“How much do you weigh?”
This question, asked of comedian Jared Freid by his father while on vacation in Delray Beach, Florida, became the inspiration for his new hour of stand-up covering family, body issues, adulthood and the strange closeness between millennials and their boomer parents.
He also justifies why, at 41 years old, he chooses to remain on the family cellphone plan.
Aptly titled “Family Plan,” Freid’s second special will drop on Netflix Sept. 1. The comic is known for giving dating advice on his long-running podcasts, “The JTrain Podcast” and “U Up?” and most recently in his new book, “Walking Red Flag.”
Freid sat down with Fox News Digital to talk about his new special and unpack his parental relationships, from some of his “most horrific memories” involving his mother arguing with other moms over beach chairs to the grave realization that he has the exact same body as his father.
For all his jesting complaints about his loud, Jewish family, Freid described them as “the main driver” of his material. Frustration is where a lot of his jokes originate, he said, and few people frustrate him with as much precision as his own kin.
“We [millennials] have a weird relationship, that’s okay to acknowledge, with our parents,” Freid said.
“Millennials are incredibly insecure and notice everything. Boomers are incredibly confident and unaware. And what a horrible combination,” the comedian said.
“Millennials might be living in hell on earth, considering that combination. Our parents are the most confident and unaware generation, and we have to deal with them every day and we love them,” he continued.
“So that takes an incredible amount of restraint and empathy from our end, because the enraging part about parents is they’re always 10% right.”
Freid, who clarified that he uses the word “boomer” with love, made the case that millennials have a uniquely intertwined relationship with their parents, in part because many millennials are worse off financially than the generation before them, which comes with certain entanglements (like staying on the family phone plan or attending a family vacation paid for by mom and dad).
He said “Family Plan” is exactly the type of comedy he wants to do: an hour of material, unified by the through-line of the Freid family beach trip, that people can watch with their own families, be it their parents or “that cousin that they go and smoke weed with during Thanksgiving.”
That approach has already shaped his next hour. Freid said his current material grew from another parental indignity: his father offering him Ozempic at dinner.
“Should I be embarrassed to leave the house? Do I look that horrific that you have to offer me your prescription medication?” Freid wondered.
Rather than repeat the jokes from “Family Plan” — Freid made it clear that his parents provide no shortage of material — he will try to repeat its form, starting with a moment of anger and letting it expand into something larger.
The specifics of the set are his, but the emotional dynamic is widely recognizable, and fans have told him so.
“People would come up to me and go, ‘That’s my parents! You’re talking about my dad, that’s my mom. My parents ask me about my weight and are obsessed with my body and I’m on the family plan.'”
Beyond merely cracking jokes at boomers’ expense, Freid aims to create a humorous mirror that allows audiences to recognize their own loved ones. He is careful about where he points the joke.
“I only talk about myself,” he said. “I want to make fun of people I know and love.”
His material seems to resonate especially powerfully with Jewish crowds.
“I have Jews come up to me, and they go, ‘Does anyone else get it?’ And I’m like, ‘You were in the room, everyone was laughing!'” he said.
“Being Jewish, to me, is a culture of discussion and love and empathy and [getting] annoyed, and all of those things. And that’s all in this… I do believe stand-up is our Jewish sport, you know? We created the art form. When I do shows for Jews, I’m representing the whole culture.”
The boomer-parent material is contemporary, but Freid sees himself working inside a much older tradition of turning aggravation into laughter. And it doesn’t stop at his own family.
Freid performs an extended bit in “Family Plan” roasting Rob Lowe for serving as the face of Atkins, a pairing he found especially absurd as someone who has struggled with body issues himself.
“There is nothing as transparent as we’re gonna put Rob Lowe in our commercial so that chubby me will believe that if I eat Atkins foods, I can become Rob Lowe,” Freid told Fox News Digital.
Then he actually met Lowe.
Freid encountered the actor at a Netflix golf tournament and nervously introduced himself, explaining that he had been doing a joke about him onstage every night for two years.
Lowe immediately knew which one.
“Atkins?” Freid recalled him saying. “I heard about the bit. I heard it’s hilarious. Can’t wait to see it.”
“I melted,” Freid said.
The moment forced Freid to live up to his own self-imposed standards of conduct.
“I only make fun of people I could meet,” he said.
Freid made it this far on his own terms. He said Hollywood never regarded him as an obvious star.
“No one was going to come knock on my door to say, ‘Jared, you got the goods. You’re so good looking, we need to put you on TV.'”
That forced him to build direct relationships with audiences through podcasts, social media, books and touring. He’s been pursuing stand-up for 16 years, describing it as the love of his life. Everything else has been in service of making it into a career.
“That’s why I do a lot. You know, two podcasts, and the book, and stand-up. It’s always been like a little bit of a desperation,” Freid laughed.
The comic graduated from Penn State with a degree in economics before moving to New York City. He thought he would sell insurance and annuities, but it wasn’t for him.
The best part of his day was writing emails, he said. Specifically, he enjoyed making friends and colleagues laugh on group email threads or over Google Chat.
“It made me feel amazing, so I was like, ‘How do I do that all the time? How do I take that drug?’ And that turned into me doing open mics and sketch class and improv class and eventually, you know, becoming a comedian.”
Freid, known for dishing dating advice, has this year entered a relationship of his own.
Asked if his position as a prominent voice in the online dating discussion creates any pressure to have his own situation figured out, Freid replied simply, “No.”
“I don’t think good advice comes from people who have it figured out. I think good advice come from vulnerability and admitting your faults,” he explained.
DAN GAINOR: GEN Z IS RIGHT TO BE ANGRY, BUT BOOMERS ARE NOT THE REAL ENEMY
The instinct to carve his own path and be authentic carries over from his comedy philosophy into his dating work and new book, which he named after himself.
“It’s called ‘Walking Red Flag’ because I’m the red flag. I’m not trying to be a hero. I’m telling you how I felt, the emotional things I was going through, because I am 10% away from any guy someone’s dating.”
He warned against trusting people who market themselves as finished products.
“If anyone says they’ve figured it out, they’re a liar trying to make money off you.”
For better or worse, Freid has people in his life who have no problem pointing out his perceived flaws.
For all the frustration Freid mines from his family, he doesn’t seem particularly interested in escaping it.
Asked what advice he would give Jewish mothers whose sons have started dating, Freid laughed off the premise.
“They’re not going to listen to me,” he said.
“Keep bothering your sons. Keep giving them crap. They love you for it,” Freid continued. “It actually calms them.”
FROM SOUTHERN CLUBS TO NETFLIX: HOW CLEAN COMIC DERRICK STROUP IS STOPPING AUDIENCES IN THEIR TRACKS
He described the familiar barrage from his own mother: When are you coming home? When are you leaving? Why are you eating that? Eat, you haven’t eaten anything. Stop eating. Take. Eat. Drink. What are you drinking for? You drive so fast. You drive like an old lady.
For Freid, that running commentary is less a nuisance to be solved than a kind of family soundtrack.
“That is like a Jewish man’s white noise machine,” he joked.
Fortunately, it is also an endless source of material.
After 16 years in stand-up, Freid has learned that the people who can get under his skin most effectively are often the same people who make for his best stories. His parents may never stop asking questions, offering opinions or telling him what he should be doing differently.
At this point, Freid probably wouldn’t want them to.
