Top Ten Independent Comedy Specials of 2025
Top Ten Best Independent Comedy Specials of 2025
For the 12th year in a row, The Bennington Show and The Interrobang are hand-delivering the shortlist for the funniest year on record. In 2025, the game shifted. While traditional streamers are busy checking boxes and playing it safe, the real heat moved to YouTube. This year’s nominees for Best Independent Special prove that if you have a camera, a microphone, and the guts to ignore a network executive, you can make something undeniable.
The independent scene isn’t just a “backup plan” anymore—it’s where the most fearless comedy is living. From established legends like Jim Norton and Dana Gould taking their craft directly to the fans, to the rising powerhouses like Are You Garbage turning a podcast empire into a touring juggernaut, these specials are raw, unpolished, and exactly what comedy needs right now.
Honorable mention needs to go out to Lenny Marcus who delivered a hilarious album this year, You can hear it on SiriusXM, and its a banger, because Lenny is a stone cold killer on stage. If we had a category for best album this year, Marcus would be at the top of the list.
As always, we’ve picked the nominees, but the winner is entirely up to you. This is the only place in the comedy world where the readers hold the power.
PAST YEARS WINNERS:
Even though we’ve said goodbye to our Album category, replacing it with self published special category, the interest of preserving the past, here are your prior winners. So let’s take a quick look back at the winners of the last 10 years
Last year was the first year we had a category for indie special, and the award went to Sal Vulcano, for his YouTube special, Terrified. In 2023, our last album of the year award went to, Bob the Drag Queen won Comedy Album of the Year for “Woke Man in a Dress.” In 2022 Jen Kirkman won best comedy album for OK Gen-X. In 2021, the best album award went to James Mattern for The Check Spot. In 2020, Bonnie McFarlane won for her album Bird Calls. In 2019, Rich Vos scored a win for album of the year for When I Saw Hamilton. In 2018 Adam Ferrara won album of the year. In 2017 you gave the award to Joe DeRosa, in 2016 you overwhelmingly picked Rich Vos V as your favorite album of the year, and in 2015, Jay Mohr won In 2014, and our first annual album of the year award went to Big Jay Oakerson.
Don’t forget you can vote for Comedy Movie of the Year! Vote for Comedy TV Series of the Year! Vote for Best Book by A Comedian Vote for Best Independent Comedy Special and coming soon, Best Studio Comedy Special and Comedian of the Year!
JIM NORTON: UNCONCEIVABLE (YouTube). 650,000 views and counting. For his ninth special, Jim continues his streak of being the most honestly uncomfortable man in comedy, delivering a set that is as filthy as it is flawless. There’s no subject too taboo or too personal, with Norton taking on abortion extremists, kinks, sexual failures, body dysmorphia, porn, morality, the one thing you never want to hear in bed, and more. Nobody self deprecates better, which is why a Jim Norton special always delivers. Taped at the Comedy Cellar in New York City.
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JOE DEROSA: I NEVER PROMISED YOU A ROSE GARDEN (YouTube). With 713,000 DeRosa’s second special is a certified hit. Joe knows life is shit, and he’s not afraid to say it. Be prepared to go deep into DeRosa’s bleak world view because for him, optimism is for suckers. But that doesn’t mean the special is a downer, because DeRosa is downright overjoyed to be angry. Diversity is performative, consumption culture sucks, and he’s no stranger to hate mail. When the nurses of the nation banded together to hate him, he didn’t run, he doubled down. For Joe DeRosa, life is not a gift, its a bill someone slips under your door. But for the rest of us, his new hour is a gift that keeps giving. Taped at the historic Colonial Theater in Phoenixville, Pennsylvania.
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BIG JAY OAKERSON: THEY/THEM (YouTube) Big Jay went big in 2025, with two hours released on YouTube. His double special, They/Them racked up 2.6 million in views this year, with two hours of raunchy, intrusive, hilarious crowd work. And Oakersons fans showed up ready to be worked. None of this is stock material. Jay shows why he’s one of the best in the business at mining the crowd for material, riffing and creating bits aroudn their stories, identities and situations. Insane breakup stories, crazy details about someone’s sex life, people doing jobs they shouldn’t be doing- and so much more. Both hours were filmed at the world famous Comedy Works in Denver, Colorado.
