how to get funnier

(upbeat instrumental music)

- [Shannon] Self-improvement-style advice

is often a bunch of useless
platitudes and nonsense

peddled by people who just want money.

And it's even worse online
with clickbait listicles

and the YouTube video version
of clickbait listicles.

Or at least that was certainly
my experience when Googling,

how to be funny or how to get funnier.

Either you get weird sociopathic
woo-woo pickup artist.

- What's up?

This is Will Powers from Evolution of Man.

And what I want to talk to you about today

is high-status humor

or what I like to call, prize frame humor.

- [Shannon] Trick people into liking you

or trick women into thinking you're funny

so they'll sleep with you stuff.

- Hiya fellow Pinnacle Person.

So in this video you're
gonna learn exactly

a couple ways how to make a
girl roll over with laughter

and basically make her laugh
all the way to your bed.

- [Shannon] Or really, really
basic structural advice

on comedy, yes and, rule
of threes, or, y'know,

put down your phone, be
yourself, which isn't helpful.

There's a lot I want to
talk about in this video

but in the interest of
differentiating myself

from clickbait or stringing viewers along

before I get to my central thesis,

the central theory I've
concocted on the fastest way

to be funny, the fastest and
most direct way to get funnier,

I'm just going to say
it outright right now.

The fastest way to get funnier

is to put yourself in a
position where being funny

is rewarded and not
being funny is punished.

A lot of resources for being funnier,

especially specific resources
for improv or telling jokes

in conversation or for stand-up comedy,

look at comedy like a math problem

where you take an
established rule or format

and slot your own experiences

or observations into that formula.

Of course, if you're trying to be funny

it helps to learn the
established mechanics of comedy.

Especially with specific
comedic art forms or formats,

you should bare minimum
have an understanding

of what people before you figured out

the same way any narrative
filmmaker should at least know

what shot reverse shot
and a 180 degree rule are

even if they choose not to adhere to them.

This approach is certainly
helpful as a foundation.

But in my experience you
should look at comedy

the same way you would look at learning

a complicated language
or a series of different

though interconnected
complicated languages

whose communicability and
success are very subjective

and dependent on audience
rather than as a checklist

or a chart or a math problem
or as some objective puzzle

you solve and then become the
crowned king of subversion.

I don't speak French and, yeah,

I'd learn some French through
Duolingo or French classes

at a college or online, but
if I wanted to be fluent,

the quickest shortcut
is to go to a country

where people speak French and force myself

to speak to people and to learn
the language to get around

and function and try to
interact with a society

that is fluent in this language.

And deal with my own
failures in learning it

as they exist as a barrier in interaction,

which is perhaps a more intense motivator

than a bad grade or a green cartoon owl.

To me that's the difference

between having an encyclopedic
knowledge of joke formats

and memorizing every
Carlin or whoever bit,

and writing all your jokes in a vacuum

with just you yourself or you

and all the people who already like you

and will only ever laugh and support you,

versus actually going out
and performing stand-up

night after night to a bar
full of apathetic drunks

and feeling intensely which
jokes work and which jokes bomb

and then obsessively tweaking
them night after night

and hanging around other stand-up comics

who are sometimes
vicious and bitter people

who are very withholding
of laughter and validation

and trying to get along
with them and fit in.

Try being unfunny in that environment

and see how it makes you feel.

I think my answer to the
question of how to be funny

is a very ugly and unpleasant answer.

It might not be good for
you as a human being.

It might not develop
healthy interpersonal traits

and in fact it can do the opposite.

Like with a lot of other
art and performance,

you might sacrifice other
aspects of yourself for it.

It's not healthy to invest your self-worth

in the approval of an
audience or of your peers,

especially approval based
on laughter response,

but that's the shortcut.

And as far as I can tell, every
funny person I've ever known

has experienced some form of it.

I made fun of the self-help and
creepy pickup artist aspects

of being funny, but there's
a lot of truth to the concept

of learning to be funny out of desperation

and lack of an alternative,
as a way to be liked,

whether by people you're attracted to

or by people generally, and
as a way to get attention

and validation you don't get elsewhere,

and as a way to avoid violence.

Making fun of yourself
before someone else can

as a defense mechanism or
using humor defensively

in an aggressive way or to
disarm a threat, break tension,

or de-escalate an intense situation.

You also don't have to
be funny to be liked.

There are so many other
things that are more valuable

in a person than being funny.

