How to be Funny

Humor has got to be one of the hardest things to give advice about. So this article isn't going to be a be-all-and-end-all guide on how to be funny. The best I can do is reflect on my own experiences and try to pull some lessons from them.

I can be a pretty funny guy. I'm never going to become a famous comedian, but if I'm hanging around someone who likes my sense of humor I can have them laughing a lot of the time. I think a lot of people fall into this category. But I've also probably lost a few points over the years by joking around at the wrong time or in the wrong way.

This article is about coming up with spontaneous humor in social situations. The most accurate term for it is probably to learn how to be witty.

So here are my thoughts on being funny. One overall theme here is that humor can be a double-edged sword. If you use it properly you can gain a lot. But misusing it will set you back. I also focus on the idea that humor, especially spontaneous humor, isn't so much consciously created as it just pops into your head fully formed.

Being funny is definitely a good thing. It makes you more fun to be around, and it allows you to inject amusement into otherwise ho-hum situations. Sitting around on a Sunday afternoon watching bad television is pretty boring, but if your hilarious friend is there cracking jokes about the shows the whole time, it's a decent way to pass the time.

But you don't have to be funny. If being funny isn't your thing there are many other ways to give people a reason for wanting to spend time in your company. I've met many guys who weren't all that funny, but who were still way cooler than me overall.

I first really got this concept when I became friends with a guy who admitted it was hard to make him laugh. Being funny wasn't an option with with him so I had to be a good, solid friend to him through other means.

Being around people who are funnier than you often has the result of making your own jokes fall flat in comparison. Usually the right things to do here is to let the other person have their moment and resort to another way of interacting with people.

Sometimes I fall into the trap of joking around too much. Of course everyone knows there's too much of a good thing. The guy who's always 'on' gets tiresome pretty quickly. People also take you less seriously if all you can seem to do is kid around. But getting a laugh from someone seems like such a good thing. They're entertained and you get the validation. It's tempting to try and keep that going for as long as you can. You may even pressure yourself to always be a great comedian. No need for that.

I also know on paper that making one good joke an hour is better than making one good joke and ten bad ones in the same amount of time, but I've failed to follow this advice many times.

Another point is that someone can laugh at something but still not like it overall. I remember bugging my parents to watch The Simpsons with me when I was younger. They'd laugh at individual gags, but obviously weren't fans of the show. You can probably think of a sitcom you don't like but will still laugh at if you ever have to watch it. People may laugh at certain antics or corny jokes in spite of themselves, but they'd really prefer not to hear them.

I think that someone's sense of humor is at least partially connected to their personality and their world view. An overly serious, uptight person isn't going to have much of a sense of humor. Someone who's more laid back and sees the absurdity in life will probably be more funny. A cynical, cerebral person will probably have a more cynical, cerebral sense of humor. A loud, obnoxious guy will probably have a more loud, obnoxious sense of humor. Most people probably understand this instinctively.

You can sometimes improve your sense of humor by adjusting your personality and the way you see things. If you're too pessimistic or anal about the world you may find you become funnier if you lighten up.

But all that applies only to a point. Just because you tell a sick or offensive joke doesn't automatically mean you're a budding child molester or KKK member. I think most people understand this as well.

Where you can run into trouble is that people will assume your sense of humor reveals what you're really like on some level. If you have an overly weird sense of humor after a while people will think you really are weird. If you're always making jokes about dark or shocking topics people can't help but wonder about you after a while. The same goes for random, immature, or socially thoughtless jokes. Look at any comedian whose material relies on using a crazy or neurotic persona. You can't help but think they're really like that to some degree.

What gets you a laugh in the short-term may be hurting you in the long-run if it affects the way people see you for the worse. At various times I've been stung with the 'weird', 'sick', and 'overly cynical' labels, all because of the way I joked around with certain people. They'd laugh at the time, but weeks later they'd make a quip like, "Man, you're crazy. I worry about you sometimes..." Be aware of what impression your jokes are making on other people and adjust them accordingly if necessary.

Humor takes part in the larger realm of conversation and social skills. People will judge your proficiency in these areas by how they show through in your humor. If you consistently make jokes at inappropriate times, or don't consider your audience, or interrupt other people to tell them, then you'll be seen as socially clueless. But as your social skills improve, your humor will get sharper as well.

