Gadiel del Orbe is on a mission to represent Latinos in comedy
Download mp3 (11.07 MB)Gadiel del Orbe takes the stage Thursday, Jan. 11, in Chandler. He’s a stand-up comedian from New York whose comedy is rooted in his Dominican culture.
But, del Orbe didn’t come up through the traditional stand-up route — it was in a much more modern way: through viral videos. The Navy veteran found fame making videos for Buzzfeed, and told The Show he feels like it's his mission to represent Latinos in comedy.
Full interview
[CLIP FROM STAND-UP SHOW]
GADIEL DEL ORBE: That's right. Dominican mom and dad, both Dominican. You know what that means? My dad left and started a new family.
The worst part about Dominican men when they leave their family, they start a family that looks exactly the, the, like the family he left behind.
[CLIP ENDS]
DEL ORBE: I was in the Navy, and I was that guy, the sailor, everybody looked for, they're like, where's the Del Orbe? I want to get Del Orbe over here because he's funny. So I'm the guy that ship mates got so like that we could hang out.
We'll go to the mess decks. They used to call him kick Del Orbe because he's always kicking. That means that you're like hanging out at all times. I don't know why the Navy paid me because I ain't do nothing.
But, I mean, that's a long way from comedy, right? So you were in the Navy for several years, it sounds like. How did you go from that to what started, it sounds like in, your, in your comedy career doing sort of viral videos?
DEL ORBE: So, in the Navy, I was an aircraft director but I was like a play around, right? And, and I used to watch like a lot of stand up. I remember as a child, I will, I will see things like Chris Rock "Bigger and Blacker." And I thought that was so cool. When I left the Navy, when I was out to see a thing, I saw Kevin Hart, "Shaq's All Star," and I was like, man, I could relate to this guy and then he did laugh at my pain, and I was like, I saw myself in this man, And I was afraid of public speaking. I said, oh, hell no, they did like a stand up show on the ship and they were like, oh yeah, you should do some stand up. You're, you're always a funny guy, the funny friend. And I was like, no, no, no, I'm afraid of public speaking. I would never do that.
And then when I left, I was like, you know what, let me try once, let me just conquer my fears. Like, why not? And I, I did a comedy show and it went great. My friends were all there. They were there for supporting me and it was so fun. It was so fun. My ex-girlfriend at the time, she was like, why don't you just try to do video comedy videos as you're going to be a comedian? I was like, might as well. It is comedy.
4And no, after that, they were at Buzzfeed, they were looking for a Dominican guy. They needed like a certain personality. And I said, you know what I am Dominican and I could be even more Dominican. So, yeah. No, we did a video and, and it hit, it went viral and I asked him, I remember before I left the Navy, there was a friend of mine that said whatever you do, remember this advice. And I was like, what? He's like, people don't get what they want because they don't ask.
But I'm like, you know what? That's so deep, you right. Now, that's how I live my life. Like if I want something I ask for it.
That's a really good advice to start your career with. So tell us about that first viral moment. What was the video? What did it feel like when you realized like a lot of people had watched it?
DEL ORBE: When I joined Pero Like, I just joined this team that was already making viral videos. The term viral came from Buzzfeed. And I was like, and I'm joining this group and this team and I see Buzzfeed and they, they sit down and have meetings. They're like, you know, we had this one video had over 1 million shares. I was like, oh my God, right. This is crazy, right? These guys are talking about these crazy numbers.
And then the first video was "Things Dominican known to be true." Over 60,000 shares in two days. I was like, wow, and then the mega viral moment that I did was "What's going on in Venezuela," was the first mega viral video I ever did. Nobody was talking about what's going on in Venezuela at that time. I'm Dominican. I don't know much about Venezuela, but I was like, I, I brought a friend and he's from Venezuela and we connected with a journalist down there and I said, how can we create a video that will get people interested in what's going on over there? Which was horrific. But the only way people will care if you trigger their emotions? Well, how can we make people cry?
That was the intention going in. So we went in, we did the video and it was like the first video that went mega viral on our page and it wasn't comedy at the end.
[CLIP FROM VIDEO]
People, people that are in desperate situations, sometimes the people that mugging you in Venezuela, they're not thieves, they're not bad people. It's just people that are hungry, you know. In 2008, Venezuela was, was voted the happiest country in the world despite the situation. So I think that the most important thing we can do is is raise awareness, let the whole world know, because if everybody knows that maybe we can make a difference.
[CLIP ENDS]
That's the most proudest video I ever did because it was also like activism at the same time.
That's so interesting. So like your first really, really big moment had nothing to do with comedy. Like you were doing something that was almost being an advocate or being a journalist in a way.
DEL ORBE: Yes, exactly. It felt good to see Venezuelans cry. I, I tried it. I, I tested the video a couple of times of that. I saw some Venezuela friends. Yeah. Come over here. I want you to see this video at work and they started crying. I'm like, hm, that was the goal, it worked. And then when, when we released it, boom.
Wow. So talk a little bit about your act and what you talk about on stage and in your stand up, like I know you perform sort of in English and a mix of English and Spanish and Spanglish, this kind of thing. And you talk a lot about the Latino diaspora and sort of the differences between Dominicans and other Latinos, right? Do you see yourself as sort of an ambassador at this point for Dominican culture for people like you?
DEL ORBE: I want to say specifically for Dominican culture, I would say all Latini that all Latinos, I think Latino community are, are hungry. We are missing, we're missing that in stand up in comedy. Like we have Bad Bunny. We have when it comes to music, we have representation. But I think that Latinos are right now hungry to have that. We need that Latino comedian that brings us all together, that could talk about us because I, you know, I, I go up on stage. Yes, I talk about being Dominican but I talk about more being a Latino.
I talk about the Mexican culture. What I've learned about the Mexican culture and different types of culture. You know, so I want to say an ambassador for Dominicans, I would say ambassador for all Latinidad.
Do you feel, do you feel a power in that? Do you feel a responsibility?
DEL ORBE: That's my mission. That's what I know what my purpose is. We did some shows in DC, we did shows in Miami. And I remember sitting there and for me, I was like, OK, there's going to be a whole lot of Dominicans. No, there was a lot of Puerto Ricans, there was a lot of Mexicans, there was a lot of Central Americans. I saw El Salvadorians, Hondurans, Guatemalans, Peruvians and all these different countries are hungry to be recognized. They want, I remember just sitting there like, you didn't say anything about Honduras. What about Nicaragua? And I was like, oh, I didn't know you wanted me to talk about you. And it was just like this starvation. They want to be recognized, they want to be seen.
That's really amazing. Like, that's quite an opportunity you have to do that.
DEL ORBE: It's actually an honor.
