Inside Your Amy Schumer Crush

One Saturday night last July, I was at the Comedy Cellar implicitly to try my luck. The place had been packed basically since the first time the opening credits of Louie rolled, and the crowds kept piling up, many of whom came after hearing that a friend of a friend caught an unannounced set by Aziz or Chapelle. Almost every comedy club in New York does this, but the Cellar has become the epicenter of the unexpected. That night, Judd Apatow showed. He was better than you’d predict — after all, he has a few other gigs. He explained that he was in New York doing one: filming a new movie with Amy Schumer. And I remember distinctly thinking: “Oh, cool, a new Judd Apatow movie.”

A year later, the script has been flipped. It’s not just a “new Amy Schumer movie” that arrives this week — Trainwreck — it’s a constant Schumer pop culture tsunami that is smashing into your inboxes on the hour. (Schumer also just wrapped up a triumphant, bawdy season of her Comedy Central show, Inside Amy Schumer, last week.) She is everywhere. Look around: Right about now is the time you’ve been forwarded enough “2015 is the year of Amy Schumer” photospreads, think pieces, and interviews that you feel like you’re going to need an brobdingnagian glass of wine to weather the onslaught.

Almost everything that could be said about the woman has been said. So, let’s say some more. She is exceedingly easy to root for: hilarious, confident, outrageous, self-deprecating, earnest. All of that might just add up to staying power. What it definitely does is make her a celebrity crush, as atypical but complete as they come. Let us count the ways why.

Looks are off the table. Most guys go for the superficial out of the gate, but Amy won’t let us. She may look beautiful bopping her head down the streets of Manhattan in the Inside interludes, but she doesn’t care. Surface-level ideologies have been made absurd and irrelevant by Schumer, culminating in her 12 Angry Men-inspired skit this year.

She’s not afraid to take it to the ladies, either. If you’ve ever felt like the fairer sex is doing something you don’t quite understand — OMG women totally are from Venus — so does Amy. Her first season masterstroke, “Compliments,” takes female phoniness to its nadir. And it’s wonderful.

She’s so damn dirty. When’s the last time your girlfriend or wife told you a really nasty joke? Like upright-bonk-in-an-alley filthy? Or even just dropped the c-word? Or texted Katie Couric’s husband for anal? We’ll call it the Jennifer Lawrence Effect: She’s a woman whom you don’t necessarily want to take home to mom, which makes you want to take her home to mom. Schumer is the kind of gal who will make the boys’ locker room barf. She would make “The Aristocrats” untouchable. Weird thing, when a person talks about sex. You start to think about sex.

She’s insightful. Nothing gets by her, no matter how racy she gets. And there’s an overarching sense that she’s unlike most of the people you’ve met before — she just happens to have female genitalia. She will bust your balls, give a helluva wedding speech, watch the show you picked and—goddammit—she will dress up like Princess Leia. Yes, her comedy is glorified often because she brings a dude-friendly bent. And, yes, it might be twisted that the basis of her sexual appeal is rooted in such behavior. Still, I bet she’d let you fart in bed and then would laugh about it later. Don’t know about you, but I’ve had crushes on celebs for much less.