The laughter of live crowds is actually a more egalitarian metric than is approval from gatekeepers in late-night television or Hollywood. It’s also more amoral, because we often laugh at things we aren’t supposed to: tragedy, tastelessness, violence. It might be that part of the reason audiences like heckling — or at least loudly respond to it — is the threat of looming disaster.

When an audience member heckles, it makes me anxious.

Perhaps it's that threat of looming disaster.