It was a struggle for a long time. My parents were rightly cautious, in the sense that they were like, "We want you to do what you want to do. We just also want you to not have to sleep on an air mattress for the rest of your life." What was beneficial for me was that I did everything I could to let them be a part of my life and show them how seriously I took comedy. This is my way of helping people and contributing something to society, and I'm doing everything I can to be as funny as possible without embarrassing them. They're proud now.

It's really awful, the rhetoric that's becoming part of the national discourse, but when it has such an ugly headline - that's what activated a group of people that was otherwise complacent to go, "Hey, I'm going down to the airport, and I'm going to hold hands in solidarity around Muslims in the arrival section of the airport." That's why I've made a choice to be so public about my position.

I'm very, very specific about sneakers. I've always been a fan. It's not just certain brands, it's also the model of the shoe, the cut of the shoe, the colorway of the shoe. Someone will say, "Hey, this is the Air Jordan this." And I'm like, "Yeah, but that's not as rare as this Air Jordan, in this colorway." It gets very specific - it's the make, the model, the colorway. As a kid, I always wanted to have sneakers, but I didn't always get the ones that I wanted. So now, I'm reliving my childhood through my feet.

I try to look at it like an angry optimist. In other words, I'm not happy with the state of affairs that we have. The rise of nationalism under the guise of patriotism is so effed up, and underneath this banner of "patriotism" is the worst of nationalist rhetoric: racism, xenophobia, sexism, pitting communities against each other, implicitly inciting race wars and stuff like that. So that's the angry part of it, but I'm incredibly optimistic about the potential to redefine what it means to be a "patriotic American" .

The Daily Show is one of the lowest-rated shows in the state of Alabama, so we decided to reach across the aisle and do a collection of field pieces about Alabama - to increase awareness of the show there, but also to learn about the politics, culture, and religion in Alabama.

Be as honest with yourself as possible, and try to make friends with people who like you for you - not an iteration of who you are, or who you think you should be - but really like you for you. And when you're creating whatever you want to do in your life, just try to create and put out the truest version of yourself into the world.

It was a struggle for a long time. My parents were rightly cautious, in the sense that they were like, "We want you to do what you want to do. We just also want you to not have to sleep on an air mattress for the rest of your life." What was beneficial for me was that I did everything I could to let them be a part of my life and show them how seriously I took comedy. This is my way of helping people and contributing something to society, and I'm doing everything I can to be as funny as possible without embarrassing them. They're proud now.