Clara Cupcakes: the 10 funniest things I have ever seen (on the internet)

Nailing down my 10 funniest internet lovers was a cruel and arduous task. If only they could battle it out for my love, Russell-Crowe-in-Gladiator-style, until bloody and adrenaline-fuelled, the mightiest 10 emerging from the carnage like my own personal Avengers team.

I’ve made this sound like it’s going to be a sexy time when this is in fact a list of extremely stupid and specific things. Maybe you will find it sexy, which means you are most likely a traumatised, millennial, oldest daughter of a boomer, and if that is the case I’m sorry, you’re welcome.

1. Ben Russell in We Interrupt This Broadcast

Ben Russell’s line at 17 seconds into this sketch from We Interrupt This Broadcast is something I now say to myself often when cooking in the kitchen. Ben is one of the funniest comedians in Australia and I’m endlessly in awe of his character work. It’s so nice to see him with a gig on the telly so everyone gets to see how good he is.

2. Joby the dog

This clip runs the full gambit of emotions that you feel owning a dog. Joby is a beautiful, precious angel who does not mind anybody but does know how to maximise his time at the beach. It’s funny, it’s poetic, it’s moving. The journey of Joby’s owner from pride to horror is engrossingly relatable. We truly do not deserve dogs. Especially Joby.

3. Hairy Soul Man – I’m So Depressed

An absolutely underrated musical comedian, artist and film-maker. All his clips are amazing, but the music in this one is phenomenal and tackles tricky subjects with humour. It’s all real-time animated in camera with cardboard puppet pieces and humans in morph suits. Mindbogglingly good.

4. Zoe Bread on TikTok

Hands down my favourite internet weirdo. Zoë Bread AKA Mary has one of those brains that makes mine itch. They live and breathe commitment to the bit in a way I could never imagine and the turnover of content Zoë puts out is incredible.

5. Julio Torres’s My Favourite Shapes

From the second this special started, I was in love. Props, costumes, music and shapes – Julio Torres’s My Favourite Shapes is criminally underrated. The specificity of the jokes is perfection. Julio has also written some of my favourite SNL sketches like “Wells for Boys” and “Sectionals”. He is iconic.

6. Patti Harrison writes a Dua Lipa song

I feel like every second person who has done these lists has included Patti Harrison, which is fair because she is glorious. Her song for Dua Lipa is pitch-perfect. I don’t remember birthdays of my family, but I remember every word to this song.

7. Dame Barbara Cartland v Jackie Collins

If you don’t know who Dame Barbara Cartland is, welcome to your latest rabbit warren of internet madness. Very rich, supremely confident and in a league of her own, Dame Babs is the prolific author of more than 500 terrible romance books. Her calling out fellow pulp peddler Jackie Collins to her face in this incredible interview is astonishing and delicious.

8. Maggie Gyllenhaal and Peter Sarsgaard’s Architectural Digest Tour

The fact that this is not satire is amazing. This is 100% proof that being very famous rots your brain.

9. FaveTiktoks420

Do you like hot people on the internet being awkward? So do I, which is why the first thing I look at in the morning is usually Favetiktoks420 (and their backup account Favetiktoks69). My therapist thinks it’s a problem but jokes on them: I don’t need a therapist when I have a curated feed trough of beautiful idiots being weirdly sexual in short-form videos.

10. The hotdog sketch from I Think You Should Leave

This is a perfect piece of comedy. No notes, chefs kiss, ring-a-ding-ding.