humor writing and natural talent

[D.W.M.A Swag Meister]

i have an interest in humor. writing humor, making people laugh etc.

the problem is i have no shred of natural talent for making people laugh on command, when i have a joke lined up theres only a punchers chance it will make people laugh and thats a shame beacuse i just love making people laugh. it makes me feel like i brought joy to people.

so im reaching out to one of the best communities on the internet for advice for a talentless hack on how i can be funnier.

is there any way i can learn, any way i can come up with things that can make people laugh in person. any tips, any good websites i can learn from etc.

if you can it would be awesome.

 

[Ectoplasmicz]

I don't think it's something you can learn so to speak. You can improve for sure, but most comedians and all of my friends that are funny are pretty natural at it, their jokes just come out.

It's really about feeling natural. Not trying too hard to be funny. The worst thing is seeing a comedian trying their hardest to be funny. It just oozes failure.

Sorry, I went a bit off there. I can;t think of any places or websites you can 'learn' to be funny. If you make people laugh generally, in conversation and such, then you're a funny person!

Also, remember, you will never please everyone . Not everybody will think you are funny,, because it's your humour, nobody else's, and not everyone will share your humour!

CAPTCHA: move mountains. They're a bit big captcha, I don't think I can physically do that...

 

[GigaHz]

If you can't be funny naturally, you could try to be aggressively unfunny.

It can be just as funny as intended humour, and it's big with the hipster crowd.

 

[HardkorSB]

Don't worry, a lot of humor writers have no shred of talent either, yet they're successful.
If you don't know how to write your own jokes but want to make people laugh, there are ways to deal with that:

 

[Erana]

Timing. Timing is the key to humor.

Very few people can make others laugh at will, but if you know when to interject or make the right comments, you can still make people laugh quite a bit during normal socialization.

 

[subtlefuge]

Humor writers make connections that other people don't. That's why you laugh, but you probably would never have come up with that. It's not something that can be learned like a trade, but you could get a job working around comedy writers. There have been cases of sitcom directors and comedy producers becoming marginally successful comedians or highly successful writers.

I suppose it does rub off a little.

 

[Lucem712]

I think having natural talent is helpful in learning anything, but you can succeed at anything if you work hard enough, it'll just be tough. Everyone has the ability to write/draw/cook, some people are just natural inclined to it, just keep trying

 

[Smooth Operator]

Practice practice practice, just look up one good stand up comedian in his early days and then his great successes, you will see they learned a great many things.

Making people laugh is an art that requires many skills (delivery, timing, theme, pushing limits, reading peoples reactions and expectations,...), and you don't get skilled without practice.
But some people are naturals... bullshit, they just started at an early age because they liked it, and yes they will be years ahead of you, but this is nothing hard work can't fix.

 

[I-Protest-I]

Timing and picking what you say is key, prefer the nice guy who doesn't joke too often but when he does it's hilarious route.

 

[manic_depressive13]

What an absurd notion that being humourous is some innate magical ability. Comedy is something that can be taught just like everything else. The best way to do things is to get exposure to as much material as possible. Just study as much stand up and as many comedic novels as you can. If you like Jimmy Carr, he has written a book called "The Naked Jape" which I believe essentially analyses the reasons people laugh. Take that recommendation with a grain of salt though; I haven't read it personally so I can't tell you if it's any good.

It really depends on how passionate you are about comedy. If you really love making people laugh there are all sorts of ways you can learn how to do it better. Just don't get caught up in some ludicrous idea that some people are "naturally funny" and the rest have no hope. No one is "naturally" good at anything except perhaps eating, sleeping and shitting. We achieve everything else by working for it.

 

[Palademon]

I'm not good at telling jokes. I'm really only good at just being naturally funny. I can't really do it on command. It's much easier to just use your wit to draw the dots between things in a conversation.

I'll demonstrate one of the few crap jokes I thought of that I can tell at any time.

If Barret was a rapper he'd be called 50Cal

 

[Polyintrinsic]

This is hard to reply to without being pretentious.

Being funny mid-conversation is all about finding connections between what is being said realtime and odd other stuff. For example, the other day me and a few people were talking about how asparagos makes your pee smell. Then I suggested, if someone ate asparagos every day of their life and suddenly stopped, they would think their pee smelt funny sans asparagos. *its a terrible example but its all i can come up with right now*

Think of your conversation with people as a web. Each sentence has a possible reply with different consequences. Be able to rotate and flip and move your web to see lots of possible replies and their replies, until you get good at telling what people are going to say-before they say it. Then find a string of thought that could be seen as odd or funny and go with it.

If all else fails just go for the awkward funny.

 

[Appleshampoo]

The best advice I can give is to watch a bunch of comedians and see how they do it. What are they talking about? How do they deliver their punch lines?

Read things that make you laugh, and then look at why they make you laugh.

Start to think of things that have happened to you, then apply the things you've seen from the tips above to try and turn them into a funny story.

It's literally just about learning how to deliver a joke in the best possible way. The way I learnt to make all the kiddies back in college laugh was to do what I said above and just learnt the timing and what not.

Practice makes perfect!

 

[repeating integers]

CAPTCHA: move mountains. They're a bit big captcha, I don't think I can physically do that...

You can if you have faith.

 

[Smertnik]

Just don't get caught up in some ludicrous idea that some people are "naturally funny" and the rest have no hope. No one is "naturally" good at anything except perhaps eating, sleeping and shitting. We achieve everything else by working for it.

Couldn't agree more. I heard so many people say over the course of years 'No, I can't do this for life! I don't have any talent whatsoever!' Always makes me a little bit angry. If you can't be bothered to learn the craft, totally fine, who cares. But don't say you can't ever do it because you didn't succeed the first time you tried.

 

[Ectoplasmicz]

CAPTCHA: move mountains. They're a bit big captcha, I don't think I can physically do that...

You can if you have faith.

Iv'e never succeeded in life! I just can't do it! ;~;

 

[Zeema]

just use the joke i use

Horse walks into the bar and the barmen says 'Why the long face'