https://youtu.be/NAaXcyNV7LU?si=dqUvrEIgkO6k3MVG

The night was full of laughter, networking, comedy conversations, and one more reminder why I love stand-up comedy so much.

There’s something special about being around other comedians. Some are polished veterans. Some are just figuring things out for the first time. Everybody is chasing that perfect joke that makes a room explode with laughter. Even though it was a competition, the atmosphere still felt supportive and exciting.

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\One of my favourite parts of comedy has always been the people you meet along the way. FUNNYFEST gave me another opportunity to connect with performers, share stories, and just enjoy being part of the comedy world for a night.

Of course, anytime I perform in Calgary, there’s always a little voice in the back of my head wondering if maybe this could be the year everything levels up. But honestly, even when I don’t win, I still leave grateful for the experience.

As a blind comedian, every stage still feels important to me. Every audience teaches me something new. Every laugh reminds me I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be.

And let’s be honest… getting to stand in an Irish pub telling jokes to strangers on a Saturday night is already kind of a win in itself.

Thank you to everyone who continues supporting Blind Guy Comedy and following along on this strange little journey of mine. Whether you’ve been here since the beginning or you’re just discovering my content now, I appreciate you being here.

Take care everybody.

From your blind comedian,
J.R. Bjornson AKA Blind Guy Comedy

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The next night, I headed to Calgary and performed for a much smaller crowd. Maybe around 20 people. One of those intimate little comedy rooms where every laugh feels personal and every silence feels like your soul just tripped over a chair. But honestly? I loved that show too. I also got to perform alongside comedians coming fresh out of comedy workshops, and it genuinely felt like watching future stars figure themselves out in real time. There’s something really cool about being around that kind of energy. Everybody trying. Everybody nervous. Everybody chasing that perfect joke.

Then Monday rolled around and I was right back in Red Deer doing another open mic. Three days. 3 stages. Three reminders that stand-up comedy still feels like home to me. People sometimes ask why I keep doing comedy. Because I love it. Simple as that. Sure, getting paid here and there is nice. I’m not going to pretend gas stations accept “exposure” as currency yet. But the real reward has always been the laughter, the connection, and that feeling of standing on stage knowing I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be.

Am I a superstar comedian? Not even close. But the passion is still there. Honestly, it might even be stronger now than when I started. Now it’s time for a short little stand-up comedy siesta until April 11th when I head back to Calgary for FunnyFest. This will be my third year competing in the festival, and somehow, every single year, I’ve managed to make the Top 10. Could this finally be the year I win? We’ll find out. Either way, I already know one thing for sure. I’m going to have fun.

And thank you for continuing to follow this strange, wonderful comedy journey with me. Also please subscribe to my new home online here on SubStack. Currently, I am in the process of moving all my original posts from my previous Website. I only send out 1 email per week on Sundays with 1 blog I really want you to read. Sometimes when you come back, there might be other blogs you were not alerted of because I don't want to be that person that emailed you about everything. Cheers!

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Take care everybody. From your blind comedian

J.R. Bjornson AKA Blind Guy Comedy.

the computer was meant to help me type all my work out and print it off with a simple printer.

Then, a friend of mine told me about a website called Facebook, and that is where it all began. Facebook was created in 2004, originally just for people at one specific university, before it opened up to the rest of the world for anyone 13 or older. My friend told me I could play fun little games on there like FarmVille, or take care of virtual aquarium fish. That is where my social media career started. I would post all my fun, random, introspective thoughts for my friends to see. And when I met the love of my life, I sent her a relationship request which, back in the day, apparently made it official. Looking back, that should have been our first clue that social networks were going to take over our lives.

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Around 2008, I signed up for a video-sharing website called YouTube. Their slogan was “YouTube: Broadcast Yourself.” And boy, did I ever broadcast my personality. I shared my thoughts, fun memories, and random little dances with my friends. I even shared videos of my buddy Ryan, whose ultimate goal in life was to become a famous pro wrestler. Although most of those videos have since been removed because I’m ashamed of my younger self I really had no filter back then, meaning I shared way too much I absolutely loved YouTube.

Around 2009 or 2010 I can’t quite remember, it was a long time ago I joined Instagram. It allowed you to share photos of your experiences, and back then, every photo had a Polaroid-like look to it. You remember Polaroid cameras, right? Instant development right in front of your eyes in two minutes or less.

Then, around 2016, I dabbled with Snapchat, but I never fully got behind it because my phone battery paid a dramatic price.

By 2020, I started my TikTok journey, where I have now amassed over 53,000 followers. On that platform, you can still see my free spirit of randomness, and I even post comedy clips of my stand-up performances.

But today, I am having one of those days where I question myself. Why do I do social media? Why do I continue pushing out clips of myself every single day?

The truth is… I do it because through the power of exposure, it pays some of the bills. It allows me to let my audience know where I am performing next. It allows me to keep pursuing the dream of sharing my random thoughts and ideas with anyone who is willing to listen.

But all of this can become quite exhausting over time. You put yourself into this loop where you feel like you have to share anything and everything on your mind just to match your comedy career, your motivational speaking, or even something as simple as trying out new food. It becomes overwhelming, and today, I am overwhelmed.

If I stop, I lose exposure. If I stop, somebody else takes my place.

Will I ever quit social media? Maybe, but I wouldn’t quit in the traditional sense where I’d never come back. If the day comes where I land a normal-paying job, I would definitely step back and not go out of my way to post as much as I do these days. I write this blog post to remind myself and others that we shouldn’t always feel pressured to post. It is okay to step back. It is okay to only post on Sundays.

