‘Amanda Seales: I Be Knowin’ On HBO: Not For The ‘Insecure’ Folks, But Rather, About Them

In the early 2010s, HBO focused on very particular types of Girls: Young, white, privileged, hipster.

By the end of the decade, the not-TV cable network has not only diversified but also grown up, including the Insecure Issa Rae, the 2 Dope Queens Jessica Williams and Phoebe Robinson, and coming soon, A Black Lady Sketch Show starring Robin Thede. At the center of the Venn diagram for these three shows, you’ll find one Amanda Seales.

Seales has released her first stand-up comedy special, I Be Knowin’.

You likely already know or recognize her, though, for the 37-year-old has enjoyed a variety of roles over the course of her young adulthood. Starting as a teen on Nickelodeon’s My Brother and Me, to 20-year-old slam poet on HBO’s Def Poetry Jam, to “VJ Amanda Diva” on MTV2, to one-half of R&B duo Floetry, to stand-up comedian and TV host, from the refined Tiffany on Insecure to the host of live show “Smart, Funny and Black,” which tours college campuses.

Seales certainly be knowin’ her audience. After an intro Insta-story style into her phone as she walks backstage, describing who I Be Knowin’ is and is not for, Seales commands the stage and commands her audience’s attention throughout the hour, with multiple call and responses and a full annotated interpretation of the Black National Anthem. Whereas Roy Wood Jr., jokes about our National Anthem and the racial divisions Colin Kaepernick exposed within it, Seales goes blacker and deeper into the roots of our division.

While Rae’s Insecure started as an exploration of an awkward black woman trying to fit into mainstream society, Seales in her stand-up flips the focus to the insecurities of white people, even creating a subcategory of them for “people who happen to be white.” Her stand-up isn’t for the insecure folks; it’s about them. Seales is comfortable in her own skin, and speaks for women like her.

Of course, Seales still can find brief moments of insecurity in her own daily existence. Which all could be fixed by installing a gay man in her mirror.

I Be Knowin’ can feel as much like going to church or a pep rally as it can feel like a night out at the comedy club.

But when Seales is testifying, you just want to keep hearing her preach.

Sean L. McCarthy works the comedy beat for his own digital newspaper, The Comic’s Comic; before that, for actual newspapers. Based in NYC but will travel anywhere for the scoop: Ice cream or news. He also tweets @thecomicscomic and podcasts half-hour episodes with comedians revealing origin stories: The Comic’s Comic Presents Last Things First.

Watch Amanda Seales: I Be Knowin' on HBO NOW