Every time I make a really witty comment it never feels like a consciously crafted it. It's more like they just pop into my head in response to a certain stimulus. Like conversation, humor often just flows out of who you are as a person. If you get the 'humor generator' in good shape then it will produce good output on it's own.

This also means it usually doesn't work out when you try to force humor. I think everyone's had the experience of trying too hard to be funny and coming up with a lame, corny line that ultimately bombs. If a C-list comedian is a guest on a talk show you can often see this in action. They try to make everything that comes out of their mouth funny, but it just comes across as annoying.

You can't always be funny. Sometimes there isn't enough 'raw material' to trigger your unconscious into coming up with a hilarious line. It's better to hold back and wait for a moment when you really have something clever to say.

Have you ever been ready to speak a joke and there's a little voice, sometimes just a feeling, in your head that's saying, "Don't say that, it's really not that funny"? When you ignore that little voice you usually find that it was right the hard way. Learn to trust your instincts in these situations. You don't always get that little nagging voice, so if you do hear it, it's there for a reason.

One time my buddy and I were hanging around some guys we had just met. One of them turned out to be hilarious and had us all laughing for hours straight. He had a unique, sort of absurd sense of humor. Over the next few days my friend tried to copy the guy's way of joking around. Sometimes he would repeat exact jokes. At other times he'd try to come up with his own observations in the same style. It never really worked out. He was saying certain lines that were only funny in the context they were originally said in. Or he just wasn't as skillful in coming up with those types of jokes on his own. The thing was he was a very cool guy on his own. He had no reason to be a poor imitation of someone else.

If someone makes you laugh, or you see them making other people laugh, it can be tempting to try and steal their sense of humor for yourself. It usually doesn't work. It's forced and unnatural. There are a million ways to be funny so it's best to stick with your own practiced style.

Jobs can bring different types of people together. A few times I've been in a situation where I was working with a guy from a different 'scene' and background as me. He would try to joke around but I just didn't get his sense of humor. It went totally over my head. My mind went blank and I had nothing to say to him after each joke. I mean what can you say to something that's for all-intents-and-purposes meaningless speech to you? There's something about that that really kills rapport between people. It gives you a strong feeling of having nothing in common with the other person, and hence nothing to say to them. I guess the lesson is that if you're joking around with someone and you see that they aren't getting it, to shift gears and try to connect with them in another way.

The opposite happens when your sense of humor just clicks with someone else's. You skip all the getting to know you stuff and jump straight into being buddy buddy. So it never hurts to try joking around with someone a little at first. If it works great, but if not then drop it.

If people don't laugh, seem annoyed, or seem like they're just humoring you then put the feedback to good use. The joke may not be as funny as your think. If it seems no one ever 'gets' your dry, ironic sense of humor, then maybe you need to go back to the drawing board. If you always seem to offend people then maybe you should show more restraint with your material. Think of people's responses as a way to polish your rough edges.

If you know you made a bad joke you can often recover by making a quick comment about how much it sucked. Sometimes the comment can be funny. You can also just laugh it off and admit, "Yeah, that one was pretty lame wasn't it?"

Well it's the best way as far as I can figure. Since I believe a lot of humor just pops into your head, the best thing you can do is load up your unconscious with a lot of material to work with. Watch funny movies and t.v. shows. Read funny sites and books. Watch funny clips on the internet. Hang around funny people. Expose yourself to different styles of humor.

Some of it will stick and come out later. Maybe you'll repeat a funny line you heard. Or a certain writer will have changed the way you look at particular things. Or you'll learn a new way of delivering a joke from a comedian. You may learn a novel way to handle certain scenarios. It'll all be floating around in your head when the right situation will come up. Your brain will put the elements together and you'll come up with a killer line.

If you want to dance well at a club, learning specific partner dances or complex choreographed routines will help you to a point, but it won't directly translate. Learning stand-up comedy or improv affects your social wittiness in the same way.

Learning stand-up will improve your understanding of humor and help you craft a joke. But you come up with all the material ahead of time and then perform it. It's not the same as coming up with a clever and appropriate line on the spot in the middle of a conversation. I've known amateur stand-up comedians who weren't funny at all in real life. It wasn't that their jokes were lame, they were sober, serious guys and never even joked around that much.

Improv will help you think on your feet, but the humor tends to be more physical, hyper, and silly, and focuses on acting out scenarios. When you're sitting around with your friends and bantering about work, it's not the same as pretending you're a robot stuck in a cheese factory with Batman.