Kindness and empathy and
openness and flexibility

and vulnerability, that
can sometimes be lacking

in super funny people.

Humor can be a shortcut to
being liked and accepted,

and I've known people who are really funny

and fun to be around and riff with

but who aren't the best people.

Improv is collaborative,
filmmaking is collaborative,

any kind of collaborative art
is maybe going to be harder

to be successful at if you're
a total antisocial jerk

to people, but stand-up
is a very solitary art,

and there's so little incentive
for someone who is funny

and who is good at it to also
be a nice, empathetic person.

I'm not saying someone is
a good or better person

because they do improv versus
stand-up, that's absurd.

And I have so many friends
I love and respect who I met

when they were doing stand-up
and some of them still do it,

and while I have a
tremendous amount of respect

for accomplished improv comedians,

I actually prefer to watch stand-up

and prefer it as an art form,
in part because bad stand-up

as a singular five minutes at
a time at an open mic art form

is tolerable, but bad failed improv

because of the more vulnerable and sincere

and supportive collaborative
nature of it, is so bad,

it's like the worst thing
in the world to watch.

I'd cringe so hard and
feel so bad for people

and don't enjoy it whereas
with like open mic stand-up

it's like, okay, in three minutes

this will turn over to the next person.

A lot of current edgier comedians

and older "you can't joke
about anything anymore"

dinosaur comedians put too
much value on being funny

as the pinnacle of human
cultural achievement or something

in a really egomaniacal
way to shield themselves

from criticism or
introspection or evolution,

as if being funny is both static

and important above all else.

Such a noble and subversive cause

to tell hack rape jokes at an open mic.

You know, the content of the
joke, the impact of the joke,

what telling the joke
is doing to the comic,

whatever you are sacrificing
in yourself or in others

to get there, not just in offensive jokes,

but the strain of really personal
or self-deprecating jokes.

Not that they're all straining,
but the potential strain.

That doesn't matter, all that matters

to these people is being funny.

And they have their way to be
funny, this, masculine, mean,

unempathetic, aggressive
style focused on domination

and resistant to shifting cultural mores,

and that's what's funny.

For one, if you're really the
funniest person in the world,

pretending humor is some kind

of measurable objective quotient.

It's not an audience's fault

if they don't think you're funny,

especially if your
material panders to people

of your own belief set and
alienates everyone else.

If you think a cliched, hacky,
shallow pro-feminism joke

or Cheeto in chief anti-Trump
joke is virtue signaling

and bad comedy and the death of comedy

but you get on stage and tell a,

"there's too many genders now"
joke and think that's brave

and funny for no other reason

than because it reaffirms your beliefs

and upsets people you disagree with,

and when it bombs you lean
into it and say people

who criticize you are too
sensitive then you're deluded

on top of being unfunny
and having bad opinions.

And two, there being a time
and a place for everything

and always trying to have room
for context and for empathy

is such a foundational,
basic social etiquette.

One time several years
ago, I was hanging out with

some people who had just lost
a relative in a car accident.

We were at a party
playing Apples to Apples.

And one of the cards I got
dealt was, a car crash.

I'm 100% a morbid sicko
who finds jokes about grief

and death funny and in another game

I'm sure I could have found
a good use for that card.

But in that moment I felt
dread about the possibility

of even accidentally playing it.

Not only were the people
I was playing with

not sickos like me, they
took the game very literally

and probably wouldn't have
found that card funny anyway,

but even if the card combination
would have made me laugh

or made other people around laugh,

whatever I woulda gotten out of that

would not have been worth upsetting people

who just lost someone

But by the rule of like,
putting being funny first,

I should have shown those cucks

and made my car accident
joke and called them babies

who don't appreciate the
nuanced fine art of comedy

if they looked put off or upset

by me being massively disrespectful.

I was never, like, an
online bigot or harasser.

I never told anyone to kill themselves

or anything horrible like that,

and I talked about this a lot already

in my political correctness
video if you want to see

how I feel more specifically
about edgy comedy.

This video isn't really,
I talk about edgy comedy

in this video, but that's
not really what it's about.

But that video is definitely about that

so link in the description.

This is kind of a companion
video to that one.

But I spent my late
teens and early twenties

glued to a computer posting
on 4chan and edgy forums

and then spent my mid-twenties hanging out

with stand-up comics around Atlanta.

And I definitely did get
funnier and a lot better

at a specific brand of very
cutting, very mean humor.

And that helped my acceptance
in those communities,

especially the online ones.

