For most stand-up comedians, their arena is a stadium. For Ted Pullin, it’s the kitchen table and the microphone on the end of a wooden spoon.
But despite his rather gruesome set-up, his quintessentially brutal British humor has gained popularity on TikTok, where he roasts profiles of people on dates – no limits.
The videos have a simple format: Ted takes a sip of whiskey or beer when screenshots of someone’s dating profile come up. He then brutally breaks them down in agonizing detail, commenting on facial expressions, postures, clothing choices, and bad conversation.
What makes Ted’s video different from other TikTok accounts is that it’s a consensual roast – a lot of people wash others without permission online, but not this guy.
So what’s the point of these videos?
“I want people to know it’s okay to laugh at themselves to try and let people know it’s for a comedic purpose,” Ted tells Metro.co.uk.
“The ability to laugh at yourself is an amazing thing, and when you have people around you who can do it, they will laugh with you.”
Ted’s most viewed roast reaches just under a million views on the platform, providing his followers with five minutes of wild entertainment where he takes apart a desired subject’s Hinge profile.
He diligently checks with the victim in question – then shoots a video and sends it to them for permission before releasing it. It’s 100% enthusiastic agreement from start to finish.
Here’s what happened when I submitted my profile to…
After a few glasses of wine with the man himself, but without any conviction, I sent my profile to Ted to harden him.
When asked which online character from my profile would actually show up on a date, he said, “Will it be the goddamn dog thief or will it be the melanin-intolerant Brit from overseas?”
Honestly, who knows?
I got called out for trying to change my celebrity popularity, but after hearing that it was made up of John Cena, Ted said, “If I was a nine-year-old boy, that would get me really excited.”
It’s also nice to know that when potential partners look at my profile, they see my “fucking sunglasses and deadpan expression” coupled with a family dog that “doesn’t look too happy to be there.”
The irony is not lost in the fact that Ted’s roast highlighted the literal roasting of my horribly pale complexion while on holiday in Crete.
“Fuck I put sunscreen on mate, I look a little blushed” – but alas, Ted, a gallon of SPF 50 couldn’t save this girl.
But what have I learned from this, you ask? Why did I force myself to go through this? Well, the answer is for no other reason than that I find it rather amusing.
Ted offers the same allure of American TikTok sensation and comedian Matt Rife – after all, they’re both known for being comfortable and brooding in front of the camera.
But what social media isn’t seeing is the origin of his deadpan humour, which may have to do with his late father, BAFTA winner Jim Pullin, who wrote comedy scripts for A League of Their Own and 8 Out of 10 Cats.
“There has always been a lot of comedy in our house,” Ted tells me. “Instead of sitting down and watching a movie with my dad, I sat down and watched a comedy when I was seven, which was probably highly inappropriate, but it’s always been my favorite thing to do.”
When he uploaded his first video last June in which he actually roasted himself, Ted said it “wowed a group of people who [he] no longer knew of existence, who were perfectly happy to have their urine taken out of them.”
“There was supposed to be this consent element, so I figured it would be a good idea to create my own profile to establish the kind of humor,” he says.
“It’s also ugly to make fun of other people without letting them know that you can also make fun of yourself.”
It certainly attracted the right audience, and now Ted gets between 100 and 200 profiles daily from those who want to roast in front of his nearly 70,000 TikTok followers and 131,000 Instagram followers.
This is a more interesting approach to rejection therapy – when you do something or ask for something, knowing that you will be refused, in order to stop being afraid of refusal as such?
Possibly, but if you feel like it’s a rejection method, then you might be missing the point a bit.
Unfortunately, this is exactly what a lot of people on social media do: Ted reported two of his videos and deleted them (although one was restored) – did we mention that each of them takes a full eight hours to create?
Ted says, “When I make these videos, I don’t do it to offend people or make fun of people at someone’s expense.
“The whole movement of people being offended by things that are not directed at them is interesting and counterintuitive because, by definition, you cannot be offended on behalf of someone else.
“And if I don’t say something about you, then without the intention of offending you, then the logic does not follow that someone may then be upset about this.
Ted’s humor doesn’t make fun of the things we can’t change about ourselves, and it’s far from the kind of tactless fried-me sub-reddits that insult people’s looks based on a single image of their face.
Instead, the witticisms are about how people choose to portray themselves online.
Ted says, “The reason dating apps are the perfect place to do this is because most people don’t think their friends will ever see that social media profile. And, obviously, this is done in order to attract a girl so that people are openly honest or almost vice versa.
“And I’ve found that I get the best response to my videos when I encourage them to do something that I think might not actually be them and they might laugh at it.”
“It’s all pretty serious and people are living a different life on social media, so bringing people back down to earth is quite a fun thing to do.”
After all, “it has to be something personal to be really interesting and meaningful,” he adds.
Is this comedy for everyone? Of course not. But Ted knows that many of us love this humor and actively want to be part of the community built around his comedy.
Ted says, “Comedy is such a wonderful space because the community around it generally understands that in this area, whether it’s trauma or tragedy, it’s part of how people deal with it and I think that should be treated. with best regards. .’
Being subjected to comedic roasting was actually a very funny experience, and I found that whoever I spoke to about it seemed quite impressed that I had volunteered.
People admire those who know how to play pranks on themselves, and this is a good way to feel. So overall I found it pretty helpful.
But I made a mental note to myself so that next time I would not wear a bandeau bikini for my profile picture. Oops.
So if you’re ready to take yourself a little less seriously, why not get involved? It’s pretty free to laugh at yourself.
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Contact us at MetroLifestyleTeam@Metro.co.uk.
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