jestermaxxing

why so serious

everyone knows the feeling of telling a joke and getting no response. no one likes it. it’s the feeling of losing. or worse, telling a joke and knowing that you’re getting pity laughs. but  what makes a joke funnier than others? in my opinion, here’s the criteria for an actually good joke.

MATERIAL. it’s the crux/the meat. if you don’t have good material, you’re gonna get pity laughs. material comes in all kinds of forms. current or historical events: 9/11, charlie kirk, dudes getting hazed in a basement; whatever other edgy subject that can be used for shock value. important: remember who your audience is and consider the timeliness/relevancy. another way to get material is to build off previous bits. when you’re at a party, bits will start to naturally form no matter what the activity is: watching a movie, playing a game, etc. listen to the bits and don’t forget them. simply repeating a bit like “so-and-so was late again” is a little lazy. you can do better than that. there is room for creativity. if you can connect bits or subvert the audience’s expectations, you’re transforming the bit and adding layers to it, which improves the odds of your joke. bad example but “they hit the 6th or 7th tower” is one that i’ve used before. the final way i can think of is playing into your character. if people think you’re racist, be racist (friendly fire only obviously). if you’re bald, own it. if you’re shy and timid, be shy and timid and find your window of opportunity.

THE REST. after coming up with material, you’ve done the hard part. there are just a few things left to remember. 

timing. are you a rusher? or are you a dragger? make sure the room is silent so everyone is paying attention and listening, but don’t wait too long and overcook it. and if you think of a joke too late and past the window of opportunity, that ship has sailed. remember it though, because you might have the chance to bring it up again throughout the conversation.

execution. don’t trip up or think about the joke too hard. if it’s a one liner, the wording doesn’t need to be perfect, and as soon as you stutter, your audience loses interest.

build-up. your joke should be unpredictable and have an element of surprise.

comedians master all of these skills, but i think there’s one thing setting them apart from professionals: professionals are original. current events and cartoonish characters are easy ways to make people laugh. however, there’s one thing holding those methods back: they’re reactive. they require previous material to be formed before you can transform it. essentially, you’re always relying on something else happening before you can capitalize on it, which can become a crutch. the absolute funniest jokes are 100% farm to table no additives fresh original ideas. learned this from a podcast with Ryan Higa. if you don’t know who Ryan is, he once held the record for most subscribers under the channel “nigahiga” and paved the way for today’s YouTube comedy sketches. In the episode, they talked about Beta state vs. Alpha state. in Beta state, you’re constantly reacting without creating, whereas Alpha state is constantly creating without outside influence. This is what good comedians do. they tell stories. they paint pictures. they create narratives. they’re original. why does everyone hate crowdwork? because they don’t care about a dude reacting to what random person in the crowd said; they want what the comedian created themselves. coming up with original ideas is harder, but will also hit way harder. 

as for me, i think im a kinda funny person for my age. all of my jokes stem from something happening and me reacting; it’s easy once you memorize setups and have a little creativity. but i long to come up with original ideas for comedy. my favorite podcast, The Yard (the diaper podcast) definitely taught me at least a little bit on how to be funny and influenced my sense of humor.  

what’s cool about being funny is that it’s absolutely learnable even if you weren’t born funny. i really do believe that there are layers to this shit and that comedians are worth that fucking much. to have an entire room under your control and have them laugh at basically whatever you say is extremely powerful. and i haven’t even talked about physical comedy. even though i have so much to learn (young people in general don’t know how to be actually funny, it takes age and experience), i love making people laugh. it’s a high like no other. the feeling of making people spit out their food or water is like if you got your a+ math quiz back and it gave you head. i’ll talk more about being funny in future blog posts. lmk what you think. sorry for the long post.