that we have with our friends. I have this sort of analogy to it, it matches the pace of our online lives. Like Twitter, our commetns online, it has this sort of chaotic pace to it.

Has the Internet changed comedy for the better or for the worse?

Armisen: It's made it so much more accessible. I think it's a very exciting time for comedy. I am loving so much of what I'm seeing.

Brownstein: It seems like it’s changed the way everything is created at the sam time that it has this highly democratizing element to it. A big network can try to make something go viral but they’re up against some 2 year-old kid that got a crappy christmas gift. You can't force somebody to watch something. What appeals to people is kind of a mystery. People spend a lot of money to get people to watch something

Image courtesy of IFC and here.