From Vine to Dropout: How Demi Adejuyigbe has shaped their career

I'm a little annoyed, frankly, at how talented you are because it's like not only are you a writer and a performer and a musician

Like, you also bake. Yeah. Dude, what? Well, to me, it's all the same stuff

It's just sort of like ingredients. It's instructions, I feel. I talk a lot about this because I also line dance a lot

And it is the same thing where it's like you just know the moves. I see. And there's a difference

It's like baking versus cooking where some of you are like, I'm a dancer. I can, like, partner dance

I can't do that because it's very, like, it's too improvised. It's too much of, like, well, you just have to read someone else's body and, like, do this and, like, know the next thing

And I'm like, but with line dancing, it's I know the moves. With music, it's I know the chords. I know what I'm playing

With a lot of stuff, it is just writing and the formula and understanding the steps and getting to play it off in a way where it is just, like, I've learned it well enough to just sort of be free with it

Yeah. And I think a lot of people find it stressful because they haven't gotten to that step. And I'm like, yeah, but at a certain point you do

At a certain point you have a recipe that you know very well and you can just freestyle it

Yeah, I'm going to test this. I'm going to test this out personally. I can cook. Yeah

I can't bake. I think it's art versus science. It's people who are like, I wanted the steps versus like, I just want to sort of play with the ingredients

Right. Because I'm not following the recipe. I'm looking generally at the ingredients list and then

And a lot of people are really good at that. I think I'm always just sort of like, if I can taste it, it's a little too salty

It wouldn't have been that way if I followed a recipe. or like being like I'm fine to do that for other people

but when it is for me, I'm just sort of like I'd rather just not cook at all. I know how to poach an egg, which did take me a solid year

Yeah? Like before I could do it consistently. Is that the one where you are like putting it in

Like swirl, tornado, it's a whole thing. I don't make eggs because I don't really eat eggs

except for when it's like an ingredient like a baked good or anything. So every time it's like I'll date someone and they'll be like

yeah, I want scrambled eggs. I'm like, okay, let me remember how to do anything with eggs

And I do feel like insane, because I think that's one of the things that a lot of people are like, I know eggs and nothing else

Yeah. So. Yeah. Yeah, I'm in a, I'm in a, the tragedy of my marriage is that I, I'm an egg person and he's not

Yeah. So they always go bad because I don't eat it. I don't eat enough eggs to merit a carton

That's, that's why I'm like, oh, it's nice to, it's like someone can be an egg person

The other person can be a baker. It's like, I'll use four eggs in one day. I gotta get him baking

There you go. This is really just you fixing me, is how this..

Most of my conversations are convincing people to dance and to bake. It's just like, how do I make the cult larger

Here's the thing, because you're a comedian, and I feel like you can just do your thing, and you don't have to worry about how to describe it

but because I'm a critic, sometimes we have to sit down, and I feel like describing comedy is one of the hardest things

Oh, I have trouble with it, too. People are just like, oh, what's your special? Like, it's a stand-up, and I'm like, no

But then I'm like, I don't really know how to describe it. I describe the special as like a one-man variety show

or like a TED Talk kind of thing, but with like multimedia and like there's music

and it truly feels like a circus, but it's just me. But sometimes I also am like, it's Evel Knievel

It's like I promise a big stunt and you know it's going to be at the end, so it's just like, well, what's the lead up to that? Yeah

Sort of distractions. But I also, I have a hard time describing it often

because I think so much is based in surprise and me just going like, I don't want you to know what it is

I want you to be like, huh? How do I, what is this? And so, yeah, it's very wishy-washy

Well it also interesting because your comedy has come in so many different forms It like you started on Vine Yeah Yeah I was doing a lot of videos with friends while I was like either in college or just at home in high school

And I think it's, you know, you have a platform that limits you in some ways

and you sort of realize what you like, and then you try and use the platform to use that

and like make surprise out of it or do something that's interesting to you

And I think it's hard to play with just those limitations. So a lot of times I think of things and then it was like, oh, I thought of something that doesn't really work on Vine

It might work on Twitter. I thought of something that doesn't work on either of these places. I just try and figure out different modes for it, which I think is how I got into a wider range in comedy

I think it's how I got into music. I would just be like, oh, I have an idea for a song. I was like, I don't know how to play the song

All right, well, let's figure out how to play this song. So you've done a bunch of dropout stuff

