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"Seventy-two thread count! You didn't think I was gonna count that shit?! If this was a drug deal, I would've shot Hotel Luxury Linens in the face!"
—Intimate Moments for a Sensual Evening, "MTV's Next"
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Aziz Ansari began performing stand-up comedy in the early 2000s, after moving to New York City to study marketing at NYU. His act steers clear of ethnic humor most of the time and instead focuses a lot on pop culture, technology, and his experiences around celebrities such as his friend Kanye West.
He co-created and starred in Human Giant, which ran for two seasons on MTV, and currently stars in Amy Poehler's sitcom Parks and Recreation. In 2009 he played a small but memorable role as an obnoxious stand-up comedian named Randy in Judd Apatow's Funny People, and subsequently signed a deal with Apatow to write and star in three new movies. In 2011, Ansari along with Jesse Eisenberg, starred in main roles in the comedy film 30MinutesorLess.
Aziz Ansari provides examples of the following tropes:
- Dead Baby Comedy: More prevalent on Human Giant than in his own stand-up, particularly in the "Shutterbugz" sketches, which featured himself and Rob Huebel as nasty child-actor agents.
- Hidden Depths: Usually comedians have one, as for Ansari, he graduated from New York University with a major in marketing.
- Large Ham: Turned Up to Eleven with his Funny People character.
- Leisure Suit Larry: Not so much in Real Life, but most of his film and television characters are variations of this trope. Parks and Recreation's Tom Haverford is a prime example.
- Older Than They Look: At first glance, he could pass for his mid-twenties, but he's actually nearing 30.
- Punctuated! For! Emphasis!: Anyone familiar with Ansari's style of stand-up knows that he does this a lot near or during punchlines.
- Self-Deprecation: Does this once in a while.
- Take That: "Most shows on MTV aren't really my cup of tea. Mostly because I don't like giant pieces of shit in my tea." (Coming from a guy who had a show on MTV for two years and subsequently hosted the network's Movie Awards.)