More so the online ones.

If you're unfunny in an environment

where all people really
care about is who is funny

and dominating each other
or dominating outsiders

in that very, especially mid-to late-2000s

masculine online humor way,
I mean, then you're worthless

to that environment's value system,

and nobody wants to feel worthless.

Then I got older and I
realized that being funny

at the expense of other
people who don't deserve it

or, even separate from edgy
or politically correct humor,

seeing being funny as a competition,

as if laughs and approval
are a limited resource

and you have to immediately humiliate

and just gut someone if
they vie for that resource

or having friendships
where you get that high

from riffing with someone
where you make each other laugh

and you can kind of indulge
in being a little meaner

until you realize what
you were indulging in

sometimes went too far
and was not healthy.

I had learned a lot about how to be funny

that I kind of had to forget,

and I let go of unhealthy
relationships where humor

was the only real foundation.

Like, I had to learn that
lesson multiple times

over years of my life.

And at this point while I find that style

of dominance-oriented humor too mean

for me to use all the time,

while I'm occasionally
tempted to indulge in it

or do laugh at it when
other people use it,

I certainly still
appreciate irreverent humor

when it's not targeted
at marginalized people.

It's inflexible and it is not appropriate

for every situation that calls
for humor in the first place.

It's certainly not useful
for general interactions

with other human beings
who aren't stand-up comics

or irony poisoned internet freaks.

I didn't write this

because I think I'm the
funniest person ever

or an expert on being personally funny

I wrote it because I want to
be funnier and I have struggled

with being self-conscious
about whether I'm as funny

as other people I work with
on podcasts or live shows

at conventions, and I
spent a period of time

neurotically obsessing over it.

I've been doing way
more comedy-focused work

or work where I need to be funny

to keep up with everyone else.

And at some point suddenly,
in those situations,

after five years of being
Shannon Strucci, video essayist,

it didn't matter at all if I could write

and edit a compelling video essay

because now I'm trying to establish myself

in a very different field.

Like, who cares?

And I'm working regularly with
people who have done stand-up

for a decade or who have
written professionally for TV

or whatever and who I know they're funny.

It's not a question to me
if we're talking about them,

and I was forced to get
outside of my comfort zone

and work through some insecurities

that I would never have to have dealt with

if I had stayed just a video essayist.

Comedy helps in making video
essays and making them engaging

and I've tried to
incorporate it into my work,

and I am proud of some of the visual gags

and editing gags I've come up with,

but being okay at editing gags

doesn't suddenly make me a comedian.

We've had a lot of really
cool and really funny guests

on "Critical Bits," the podcast I'm on,

but by far the time I
was the most intimidated

and felt the most pushed to be better

was when we had Mark Meer on.

Meer is probably best
known for his voice work,

but he's an incredible stage
performer and improviser

and tabletop role player and
he was just so funny in a way

that was so quick and weird and creative.

- [Mark] You did more?

Don't hog it all, you swine!

- [Shannon] And he just
threw himself into voices

and bits that I either would
have been too self-conscious

and hesitant to do or not
able to do in the first place.

- [Mark] I am adult human like you.

(group laughing)

- [Man] That explains--

- [Man] When he says
that his skin ripples.

- [Man] Why yes, normal
Earth human, of course.

- [Mark] Yes, the best
kind, normal Earth human.

- [Shannon] Either limited
in my voice acting ability

or in, not at this point,

being capable of thinking that quickly.

- [Mark] Okay, well, so
long kids, best of luck.

- [Shannon] Oh, can we like get

your cell phone number or something?

- [Mark] Oh, it's threep, okay, see you.

(group laughing)

- [Shannon] And we recorded
that episode in person, too

so here's this super funny man

with years of improv experience

who's been doing voice
acting for like 20 years

just killing it sitting
right in front of me.

And I'm trying to play off of
that and trying to keep up.

And I didn't bomb, I think I did well.

- [Mark] As we we're
walking, I'm also talking.

So, you look like you've
been having some fun.

Tell me, what have you been up to, hm?

- [Shannon] Oh, I'm sorry,
I have no idea who you are.

And I just start running away.

- [Mark] Oh yes, well,
I've seen better days

as you can probably tell.

Sheriff Raoul Duke, you don't remember?

- [Shannon] Nope, and I, how far am I?

(group laughing)

But it still energized
me to want to be better.

On top of always wanting to be better

when my co-hosts are so funny.