Yes. And I love seeing you in all the different kind of incarnations that dropout allows for performers

but like you and Anna together that always just like hits me

in such a sweet spot we work very well together and I love her so much

I feel like we get to improvise a lot just outside of dropout too and it's always the most fun

we did a festival in Ann Arbor which is her hometown and it was just getting to be nuts

with a few more of our friends and I feel like we work together very well and I'm always like

whenever it's like oh is there someone you want to play with and sing I'm like Anna would be great

I think we are in, like, three different episodes of Game Changer this season together

and in each of them it's like we eventually sort of, like, end up together and we're just, like, goofing off and it feels like we get distracted

They cut it down a lot, but it's really nice. Well, like, yeah, getting her with the boop is very funny

I've seen that a lot in my timeline. Really fun. In Roulette 2, you had to come up with all those celebrity names

Were there any that you pulled that you were surprised you had in your pocket? Sirhan Sirhan came to me very quick, and I was like

that's the guy that killed Robert F. Kennedy. but I also, I'm writing a movie

in which there's a joke about Sirhan Sirhan that I don't know if I cut it or not

but I was like, this isn't, it's like it's a joke that doesn't play for anyone

aside from someone's like, I'm gonna look that up but I had that in my head and then it was just like

me going, alright, let's go old, and then I was like someone, I think they were talking about

the transatlantic accent, and I was like Rosalind Russell, Cary Grant I was like, I'm gonna get stuck just in

in the 50s if I'm just doing this but it was just a fun thing of being like, where do I go

Who do I pull? yeah and more recently Count the Rice which you were so close

I feel like we could see your pain you could see my pain but what you can't it's like at a certain point

like when I knew I was gonna lose I was all I could think was this is good television though

like and I think I'm playing up just like damn I am because I'm like it's good television

to be upset but I was just like if I lose genuinely that's the best

like best thing to watch like that's the most cinematic it's the most

oh holy shit he deserved an ending I'm like good that's so much better than if I had just

gotten it I mean, it makes sense. Brennan's talked a bit about that because we've interviewed him

And like specifically, he's described himself as the Daffy Duck to Sam's Bugs Bunny

I think the me I play in Game Changer is most often the Daffy Duck to Sam Rice's Bugs Bunny

You got to wake up pretty early in the morning to go, oh, here's a range extender for your love, Brennan

Yes. And so no one hungers for a Brennan victory on that show. Yeah

He's also, he's Elmer Fudd. Like he's trying to He's trying to take out Sam And it's just sort of like

Gets waylaid But when Sam dresses up Like a woman But That episode's not out yet

But look for it It's coming Yeah They give Brennan a gun And he going after Sam He wearing a long curly blonde wig Unfortunately it duck season so he can And the other thing I enjoy so much about Dropout is one it fun to be able to watch you guys go from one show to another

but also your comedy special in particular, which I said to Vic when they came the first time

was there's all this zany, lunacy stuff that's funny and silly and kind of cerebral

but then the way the show ends without giving it away I don't I don't necessarily want to do that

for those who haven't seen yet and if you haven't get on that um but there it becomes something

deeper and something more about kind of like what we choose to bring to our work and what we choose

to keep for us yeah can you talk to a little bit about what it was coming up with that end totally

uh the show developed in a very roundabout way because it's like essentially a compilation of

bits that I had done uh at different shows whether it's like I got us to do like a powerpoint show

and came up with something for that. Or like, I used to host a monthly show with my friends Nick Kocher and Addie Wyrich

where every month it would be like, okay, I come up with a new bit to do

in between these other performers. And so I'd come up with bits for that. And then eventually I was like, I'm just going to do a show

that I just am compiling all those bits into one thing. And I did it one time, and it was fun

And then I added the backflip to it because I was like, I think that's funny

and I was like, people would ask me if I'm going to do it. I was like, actually, yeah, I'm going to. I'll just figure it out, but I'm going to

And then my friends, Nick and Brian, asked me to do the show again

and they directed it for Edinburgh in which they were like, I think you need an emotional thing to the end of this

And I truly just like, I got very lucky that something happened that allowed me to come to the natural conclusion

of like talking about performing and making it a very meta thing of like, well, why are you doing this show

And it's been, because I was asked to and because I liked the attention and just sort of feeling very like

all right let's uh let's work backwards and figure out how to make a theme out of that um

and uh yeah I just got very lucky that um it felt natural to the sort of like joke that we came up

with of me trying to impress someone by doing the show because in a way I feel like a lot of

a lot of performers get into performing and comedy as a way of just being like well I want to be seen

as impressive and so I think doing that show made it feel like I get to do that but also get to talk

about the fact that it's like ultimately that is what I'm doing here and you shouldn't fall for it

