Though he’s not a licensed medical professional, Therapuss Jake Shane came to cure Pittsburgh on Saturday, Oct. 27, with “Therapuss Live!”
The event took place at the Carnegie Music Hall in Homestead, and a normal Saturday night became a Therapuss session filled with Gen Z based humor, slang, copious amounts of substance use, advice and laughter.
Jake Shane, also known as “octopusslover8” on TikTok, is a 25-year-old comedian who gained popularity through TikTok in late 2022. Shane posts content including food reviews — specifically reviews of octopus, his favorite animal and a point of interest for his fan base — skits, advice and clips from his podcast, “Therapuss.” Alexandria Pickel, a sophomore marketing major at Pitt, is a longtime fan of Shane and planned to attend the show ever since she saw Shane was touring.
“I have been a fan of Jake Shane on TikTok for ever since he got, like, famous, and I saw that he was coming, and I was like, oh my gosh, I’ll be there in Pittsburgh, so I wanted to buy tickets,” Pickel said.
The first five minutes of “Therapuss Live!” began with a wave of screams from the crowd as the microcelebrity entered the stage, an octopus plushie keeping his chair occupied until the cheering died down enough for him to sit. He dove into a whirlwind of excited curses and exclamations about the crowd before requesting and downing a shot of vodka while diving into his first segment — “Therapissed.”
“Therapissed” is a regular segment on the “Therapuss” podcast and consists of tangents about what’s going on in Shane’s life. Abby Nicolette, an audience member, feels a strong attachment to the comedian because of his daily anecdotes.
“Jake Shane means absolutely everything to me. That is my best friend that was on that stage, and I‘ve never felt more connected to him,” Nicolette said.
Shane’s platform and celebrity status are based on his honesty and his ability to seem just like a friend. “Therapissed” sounds like my own rants, and the pop culture references he uses makes his shows feel like just another conversation — especially with the Abby Lee Dance Company shoutout. I could not stop laughing as he downed various substances and overshared about every aspect of his life
Shane’s first complaint was about the temperature of the theater, urging the crowd to cheer if they were also hot before requesting a fan. Shane also complained about being hungry, which segued into his main point of “Therapissed” — his hatred of San Francisco.
Shane paced the stage discussing his issues with San Francisco, ranging from negative experiences partying while visiting Berkeley to a brutal layover from Shanghai to Los Angeles, as well as his most recent qualm with the city concerning chocolate milk.
The chocolate milk served as a transition piece to his next rant topic, dubbed “Boobgate.” He talked about his insecurity over weight in his chest and reflected on past fashion choices before displaying a tweet of himself posted by Popcrave on X, in which he stood on the red carpet of the People’s Choice Awards with a sweater that highlighted what he called his “fat tits.”
Shane read off hate comments in response to the post, gleefully embracing the embarrassment by talking about his love for the attention. The comments included insults like “just old and big,” “damn, he looks awful” and “get this ugly baby adult man thing out of public spaces.” Shane read all of these and more while laughing about his own appearance to brush off the hate of others.
Shane’s reveling in his haters reminded me of typical Gen Z humor— it’s self-deprecating, self-shaming and extremely funny. Shane remarked, “If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em,” and he models this behavior time and time again by making fun of himself. He takes celebrityhood lightheartedly and doesn’t waste time trying to change his humor and his personality to something it’s not.
“Boobgate” ended, and Shane started the next segment of his show, called “Tell Me What’s Wrong.” At the beginning of the show, audience members anonymously submitted issues from their lives they needed advice on using QR code to a Google Form on the screen.
Shane asked all audience members to put away their phones and refrain from recording the segment to avoid embarrassing anyone. He read out some issues, brought out special guest and friend Julia Mervis, led a sing-along of “It’s the Climb” by Miley Cyrus and gave out “prescriptions” of lively and substance-filled youthful life advice.
Angelina Antonucci, a student at Chatham University, was excited for “Tell Me What’s Wrong” and loved the special guests Jake Shane brought on the podcast.
“I love the Therapuss podcast, and I love all of his special guests,” Antonucci said.
This was my favorite part of the show. It was full of the craziest stories imaginable, and while I’m sworn to Therapuss Secrecy, I can say I’ve never laughed harder in my life. The majority of this segment relied on the audience to submit responses and share their stories honestly.
The final segment of his show was the “Wheel of Tea,” where the stage manager put a game show wheel on the screen and selected a location for him to tell a story about. Shane ended with a final segment talking about his experience at Coachella, a large music festival held in the desert of Southern California, in 2019. Shane and guest Julia Mervis criticized each other’s outfits and actions before diving into a rant about their Airbnb, clogged toilets, an angry homeowner named Jeff and general commentary of this year as college first-years.
The show wrapped with a reflective period called “What Did We Learn,” where Shane yelled the aforementioned to the audience, and they replied with lessons from throughout the show relating to the different stories Shane told. The comedian yelled “Hi pussies!” a final time to the crowd, before exiting and ending the show.
Jake Shane’s “Therapuss” is the pinnacle of Gen Z’s youth culture — it’s loud, it’s full of substances, it’s nonsensical and it’s so much fun. Jake Shane is wholly himself the entire show, and treats the audience as a close friend rather than paying viewers of his content.
Shane spent two hours yapping, complaining, drinking, validating lying and illegal behavior, getting high and creating the most entertaining comedy routine I’ve ever seen. He harnessed the delicate art of turning venting into comedy, and has turned being a young person in America into a profitable act.