IN 2002, at a coffee shop in one of San Francisco’s less-charming neighborhoods, I stood in front of 10 or 12 people and told a joke about AIDS. It got a laugh. After I delivered it, as I segued into a searing analysis of Destiny’s Child, I noticed a guy at a table with a Kaposi’s sarcoma on his forehead. When I was writing that AIDS joke, I figured since I was gay, it was fine for me to talk about AIDS, but in context, looking at the joke through the eyes of my audience, I realized it wasn’t something I wanted to do again.

I had learned a lesson about my voice as a performer, and I am very grateful that then — a year into my comedy career — no one was there to see it but the folks in that coffee shop. And they weren’t even all paying attention.

Today, I don’t have to go to a small, poorly lit room to try something new. I can open the Twitter app on my phone and test a premise that way. Does America agree with me that “30 for 30” documentaries are just Lifetime television for women for men? Apparently not.

Twitter changed comedy. The microblogging service that has toppled governments also allowed my fellow comics and me to ply an audience of strangers with our jokes without having to gain the approval of anyone at a comedy club or TV network. Other social networking platforms have built comedy stars, but the simplicity of Twitter has given it a central place in the democratization of success in comedy.