Comedienne, author, singer, and social media superstar Heather Land rolls into town on Oct. 27th for a one-night-only engagement of stand-up and hilarious stories at the Capitol Theatre. For Land, spending time in Macon is a welcome and refreshing pitstop on a whirlwind tour.
“Every time I come to Georgia, it’s like being home…and I’m definitely an Allman Brothers fan!” she told The Creek.
Known best for her cheeky and direct “I Ain’t Doin’ It” viral videos, which have earned more than 300 million views, Land is a breath of fresh air in the often highly filtered and scripted social media landscape. She’s the woman you wish you could drink a margarita with and go to for relationship advice laced with the perfect balance of honesty and biting, southern wit.
But before the views and likes started rolling in, Land was like so many caught between a rock and a hard place in life, and not in a season where complete transformation would be an easy feat. A divorce in her 40s turned her plans around and left the mother of two on a much different path than the one she’d planned. For fun and healing purposes, Land began recording her wildly entertaining videos, but only for the eyes of her close girlfriends, with zero intentions of sharing them with the world.
But sometimes, our friends know best—they also know just how to push our buttons, too, which was true for Land.
“I posted one on a dare. Because, you know, I’m a mature woman in my forties, and we take dares,” she wisecracked like a seasoned pro.
“I thought it was embarrassing,” she went on to share. “The filter was ugly, but I really didn’t care. I’d gone through a divorce. I’ve got nothing to lose at this point. I didn’t even know that I’d said, ‘I Ain’t Doing It.’ That’s how detached I was from this whole thing.”
Turns out, her girlfriends were right.
“I started it on a Wednesday morning. That night, the video was at 100,000 views. A month to the day, it hit one million. Then, two months to the day, it hit 2 million and I was faced with quite a conundrum. People thought I was a comedienne and wanted me to come do shows everywhere,” she revealed.
“I told my girlfriend, ‘I’m not a comedienne.’ She said, ‘Yeah, you kind of are, you just don’t get paid for it. You wanna try?’”
What happened next is perhaps the perfect illustration of a total leap of faith.
“I quit my job and went on the road, me and her! She was a home-school mom of four kids and she was like, ‘Yeah, I wanna go! I haven’t worked in a long time, let’s hit the road.’ And here we are on the radio.”
Both Land’s videos and her stand-up aren’t afraid to go there, especially when it comes to women and the issues that bring unique challenges to them that are mostly swept under the rug and not openly discussed. Divorce, menopause, hair loss, heartbreak, why leggings should not be considered pants—no topic is off limits.
Having the guts to say the quiet part out loud is what has given Land not only the opportunity to encourage and help others but also to help herself.
“I think sometimes when your back is against the wall and you’ve gone through a major event—for me it was divorce and moving back to my little town that I swore I’d never move home to—you really see what you’re made of,” she said.
“I thought, ‘What do I have to lose? So, I fail and it doesn’t work. I had a marriage that failed and here we are. I’m making it fine.’ I think age helps. I think once you get on up there, you develop this attitude.”
“It gives you a little push into the next season.”
This current season of Land’s life and career has been a happy and prosperous one. She’s currently touring the country with her stand-up and has released both a full album of original music and her second book, “A Perfect Ten: The Truth About Things I’m Not and Never Will Be.” While the temptation for many would be to throw themselves into this success and milk every opportunity for every single thing it’s worth without thought or consideration, Land says her priority as of late has been simply enjoying the ride and trusting the process.
“I still say, ‘I wonder if this is going to work?’ I tell my husband, ‘I wonder if I’m going to have a job next year?’ And I still have a job next year. I think I’m always living in a state of ‘Is this real? Is this my life? Is this going to sustain itself?’ I had to get to a point where I learned to trust the process. It took me three years to even call myself a comedienne,” she revealed.
“I always said, ‘Ehh, I’m not a comedienne, guys, I’m just funny sometimes.’ But the truth is, that attitude has really helped me hold it loosely and I think that’s been a blessing for me. I know that it could all end tomorrow or go on for another ten years. There’s someone else in charge of my life and I kind of like it that way.”
For now, she’ll keep on trucking. The reward of bringing visibility, awareness, and of course, ridiculous laughter to her fans is worth every ounce of uncertainty that may come along.
“When people say, ‘Thank you, you really helped me through a dark time’ or sometimes, they’ll say, ‘I’ve never said this out loud or I’ve never told anybody’—those things get my goat. I love hearing women become empowered. The hope is that I tell a story that empowers them and then they go out and tell a story that empowers somebody else.”
Heather Land takes the stage at the Capitol Theatre Oct. 27, 2023, at 8 PM. Tickets are still available and can be purchased here.