List addicts now have a community of their own thanks to B.J. Novak's app
LOS ANGELES -- Dennis Flynn, a 26-year-old New Yorker, has found his comedic voice.
"I'm going to read 'thoughts of a magician at a children's birthday party who realizes his rabbit is dead mid-trick,'" he announced to a full house at a recent show at one of Upright Citizens Brigade's Los Angeles location.
Flynn loves lists, but it wasn't until he downloaded the li.st app that he realized they could actually help him be funny.
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"It's perfect for jokes...the format forces you to go 'punchline here. OK, now punchline here,'" he told Mashable.
He's not the only list addict. Since launching in late 2015, li.st has attracted 150,000 people, a mix of celebrities, publications, rising comedians, writers and just regular people.
Li.st has done something rare in today's technology-dependent world: It's made social media users actually become social IRL.
As in, it makes people want to go out and meet others in person, not to hook up but rather to bond over -- what else? -- lists.
Novak, known for his best-selling book One More Thing and for his role on The Office, said his desire to launch the app with cofounder Dev Flaherty stemmed from his own obsession with lists.
"I found that I was constantly making lists -- in my head, in a notebook I always have on me, on my phone," he told Mashable. "And that whenever I’d ask friends for recommendations for books or good restaurants, they seemed to be keeping these lists as well. I thought there should be one place where we can all share these lists, which if you think about it actually say a lot about our personalities: what things we like to do, our aspirations, places we’ve been, things we’ve experienced, thoughts and observations."
"I thought there should be one place where we can all share these lists, which if you think about it actually say a lot about our personalities."
Still, it wasn't until Novak met Flaherty, Fab.com's former SVP, that the idea became a reality.
"We’ve seen in the last few years how very reputable publications and news organizations have embraced lists to not just share things like recipes and travel recommendations, but rather really substantive content," Flaherty said. "I thought it could be very powerful to give everyone their own personal BuzzFeed, in a way."
Now, a staff of seven people work out of a Venice, California office helping foster the growing community of users.
Because comedy has emerged as what Novak described as "one of the pillars of the li.st community," the team decided to take the social element of the app to the next level with live shows.
The first one, which featured Flynn alongside Workaholics creator Anders Holm, The Newsroom alum Alison Pill and a handful of others, took place in Los Angeles last month.
On Tuesday evening, Novak will take the li.st live show to Brooklyn, where a handful of guests (including Andy Cohen) will do live reads at a sold out Bell House.
Novak said he hopes the app becomes "the place where people put their lists of anything and everything."
li.st is available on iOS, Android, and on the web at https://li.st.
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Saba was a Los Angeles-based reporter who covers all things digital entertainment, including YouTube, streaming services and digital influencers. Prior to that, she spent two years at the Los Angeles Times covering entertainment for the Calendar and Company Town sections. Saba grew up in Santa Monica and graduated from Boston University with a B.S. in journalism and B.A. in political science. When not reporting, she is usually binge watching shows online or looking for new coffee shops to frequent.
