The Saturday Night Live writer has a forthcoming HBO stand-up special called My Favorite Shapes and is writing and starring in the new Spanish-language comedy series on HBO, Los Espookys.

GQ: People have used the term “alt comedy” for what seems like forever, but it feels like this is a new moment. How would you describe it to my 83-year-old grandmother?

JOEL KIM BOOSTER: I would say to your grandmother that this moment in comedy is about the technology moving to a point where we've all found our audiences. The pie is being sliced—because grandmas bake pies, and I just want to speak to her in a way that she'll understand—and there's just more slices now. There are more audiences.

JABOUKIE YOUNG-WHITE: It's interesting that people always say it's a new moment, because so many of us are doing traditional comedy. Almost vaudevillian, classic comedy in a way that I think an older person would be able to latch onto. Subject-matter-wise, we're talking about new things, but a lot of the forms we use are forms that have been around for a while.

CATHERINE COHEN: Yes, like cabaret, for example. Invented by me. In 2019.

BOOSTER: The alt-comedy thing is so weird, because we've been getting that since we started together. Just because I'm talking about farting cum out of my butt doesn't make it “alt.” It's in the same joke structure as a John Mulaney joke—it just happens to be about a life experience that, maybe, I don't know, he hasn't had.

PATTI HARRISON: I felt like “alt” was applied to me so much that I rolled my eyes and used it to describe myself because there wasn't a more succinct way to do it, even though I didn't necessarily subscribe to that term.

MITRA JOUHARI: I'm a mumblecore comedian! I'm really subtle.

Within this group—and, more broadly, among young comedians right now—there seems to be a very supportive energy. You guys lift each other up and help each other succeed.

JOUHARI: There's room for more than one of us because we collectively decided that there would be room for more than one of us, so they have to make space because we're making shows, we're hosting shows, we're making things together that incorporate people of all kinds.

BOOSTER: Before, there was this idea that there was room for one of us and whoever got there first pulled the ladder up as quickly as they could behind them. I don't feel that way anymore.

ZACK FOX: Before the Internet, to show camaraderie and to show that you're really down for something, physical space was important. But my platform and being able to boost people around me with a click of a button is fantastic.

Tell me about your relationship with the Internet, which is obviously an incredibly powerful tool for comedians but also a double-edged sword.

JOUHARI: It's access. A lot of people who wouldn't otherwise have access to those spaces create pathways through the Internet. People belittle it because it's new. It's not as respected because it's not from the past.

YOUNG-WHITE: That was my biggest challenge getting a writing job at first. People said, “Oh, well, you're from Twitter,” and it's like, “Okay, but you're going to steal my tweet and turn it into a monologue this week, so why not just have me write it for your show?”

JULIO TORRES: But you don't get to do it, because you didn't get to go to the places that they went to.