Stand-up comedy has taken Chinese pop culture by storm. The web-show Rock & Roast concluded its second season earlier this month, and judging from net users' feedback, it has become an even bigger hit.

In the show, amateur comics compete against each other with their humorous takes on life to become the "talk king."

According to Tencent, an average of 70 million viewers have watched the two-hour program on its video streaming website, an increase from 50 million during the 2017 season.

Stand-up comedy was mostly unknown to the Chinese audience just five years ago.

A small group of artists and producers working for Shanghai Xiao Guo Culture Co. Ltd., who started importing and adapting foreign stand-up comedy formats since 2012, have changed that. Roast, a Chinese version of the American comedy series Comedy Central Roasts, and its predecessor of Rock & Roast, have reached 2.33 billion hits on Tencent's video streaming platform, according to Tencent-backed Maoyan, a movie and TV site. 

While in Roast comedians take turns "roasting" a celebrity, Rock & Roast, the "grassroots version," puts aspiring stand-up comedians under the spotlight.

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Online stand-up shows such as Rock & Roast have instantly gathered a large audience because they can build on already existing comedic art forms in China. In recent years, Xiangsheng or "Crosstalk," a humorous performance dating back to the late Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) where two people hold a dialogue, has again risen in popularity with more and more young newcomers learning the art and reaching fame among a young audience. 

Xiaopin, folk sketches often performed during the Chinese New Year Gala, make fun of situations in people's daily life, while Pingshu, the art of creative storytelling popularized in the 1980s that is enriched by anecdotes and funny commentary, still enjoys a following among middle-aged and older audiences today.

These more traditional comic arts aside, there is still tremendous demand for comedy in the Chinese entertainment market, the CEO of Xiao Guo Culture told Sixth Tone.

Stand-up talk shows add something different in the sense that there's a single performer who makes people laugh by drawing from experiences of his or her personal life. In the words of Rock & Roast host Li Dan, a comedian himself and a prominent name in the comedy competition scene, a talk show is "a funny person talking about funny things."

While doing so, performers also touch on social issues and taboos. In one episode, amateur "roaster" and former fitness instructor Rock talks about his divorce and how he got grilled when visiting family on Chinese New Year even though he felt relief and freedom after untying the knot.

Zhao Xiaohui, one of a few female factory workers at a car company, mocks the shiny image of the female professional as shown on TV that sharply contrasts with her reality, which sometimes consists of overwork, discrimination and social pressure.

Kamu, the Uygur stand-up rising star and winner of this year's season, demonstrated very vividly how peer pressure led him to try his first cigarette. Being his overconfident and arrogant self, he boasted he was smoking's best friend, but a coughing attack immediately pulled down his mask.

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Viewers, such as 28-year-old Jing Yan, relate to the comedian's honest speeches. "Comedians often poke fun at the things that irritate me, which makes it easier for me to let them go and pursue my own happiness," she told China Daily. As her parents kept urging her to get married, a punch line from a stand-up comedian on the same topic helped her to get a more relaxed attitude, she said.

Comedy clubs and open mic events outside the big cities of Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen are still in their early stages of development, the Shanghai news site Jiemian reported.

The existence of online programs such as Rock & Roast has accelerated the pace of the comedy industry, not only inspiring more people to watch but also to pursue this art form and become comedians themselves.

This season of Rock & Roast has shown the comedians' development; a Beijing-based actor told public WeChat account Hedgehog Commune that including deeper psychological analysis and exploring new content and art forms "have given great inspiration and pressure to other actors in the industry."

Fans of Rock & Roast can thus expect to hear more of their favorite competitors on the show. Si Wen, the only female comic of the talk show to make it to the top three, already garnered 830,00 followers on Chinese microblog Weibo. The program has contributed yet again to the establishment of stand-up comedy in Chinese pop culture and proven that the art form is here to stay.

(Cover: Rock and Roast is a popular comedy competition program in China that just concluded its second season. /Photo screenshot from Rock & Roast's official Weibo account)