Long Island comedian Mark Dhaniram weighs in how Patrice O’Neal’s death is already being felt on the comedy world:

Patrice was a model of how beautiful that journey for truth can be. Many people attempt to go down the road Patrice went down, ending up victims of a soul-crushing industry. It takes a person of strong character, motivation, and integrity to walk down that road and make it out on the other side. Most importantly, it takes someone who is truly funny. When I saw a comic like Patrice O’Neal, it showed me that the business can make you suffer, but you didn’t have to let it steal your livelihood. You could exist as that lone voice who spoke for funny and nothing else. No comic in his right mind thinks he can be Patrice O’Neal, nor Doug Stanhope, nor Louis C.K. But the fact that they exist as a whole is an image towards young comics that honesty and originality can still be your motivation.

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