I am currently going through a major change in my online life. I have finally decided that I no longer need a dedicated, expensive website to host all my things. I just need one dedicated place where I don’t have to pay massive fees, where I can just be myself, and where I can reach all my followers, fans, and friends.

Hence, why I am moving everything over to SubStack.

I am a little bit late to the party, but this is going to be my new online home. Unlike traditional social media, I won’t have to work myself to the bone trying to post something every single day, because only the people who genuinely love what I am doing will follow and subscribe here.

The one thing that Facebook, Instagram, Threads, and YouTube all have in common is algorithms. Everything is driven by algorithms, and it is exhausting. If you don’t play their game and constantly make eye-catching videos, you get left behind. Even managing my Blind Guy Comedy experience page on Facebook feels pointless some days, because Facebook expects me to pay actual money just to get my posts seen when I’m promoting upcoming comedy shows. That is no way to live.

At least here, in our new home, my audience knows exactly where I’m going to be, where I’m telling jokes, and what is on my mind.

Yes, social media is heavy, but there comes a time when you have to protect your time and effort, and put it into a platform that actually gets you.

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AI is the ultimate accessibility tool that we have at our fingertips. Imagine not being able to see very well, having to rely on family and friends all the time, and always having to ask for help. Then one day, artificial intelligence shows up and your life changes. You are able to walk to the local coffee shop, not asking a person to help you across the road, but now asking artificial intelligence if it sees the name of the coffee shop on the building or an adjacent sign. Imagine leaning on a tool to help you write better emails and not worrying about over-explaining due to your attention deficit hyperactivity mind.

Currently, I use Gemini for most of my daily activities when needing help or a second opinion. It’s great, and it comes with my existing Google subscription. I was using ChatGPT for a little bit, but once I found out Gemini came with my Google subscription, I migrated. The other day I was looking for a local coffee shop and bakery in my little city, Sweet Capones. I was craving “The Grandfather” meatball sub, and thanks to Gemini, I was able to find the shop. They didn’t have my sub that day, so I will go back later next week! My wife is currently in America visiting her family, so I have been at home taking care of our five children. Thanks to AI, I have been able to make sure the house doesn’t get too messy and ensure that I am cooking food correctly. Truly, it is great to be alive in 2026 and have a visual impairment, thanks to the accessibility of artificial intelligence.

Running a Business as a Blind Comedian

As a blind stand-up comedian, I run my own company called BLINDGUYCOMEDY.COM. Thanks to artificial intelligence, I have been able to come up with many different types of business strategies to ensure I am getting the best out of running a small business. It helps me map out content strategies, like what videos I should make next, where I should perform, how to better sell my worth to potential clients, and most of all, how to better organize my invoices and receipts when it comes to good old Canadian tax season.

I am also a small social media influencer with just over 53,000 followers on TikTok—a badge I wear proudly. Even though I have not made a massive income through TikTok in Canada, I definitely make enough that most people are happy for me! (Live streaming is a highly recommended source of income on TikTok, if anybody is wondering.)

Artificial intelligence is great for organizing strategies, building content ideas, and running your company properly. It’s like having an assistant who went to college, but you should still always do your own backup research. One thing that is a constant reminder to myself is that we have to emphasize that AI is not, in any sense, the number one way to solely run your business. Artificial intelligence is more of a place to bounce ideas off of with the right prompts. Under no circumstance is AI meant to be another employee or a business partner; it’s just another way for you to research, brainstorm, and spitball things you might be interested in doing before actually doing it. Otherwise, AI is like that weird guy who randomly shares way too much information.

The Trap of Over-Reliance

As incredible as AI is, we have to remember not to become so heavily reliant on it that we can no longer think for ourselves. What would happen if there was a worldwide outage? What would happen if we lost the ability to use artificial intelligence one day?

Imagine a worst-case scenario: someone is pretending to be a software developer, but they are secretly using AI to write all their programs. What if one day their access to artificial intelligence is taken away? They would inevitably lose their job because they have no idea how to be a properly educated programmer on their own.

We are never meant to fully rely on artificial intelligence. It is always encouraging to continue doing your own research. Once we start letting AI research everything for us, we have already lost the battle. I remember in high school having to do my own research and citing articles when handing in finished research papers, essays, and reports. Never ever fully rely on any type of technology, because as people, we get lazy once we know we have a system that easily works for us.

It’s like what my teacher said back in grade 7: if you always use a calculator, you will never fully remember how to do a math equation by yourself. It’s great that we have the calculator to help us, but we should still do our own work to ensure the math actually checks out.

The Bicycle for the Mind

Here are my closing thoughts from a friendly blind comedian who uses AI for accessibility purposes: Artificial intelligence is a bicycle, and we are the pedals. If you want the bicycle to go faster, you pedal more. But with AI, we don’t want to just coast and rely on it completely. Instead, we have to remember to do research on our own. AI is not a “one-and-done” scenario. You yourself should still do as much research and as much work as you humanly can. Once we stop doing things for ourselves, it’s really hard to return to being truly independent.

Closing Thoughts

I love AI, but I still write my own ideas. The only alteration I did to this blog was ask an AI if my punctuation was correct! You can always tell when someone uses AI to write their entire blog because of those robotic, common writing tones they use. You know the ones: “I hope this email finds you well, dear subscriber...” or “In today’s fast-paced digital landscape...” I hope everybody has an incredible, safe upcoming week! I will be writing more blogs like this, preferably on Sundays, as that is usually when I have two hours to sit down in front of my computer. Some blogs will be about the comedy journey, some will be about the stay-at-home dad life, and most blogs will just be about my awesome little blind life.

🚀 Re