When you work with people
who are good at what they do

you want to honor that and
at least keep up with them.

So I'm a lot better about
it now and more comfortable

but especially in 2019,
I got very in my own head

about trying to be funnier and be funny

without indulging in being
mean, and at the same time

I got a couple of very
flattering CuriousCats

asking about being funnier, like this one

referencing "Critical Bits"

I'll link the full answer
in the description.

There's more comedy advice
there from me and my friends

that I don't go into in this video,

which maybe I'll talk
about in a future video.

I don't know, more sort
of structural advice

and advice for stuff to check out.

But the question was, how does one improve

at the improvised banter you
and the crew have on the bits?

Would improv classes be worth
it, if you've ever taken them?

And here's part of my answer

that I basically based this essay on.

The most direct answer
that I could come up with,

and it sounds kind of
harsh or like sociopathic

or something, is that if you
spend time in an environment

that rewards you for being funny

and punishes you for not being funny,

you get way funnier way faster.

That isn't necessarily a good
thing and those environments

aren't always creatively
or emotionally supportive

or nurturing, but that's
kind of the shortcut,

like going to another country
when studying a language

to force yourself to learn to speak it.

When we were all talking
about this Joel said,

"Tell them to just get funny friends.

Then you'll all want
to out-riff each other

and will never have a
real conversation again."

And that is honestly what it's like

when you hang out with
comics, or in my case,

comics or edgy internet forums circa 2008.

And that is kind of the
language everyone speaks in.

And if you can't keep up

you get left behind in the conversation.

Again, this kind of environment
can be very unhealthy.

I have quit being friends

with a lot of the funniest people I know

because they were also mean/selfish people

who used laughter as validation.

And "be around funny people"
isn't really viable advice.

But you could try going to
stand-up or improv shows

and try doing stand-up even
if you don't take classes.

I think my answer for myself is,

especially since the idea of
just doing straight improv

or taking improv classes
or doing stand-up,

are all not anything I
am remotely interested in

just because of my own disposition,

I'm just going to have to
endure that vulnerability

of learning how to be funnier
without relying on bad habits

as I go and as I get better
on mic on the internet,

recorded forever, working
to keep up with people

with years more experience than me,

and always reading and
watching and listening to

and playing funny media as inspiration.

- [Man] Hello, baby!

- [Shannon] But I'm glad
I'm at least pushing myself

and learning more.

And it's not that I'm unfunny,
or that I think I'm unfunny.

Fans do think I'm funny on the show

and I know in conversation or on panels

I can make people laugh.

It's not that I suck at comedy.

It's more that it's been a
while since I challenged myself

with anything creative in this way.

I learned how to draw as a child,

I learned how to edit as a teenager,

I've enjoyed writing all my life.

I've gotten paid to do all
three a bunch of times.

I'm not saying I'm the
best at them, I just mean

I'm not self-conscious about them at all.

Like, I know that I can edit.

I've been editing for fifteen years,

I've been drawing for like 25 years,

since I was a small child.

I haven't been podcasting for 25 years!

And I've never done stand-up or improv

or any serious comedy writing,

so what hubris to just like
assume I'd be as good at comedy,

at being funny, as people
with years of experience

in those when I've been spending
years making video essays

about auteur theory and
reviewing Korean webcomics?

Doc Hammer, one of the showrunners
of "The Venture Brothers"

and an accomplished oil painter,

said this once about his paintings.

"Painting is showing up
and dealing with sucking.

People will get on me and
tell me that I need to relax

and take it easy, that
I'm not really that bad.

What they are missing is the
arrogance of what I am saying,

the fact that I know I
suck proves that I know

I am better than this, which
is a very arrogant thing to do,

so people should not be
concerned with my self-esteem.

When I say I suck, it actually means

that this is not a
representation of my ability.

I know that inside me is better.

Dealing with my sucking and
proudly saying this sucks

is how I get up and do it again.

I can't let that thing get out there.

I have to apologize for
it with my next piece."

And that's me with, like,
failed jokes that I make.

Anyone trying to get
funnier in other mediums

has to keep risking sucking and
being vulnerable in that way

to hopefully get better and get funnier

the same way stand-up comics
and improvisers do onstage.

But I also want to do
it without being cruel

and without relying too much
on laughs for validation

or my own self-image which are both traps

that are easy to fall into and excused

and encouraged in a lot
of comedy environments.

I also should say, again,
since I make fun of it so much

in this essay that I don't hate stand-up.

