viafrank:

Hair illustration by David Penela

Our pal CoCo is in an interesting spot, isn’t he?

His show is through, and whatever he chooses to do next is going to have a massive amount of momentum behind it. His fans are rallied.

But his fans are also a bit of an enigma. For the most part, they’re between 20 and 40, and I’d venture to say post-big-media. The paradox is that Conan has a television show (well, used to), but I bet that Conan fans, for the most part, don’t watch television. (At least, not on television.)

Could Conan be the first major media figure to jump ship on television and embrace the internet as a distribution platform? Could Conan go indie?

Sure, this is incredibly unlikely. But, the guy’s got a large amount of capital through his payout, a desire to do things his way, and a captive audience willing to embrace a new way to connect with a comedian they admire. Who better to scorn big media than its latest victim?

Sure, it won’t happen. But, it seems like an important milestone to say that this is the first moment that something like this could happen.