“We Need Some New Juice”: Abbi Jacobson on Marriage, Traffic, and Democrats

When an old clip from Broad City went viral on TikTok last month—”In da clerb, we all fam,” goes the audio—Zoomers rediscovered en masse one of the defining television comedies of the 2010s. Abbi Jacobson and Ilana Glazer happened to be together in New York as the trend ripped through the world wide web, prompting variations by everyone from Kamala Harris and Usher to Charli xcx and Troye Sivan. “I saw it all,” Jacobson told us earlier this month. “It’s wild and I loved it.” While her comedy legacy is firmly cemented, Jacobson has kept busy with a host of new projects, from A League of Their Own, the 2022 Prime series she wrote, co-created, and starred in, to No Good Deed, a Netflix dark comedy with an all-star cast that follows the prospective buyers of an old Los Angeles home before discovering some of the property’s longstanding secrets. Before the show’s premiere next month, we asked Jacobson to take the hot seat for this week’s Rorschach Test, in which she sounds off on everything from skinny jeans and women’s sports to Williamsburg and Hanukkah.

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MARRIAGE

“Guess what? Marriage is fucking great. It’s a deeper commitment. It’s also really sexy.”

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ELON MUSK

“If aliens were to come to Earth and we were like, ‘Let’s show them our best and our worst,’ he would be among the five worst. When I think about how terrible and evil humans can be, his face pops up. And now Elon Musk is going to come after me.”

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CROWD WORK

“That’s something I would never attempt to do.”

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SKINNY JEANS

“I went through a big skinny jeans era, as they would say. I don’t know what I was doing. And I don’t think they’re flattering on me.”

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“IN DA CLERB, WE ALL FAM”

“I saw it all. It’s wild and I loved it. Ilana [Glazer] and I got a kick out of it and it was insane who ended up doing it. [Robert] De Niro did it. Kamala did it with Usher. I was like, What!?”

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TRAFFIC

“Traffic in L.A, is a norm, but traffic in New York gets me so much more pissed. It just feels like you’re stuck. Two years ago, I surprised my wife this whole trip to go to Hudson from Brooklyn for her birthday and I chose the day of the New York Marathon. I’m surprised we’re still together.”

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WILLIAMSBURG

“I always yearned to live there in my early twenties and I couldn’t afford it. Now I avoid it at all costs.”

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LYING

“I’m not a fan of lying and I don’t think I am particularly good at it.”

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DEMOCRATS

“I think we need some reinventing. I think we need some new juice.”

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HANUKKAH

“My parents were big art supply gifters, which I’m so thankful for, and a lot of that comes back to my Hanukkah gifts. Day one through seven was always some art supplies, and then day eight was usually a little bit bigger of a gift. So the real meaning of Hanukkah for me is art supplies.”

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ART SCHOOL

“Super privileged and fucking incredible.”

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FILLER

“I don’t love to judge. But sometimes, stuff like that can affect what young folks see as the beauty norm. I often think of my nieces and what they look at online. So, two things can be true.”

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WOMEN’S SPORTS

“Yes, please.”

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LENA DUNHAM

“A voice of our generation.”

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QUEERBAITING

“I don’t love it as a queer person. But then there’s a part of me that’s like, if people are queerbaiting, it means that they’re recognizing it’s something they want to attract.”

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