I love stand-up, it's not for
me personally to perform it,

but I have so much respect for
people who work so hard at it

and are good at it and
who transform the medium

in such cool ways in ways

that I never would have considered.

And I didn't want this essay to be like,

Shannon Strucci's Manifesto
Against Stand-Up Comedy

or to be perceived as
some kind of reaction

against bad personal
experiences that I had.

On my top films of the decade video

a couple of people
suggested "Nanette" to me.

I've seen "Nanette" and I did not like it.

I actually had a line
about not liking "Nanette"

in that video that I cut.

The more I linger on it, the more I think

I kind of hated "Nanette".

I have sympathy for Gadsby
and respect for her,

but I did not agree with her
underlying message at all,

and as openly critical of the defensive

and often unhealthy culture
around stand-up as I am,

I could not follow her to the
conclusions that she reached,

especially knowing so
many Atlanta queer comics

and black comics and
comics with mental illness

and female comics and
other comics of color

or comics from other marginalized groups

or people who are a part of multiple

or many marginalized
communities who use comedy

to talk about really difficult subjects,

rape, racism, disability and
ableism, self-harm, poverty,

suicide attempts, in a way
that is very meaningful

and very funny.

I should note, too, there's
so much variance in comedy,

even specifically in stand-up.

I'm not saying all cutting
comedy is toxic automatically

or any more kind of intense,
competitive comedic environment

is inherently problematic
or anything like that.

I'm not like, sitting here saying,

"Showtime at the Apollo"
is inherently problematic

and an example of toxic
masculinity, or anything like that.

And I'm not admonishing the
concept of roasting people

or of roasts generally.

It's more what interpersonal
issues that I experienced

in the Atlanta comedy
scene were kind of excused

or exacerbated by the comedy culture.

Not saying all comedy has to be nice,

although that was sort of my
point with the video, too,

that sometimes nice and
being funny are very at odds.

And it's been quite an
adjustment, I think,

for stand-up comics to be
doing shows over Zoom calls,

and that's been very interesting.

I didn't really want to talk
about the pandemic earlier on

in this essay, I didn't
want to date it that much

because I want this video
to be up in the future.

And I do think if you want
to get good at stand-up

then you just have to go to open mics.

You just have to do it and
fail and do it and fail

and do it and fail and slowly get better.

It's my perception anyway.

Anyway, thank you for watching.

If you haven't seen my political
correctness video that's,

like I said, a good companion
piece to this video,

and you should definitely check that out.

I'll link the Mark Meer
"Critical Bits" episode

in the description, but I
think the funniest episode

that we've done is probably Hoagie Allin

which is the episode
Branson Reese guested on.

- [Branson] Today is the
day that Hoagie Allin

is gonna take a man's life from him!

An eye for an eye makes
the whole world blind,

which is only fair!

- [Shannon] Branson is
a fantastic comic artist

and improv comedian.

- I'm Jimmy Buffett!

- [Shannon] And actor and
he has his own podcast,

"Rude Tales of Magic"
that's really, really good.

It's really funny, and
he played the very mean,

petty character who wanted
to kill one of the main cast

named Hoagie Allin.

And I think that's a good intro
episode of the show as well

if you've never listened.

I mean, there's spoilers,
it's a little bit later on,

but I think it's the best

out-of-context episode for our show.

- [Woman] Maybe you should be bad at like,

the witch instead--

- [Branson] I'm not mad at the witch.

She gave me a superpower!

- [Woman] Oh.

- [Branson] She said,
"You're gonna have bad luck

for the rest of your life
unless you learn your lesson

about how to treat other people

and how to forgive them for stuff.

That's it, that's a superpower!

All I have to do is never learn my lesson

and I have a power for the
rest of my life, watch this!

I'm gonna step out into the street

right in front of a car.
- Oh no, no!

- [Man] So the semi truck
starts to, like, honk

at Hoagie Allin and he
does not move and then--

- [Branson] I do the, like
Triple X like, suck it!

- [Shannon] That's my favorite
episode to link people.

If you'd like to support
me doing more of this,

I have a Patreon and a Ko-fi,
and we have merchandise

both for "Critical Bits" and I
had StrucciMovies merchandise

but nobody bought it, but
message me if you want to buy,

like, a StrucciMovies sticker
or postcard, I have 'em.

But on the free Big Cartel

you can only have five products at a time

so now it's all "Critical
Bits" stuff, thanks.