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GINA BRILLON: MIND YOUR BUSINESS (VOD) Brillon delivers a powerhouse hour that blends heartfelt storytelling about self-belief with sharp wit regarding the rising costs of… well, everything. She’s Puerto Rican from the Bronx. If you’re not, you’re about to learn a lot about that particular slice of the universe. Brillon covers what it means to be a New Yorker, being Puerto Rican, and being a mom in 2025 with all the subtlety of…no wait there’s no subtlety here at all. Brillon is blunt, and hilarious. With over 753,000 views, this hour filmed at Gotham Comedy Club in NYC is killer.
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JOE LIST: SMALL BALL (YouTube) Fresh off the birth of his first child, List brings his neurotic, razor-sharp observational style to the horrors of parenthood and the absurdity of modern life. Small Ball is his Fourth filmed comedy special, and after four + hours of recorded comedy you might think Joe would be running out of micro anxieties to shock you with. But he’s not even slowing down. Take for example, the anxiety spiral he had the first time he held his newborn baby imagining all the ways he could kill her. Baby Stroller sidewalk rage. Anxiety over his therapist who just nods at him. His fear that people who see him with a baby think he’s kidnapper and so much more. Joe is always hilarious but Small Ball may be his best special yet. And 1 million views can’t be wrong. Filmed at Zanies in Chicago and Rosemont.
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MIKE VECCHIONE: LOW INCOME WHITE (YouTube) Executive produced by Nate Bargatze, Vecchione brings his gritty, Northeast rhythm and deadpan charm to a set that makes the mundane feel high-stakes. 400,000 have tuned in to watch Mike’s best hour yet, where he riffs on average joe, blue collar, low income white types. With tight pacing, smart writing and laser sharp observations, this is an hour not to be missed. Mismatched tupperware lids, having “good” sweatpants, shopping at Aldi’s, all hilarious signs of where you are on society’s social pyramid. In one of the highlights of the hour, Vecchione compares and contrasts his family behavior, with his wife’s higher class family habits. If you too come from a mixed income family, you’ll appreciate this even more. Filmed at The Lab at Zanies Nashville and directed by Mike Lavin, it streams on Nate Bargatze’s Nateland Channel on Youtube.
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KATHERINE BLANFORD: CATHOLIC COWGIRL (YouTube). Blanford’s energy shines in this story driven special, as she shares confessions of Southern family secrets and the struggle of balancing a Catholic upbringing with a messy world. Growing up in a sheltered religious upbringing may not have prepared her to navigate modern dating and adulthood. But that’s why we get to hear about the physical fight she had with a young drunk bridesmaid, or the true story about a high school boyfriend who cheated on her with a woman she could only describe “Carrie’s Cousin”. Without giving anything else away, let’s just say every moment can be a teaching moment. Filmed at The Riot Comedy Club in Houston Texas, Catholic Cowgirl has well over 400k views.
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DANA GOULD: PERFECTLY NORMAL (YouTube) A legendary mind tackles everything from marriage to the economic implications of anal beads. It’s strange, brilliant, and exactly what you’d expect from Gould. Using the absurdisms that have come to define him, he uses these topics to make greater points, and they all stick the landing. For example, he explains how human beings age, by looking at horror movie tropes, and has a particularly apt metaphor to look at gun ownership in America. One of the best specials this year, Gould’s latest proves why he’s one of the most respected and funniest performers we have. Filmed at Dynasty Typewriter, the special was directed by Jack Vaughn and Charlie Fonville.
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MAX AMINI: RANDOMLY SELECTED (YouTube) A whirlwind of quick wit and cultural impressions, Amini’s world tour special is a high-energy celebration of family ties and TSA nightmares. Amini is an Iranian American Comedian who is the most popular comic you might not have heard of because his star rose so quickly. Randomly Selected is a tour compilation special filmed in the US, Canada, Europe, Mumbai, and Dubai, covering racial profiling of middle eastern men, but its also about interacting with his audience with his own brand of crowd work. He’s a force, and you’ll be hearing a lot more from him. His special has 16 million views and counting.
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ARE YOU GARBAGE: ROUTE 66 TOUR (YouTube) Speaking of whirlwinds, H. Foley and Kevin Ryan, the hosts of the insanely popular Are You Garbage podcast have had a meteoric rise. They special is unique on the list for being a duo special, that’s part road trip, part travel documentary, and part stand up- all funny. The boys take their “trashy” sensibilities on the road, talking to their audience, mining their white trashness, and proving that the funniest people in America are often the ones sitting in the front row. It’s a scrappy and hilarious hour with highlights including, the Gas Station Gourmet Debate, ranking snacks by trashiness, and finding out who in the crowd refrigerated bread, and how many adults lived in their homes growing up. 622,000 views, and counting.
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