But my new show is similar in theme, but it's also just more about the idea of performing as a way of like selling out

Yeah. As a way of being like, well, I've come up with all these bits and all these songs and whatnot as a way to just sort of be like

at the end of this, I want to be seen as a success. I want to rise above being a performer who does it just to travel and be someone who's like

I'm doing this to make money and I'm talented and I deserve to pay it off for it

But I think it's very easy to backtrack into getting to talk about comedy and performing when it's like I have all the bits

I just need a through line for them because the easiest through line is just being like, let's tell the audience what they already know of like, why would someone do this

And it's like, well, the reason there's so many reasons why we all get into it

But it's never like the idea of like, I just love I just love laughter so much

It's like, well, no, there's something inside me that I'm trying to fix. So we talked a little bit about like your love of movies

Is there like a dream project whether it like working with a director or being a part of an adaptation or working with a particular actor that like that you like to shoot for I mean I have dream projects where I just sort of like there things I writing that i hope to direct that i like oh i love to get this person in it um but there so many

of those uh in terms of like directors i'd love to work i mean my favorite directors are uh the

coen brothers and i've written things i'm just like this is just me trying to do the coen brothers

uh but if they were like we need like a small role of like a cashier who like gets held up

somewhere i'm like okay i'll do it i'd stand in the background of anything they do i love them so

much um and boots riley another person where i'm just like you please put me in anything i know we

both love dilute but love boosters thanks to letterbox yeah i i've been trying to get my

partner to watch it for a while it was like when it was in theaters i saw it and i was like you'd

love this a lot of practical stuff you were in the movies you really enjoy this and it just didn't

happen now it's like coming to dvd i'm like hey i'm gonna buy the blu-ray we can watch this you're

I love this, but in terms of people where it's like, I'd write a thing and just love

them to be in it, I am working on a rom-com right now that has a role that in my head

I'm like, when I wrote it, I'm imagining Frances McDormand. And it's not one of the romantic leads, but it's like this third character that's like

a very brash sort of... Every time I talk about it, I'm like, don't say asshole, but just sort of a brash, older

like wise and I'm like that to me I'm like I'm imagining

Frances McDormand I'm imagining Allison Janney in I, Tonya I'm imagining like oh

if Viola Davis ever wanted to do a really good comedic role someone against

type that but I'm like there are people that I'm like yeah I'd kill to work with them

it's not gonna happen the first time around but I'm just like that's the dream

but there's so many so many people like that I literally have

like a notes app on my phone whenever I write something I'm just like

and these are the people who I think I imagine when I write this. But yeah

You're also a real cinephile because I'm a Letterboxd person. I'm kind of deep

And you write a lot of reviews on Letterboxd. I've been on Letterboxd for I think 14 years now

And I think people don't realize it's been around for that long. But I found it in college and I was just like

I need a way to remember movies. I don't read books. I can't use Goodreads

But yeah, I really like it. I think I've also just made it a place where it's silly for people to fight with me now

because I'm not writing anything that's worth fighting about. Yeah. Didn't always used to be the case

Well, it's also, I like, one, you are public-facing, which I know a lot of, I've talked to some people who are like

yeah, but mine's private, no one knows where I am, which I get. Yeah. But two, I think you write really good reviews, actually

Thank you. Like, you're not just doing jokes. Sometimes I am, but even though I like to write

Sometimes, but they're genuinely very lovely, thoughtful reviews. Thank you. Yeah. I think it is, again, because I started when it was like I wasn't that public-facing

and it didn't feel like I'm going to change my name or adopt it over. just like okay well I'm just accepting it

and I do like writing reviews because I truly like sometimes getting to watch a movie and being like I want to

remember what I thought of this it's not as simple as like I gave it three and a half

stars and that doesn't mean enough I want to be like this is shot very well

but I'm so confused by this choice or I want to talk about like why did this

actor do this thing like does anyone have any understanding of this but I also just it motivates me to

watch more movies also which is very nice and it's nice to see what my friends are watching and yeah

it feels like the nicest social network to me because it's completely enclosed

I'm not having to randomly see reviews or things that people have written that's like I don't know them

if you don't know anyone you can very easily see or avoid seeing what they said