Daily Inspiration: Meet Eric Feldman

Today we’d like to introduce you to Eric Feldman.

Hi Eric, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
I think like almost everyone’s story, mine starts as a child. I was very… rambunctious. I was always moving, or more specifically, my mouth was always moving. I had the conversational energy of a 50-year-old woman that just reunited with her girlfriends from college; I wanted to talk to everyone about everything.

As I grew up, I realized quickly all of the things I wasn’t very good at: sports, singing, dancing (in another life, I’d DIE to be a dancer.) But one thing I slowly gained confidence in the older I got was that people thought I was funny. I did Improv in high school, and remember the innate energy and excitement that filled me when I performed. Being able to make people laugh made me feel connected to them, and it made me feel like the most authentic version of myself (a feeling I didn’t always get growing up in small-town Iowa.) I went to the University of Iowa and studied marketing, basing that decision solely off the fact that I wanted to work with people (in what capacity, I had zero idea.) Somehow, by a twist of fate and a random conversation with my academic advisor, I ended up accepting a full-time position after college as an Admissions Counselor for my alma mater. Yeah, very much not a space I thought I had on my bingo card.

That job gave me the opportunity to present in front of hundreds, sometimes even thousands, of visitors on campus. And during these presentations, which were supposed to be purely informational, I was able to sprinkle in funny stories of my experiences as a student, like when I was walking across a bridge and found out I had gotten an internship and did a celebratory Irish heel kick and my shoe flew off my foot into the river below. The feeling I would get giving these presentations, hearing the laughs and seeing the smiles of the people in the crowd, resonated with me in a different way than just making my friends laugh did. I decided I wanted to do make people laugh as a career.

After two years working at my alma mater, I made the move to Los Angeles. We certainly were not in Kansas anymore, or rather, Iowa. Everything here was so fast-paced and exciting, and everyone had such big goals and dreams. I immediately enrolled in an acting class and an improv class but had to cancel after a few months due to affordability (or lack thereof.) I then spent the next three years working, making friends, and doing nothing as it pertained to pursuing a comedy career.

Then, 2020 reared its ugly head. I had just gotten a new job in sales and was contemplating enrolling in improv classes again. When everything shut down, I was the first on my team to be laid off (first-in, first-out.) I, like many people across the world, felt the crippling effects of being shut off from in-person human interaction. One random day, as I sat in my apartment alone and unemployed, I decided to make that fateful decision of downloading TikTok. What started out as random voiceover videos I sent to my friends to make them laugh turned into creating characters and bits of my own. As I grew on TikTok, I made making my Instagram public so that my friends could share my videos with their friends.

I’m excited to say that today, my videos have been watched across all platforms over 100 million times. I am making a large proportion of my income from comedy, and am working harder than ever to develop my voice not only as a social media comedian but as a standup comedian. I hope to continue to bring authenticity and levity to both the stage and social media and to always make that 10-year-old that would record himself pretending to be a host of a late-night show proud.

Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Ummm, that’s an interesting question. I will say, I am very thankful that I didn’t move to LA and immediately put my “everything” into being a comedian. I know many will talk about the hustle and how you have to make sacrifices to get where you want to go, and I’m starting to feel some of those realities. However, I spent my first three years here cultivating a community of people that I resonated with; I knew that LA couldn’t just be home because it’s where people go to “make it”. The only way I’d truly “make it” in my mind was if I had the genuine love and support of friends in LA. So I’m really happy that I took that time to find that before I dove into pursuing a career.

All that being said, now that I’m really going for this, there are many moments of struggle. Being that I still do have another job and many close friends that I enjoy (and need to) spend time with, I find it hard to be as diligent and consistent as I would like to be as far as creating, writing and performing goes. I go through blips where I do a couple of mics a week or post multiple videos in a week, but I’m certainly not consistent. I am starting to feel the pressures of needing to make your passion your full-time job until it really is (monetarily).

I also struggle with the fickle and unpredictable nature of social media. It’s been very kind to me in allowing me to reach so many people, but you don’t always see that reach or feel that connection. So, that’s something I’m dealing with (it’s more of an internal process of reminding myself that social media is kind of not real :))

As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
I am a comedian / content creator! I make videos, mostly parodies or light-hearted bits that aim to relate to many peoples’ experiences. I have created a variety of characters over the years, but my most popular is my portrayal of a Midwest, “Boomer” mom on Facebook that I named Tami Langalang. She is the epitome of the phrase “ignorance is bliss”, without being hatefully or willfully ignorant. She has terrible spelling, overshares, and is delightfully clueless to almost anything that relates to pop culture or modern technology, but certainly does her best to keep up with her college daughter Alexis Joy. I also do standup comedy (mostly in Los Angeles — for now ;))

I think I’m most proud of the response I get from my videos. Even in videos that don’t reach large numbers of people, the comments are almost always positive and affirming. The messages I get across, I do. The jokes I write are noticed. I think I can count on one hand that number of truly rude / mean comments I’ve gotten, and I think that’s because I come from a place that is truly light and fun. Even when I’m “making fun” of a type of person or character, they’re still meant to be likable. I don’t like to cause controversy or get people riled up. I just want them to smile.

Are there any important lessons you’ve learned that you can share with us?
BE AUTHENTIC. It’s so easy to compare yourself to people on social media that are getting more views than you, or more likes than you, or more paid opportunities than you. But at the end of the day, in this world, there is room for EVERYONE to pursue their dreams and succeed, and I totally believe that the best (and easiest) way to do that is to listen to yourself.

Going along with that, I’ve learned that we all lie to ourselves. We obviously don’t mean to, our anxiety exists to keep us safe from harm and to keep us in a lane that feels comfortable. But when we say that we can’t do something or that we aren’t meant for whatever it is that we believe we can do, we are lying to ourselves to keep us feeling safe and on the past with the least resistance. Work hard, and tell yourself thank you for the warning, but there isn’t any option to turn around when it comes to pursuing what you know you are supposed to be doing!

Contact Info:

• Instagram: ericfeldman9
• Other: TikTok: ericfeldman9

Image Credits
Michael DeMarco