2025 continued to make it nearly impossible to enjoy anything without political discourse (unwarranted or otherwise) rearing its annoying head, and stand-up comedy is often as reflective of that unfortunate evolution as anything else. In fact, before its streaming debut (via Netflix subscription), I half-assumed comedian Robby Hoffman’s new special Wake Up would follow along that same trajectory. Thankfully, though her act was entirely filled with politically charged topics, Hoffman’s skewed and skewered perspective remained central, and wound up making me laugh harder than anything else that hit the 2025 TV schedule.
To drive this point home right away, Hoffman’s act is extremely NSFW in various ways. She uses all the four-letter words one can think of, and also frequently uses words that are oft-viewed as being slurs for gay men and women, though her usage isn’t purposefully inflammatory in that way.
Robby Hoffman’s Jewish Lesbian Curmudgeonliness Is Pretty One-Of-A-Kind
Without meaning to be reductive at all, perhaps the best way to describe Robby Hoffman’s act to someone unfamiliar would be to say if Larry David’s needle-threaded gripes from Curb Your Enthusiasm was combined with Andrew Dice Clay’s purposefully controversial Diceman persona, and then a brilliant lesbian cleared the room by shitting on the floor and then rewrote all of it herself. (I’m not sure what the