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Very few comedians are able to play New York's enormous Madison Square Garden, an arena that seats up to 20,000 people. It's a short list, one that includes Andrew Dice Clay, Dane Cook, Chris Rock, and, more recently, Russell Peters and Kevin Hart. When he was just starting out as a young comic, I can't imagine Aziz Ansari ever expected he'd be part of that very exclusive club.

And, yet, here we are.


In the Fall of 2014, Ansari sold out the Garden as part of his "Modern Romance" tour, and that concert has been turned into his new stand-up special Aziz Ansari: Live at Madison Square Garden. It's his second special to debut exclusively on Netflix following 2013's Buried Alive and showcases the comic's continuing growth and maturity. 

Like on his last special, Live at Madison Square Garden finds Ansari primarily discussing relationships -- what it's like to be single and/or dating in the modern era of social media and everyone's lives being on public display. He shares that he has been in a long-term relationship for over a year, and it has affected the way he talks about love and dating. Despite the ease of communication these days, Ansari posits that we are worse than ever at actually communicating. To prove his point, at one point he has a random woman from the audience come up to the stage and reads her recent texts aloud. It's a great, spontaneous moment and fits in perfectly with what Ansari is talking about.

There are no stories about hanging out with Kanye West, no R. Kelly anecdotes, no Randy from Funny People. Whether it was his intention or not, Ansari's comedy used to feel somewhat isolating -- it was all about his awesome life hanging out with famous people and being famous. Between Buried Alive and Live at Madison Square Garden, Ansari's approach has become much more inclusive. Rather than just sharing funny stories that have happened to him as a result of his position, Ansari is embracing the universality of what it means to be of a certain age in America right now. Even the first third of Madison Square Garden, about what it is like to be the child of immigrants who suffered and sacrificed so that their kids could have ridiculously easy lives, is about speaking to a generation and not just about privileges afforded him by celebrity. His comedy is about shared experiences and big observations. Watching that progression of the course of three stand-up specials has been interesting.

The change in Ansari's style is, I'm sure, organic, but also a necessary one. When he released his first album, 2010's Intimate Moments for a Sensual Evening, the charm was how wound up and excitable he was about pretty much everything -- like a child might be. This was not a mistake. But as he continues to age and develop as a comic and builds up an even larger fan base -- and the fact that he's selling out Madison Square Garden suggests he doesn't have much room to get bigger -- that persona just won't work anymore. He has to mature, and he has. Live at Madison Square Garden doesn't suffer in the translation to the enormous venue, either. Ansari controls the crowd, he controls the stage and keeps his act personal and intimate. He's come a long, long way.