Aida Osman Doesn’t Know Who the Fuck The Rizzler Is

In another life, one could easily imagine comedian Aida Osman as a modern day philosopher. At just 29, she’s enjoyed starring roles and writing credits on a litany of highly-esteemed comedies, like Issa Rae’s Rap Shit, Nick Kroll’s Big Mouth, and Ramy Youssef’s Ramy. Now, the stand-up, screenwriter, and actress is continuing that streak with a role on Will Ferrell’s new show The Hawk out this week on Netflix. Despite such mainstream success, Osman’s slightly provocative, straight-from-the-hip sensibilities lie closer to those of intellectuals like Amia Srinivasan or Slavoj Zizek than your typical comedy writer. Which explains why this week’s Rorschach Test meanders from discussions of Gayle King and generational wealth to the disparagement of postmodernism, Baruch Spinoza, and ChatGPT. Osman has the range.

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NEBRASKA

“Remember when Virgil Abloh was like, ‘What would be the craziest thing to put on a shirt?’ And it was just the state that I’m from?”

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CHATGPT

“Remember when they took all of our time in the 2010s with the attention economy? And we were like, ‘Wait, capitalism is dead now! What’s the next thing it could take from us?’ There’s nothing left. Bitch, it took your desire.”

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WORLD CUP

“Y’all bitches is fake.”

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GAYLE KING

“Gayle King! Oh, my princess, my angel, my sweetie, my darling. There’s not enough… Listen, I can’t talk about her within the confines of the English language. That’s not fair or correct or right. That’s morally corrupt if I try to describe the beauty of Gayle King with the white man’s words.”

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MOTHERHOOD

“Bitches hate this, but you got to stop being baby. Sorry! That pouty, lobotomized selfie? You can’t post that no more. You have an infant at home. Get it together.”

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GOLF

“Every time I’ve gone, it’s just been a reason to make my homegirls tell me their secrets because we have so much time. And it’s a great way to extract information out of people. So I’m kind of using it like that. We be crying out on the green.”

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PODCASTS

“Podcasts killed all my favorite comedians.”

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POSTMODERNISM

“Get it together, y’all. Talk to your mom. Call your mom. Tell her the truth. All them years of lying. All them years of getting lost in your own bullshit. Go tell her the truth. Tell her you love her. Tell her everything is okay. Tell her she look pretty. Tell your mama she look pretty and you don’t mean it in a weird way. That’s it. That’s how I feel about postmodernism. We need to heal.”

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PHILOSOPHY DEGREES

“I would recommend reading some Black philosophers. This could be Audre Lorde. This could be Cornel West. This could be John Henrik Clarke. This could be Marimba Ani. This could be Spinoza. He wasn’t Black, but he was spitting a little bit.”

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INSTAGRAM REELS

“The devil. Except for Ojay Suave.“

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GEN Z

“At least we can read.”

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SOUNDCLOUD

“After the Writer’s Strike was over, I remember I was out at dinner with my friends. I felt like I had just been released from the grips of the prison industrial complex. We immediately got into that booth and recorded ‘writer’s strike: first day out.’ I got four followers on there. We going up. We doing bigger numbers than Latto and Monaleo combined. Stop playing with me.”

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SELF-DOUBT

“Use self-doubt to better yourself and shame as an indicator of where you need to improve, but don’t allow it to make all of the decisions for you.”

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GENERATIONAL WEALTH

“Hopefully, I can teach [my daughter] the real wealth, which is honesty, planning, decisiveness, self-belief, and all those good things. Rather than giving her a dusty Mercedes in 2040.”

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TEXTING

“My funniest texting friends cannot even make eye contact in real life.”

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FLEXING

“Flex because you like it. Flex because it’s cool. Don’t flex because it’s going to make somebody feel bad about themselves. Flex to inspire self-discovery.”

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THE RIZZLER

“Who the fuck is The Rizzler? You talking about the chain of steak restaurants? I’m hanging up the phone. Goodbye.”