How to be funnier
Evidence of me doing comedy. Also evidence of my fantastic taste in music.
I have been performing, writing, and teaching comedy for about fifteen years. In that time, I have discovered a few simple habits that, by cultivating them in myself, have made me generally funnier.
The awesome thing is, you can do these, too! I am positive they will work for anybody, which is not true of most advice on the internet. Most advice doesn’t work at all!
How to become funnier
Here are three simple things you can start doing TODAY that will make you funnier over time.
Whatever level of “funny” you think you’re at right now, whether you’re the class clown of your life or you couldn’t tell a joke to save your life, start working with these three tips, and you’ll see an improvement.
How to be funnier #1: LISTEN.
No, your girlfriend didn’t pay me to say this.
Most of comedy requires a setup and punchline structure, which requires some initial condition, and then a response to that condition.
If you are trying to be funny, but you’re not listening to what’s been said around you, then you are going to miss out on your best opportunities.
Comedy is about seeing what other people may not notice and responding. Much of comedy is even as simple as pointing out what everyone is noticing, but no one is saying.
To become funnier, focus more on what other people are saying, and less on what is going on in your own head. I have PTSD and ADHD, so I UNDERSTAND, THIS IS HARD, but it’s a necessary part of becoming funnier.
How to listen
The easiest way to get better at this skill, in my opinion, is to take an improv class. If you’re not a good listener, improv is a fun, playful way to break down whatever is barricading you inside your own head.
Comedy's Formula: Watch. Listen. Reflect. Make a joke about farts. Repeat.
Besides improv, you can also practice active listening by:
Repeat what other people just said before making your response. I know this feels weird, but if you’re able to repeat back to people what they’ve said, they’ll know you’re really listening, and you’ll know you really listened.
Don’t interrupt. Again, I have ADHD, I KNOW THIS IS SO FREAKING HARD, but ya gotta do it. One easy way to help do this is to leave space after you think someone is done talking. Give at least a few seconds before reacting.
Ask questions. By asking questions, you can improve your understanding of the person you’re talking to, and also improve your comprehension skills over time.
There are other techniques to help with this, but these are the ones I’ve found most helpful.
If you practice improving your listening skills, you’ll become wittier, quicker, and you’ll have more material to draw from when you’re writing. Plus, you might become a more empathetic person, which is also cool!
Eavesdropping for the win
One specific way to practice listening that is helpful for comedy is eavesdropping. This is the practice of listening to conversations you are not a part of.
Eavesdropping on people spilling tea in a coffee shop is how I get 85% of my ideas.
Hey, maybe it’s rude technically, but if you’re in public badmouthing your family members, you are at risk of me turning them into characters for my sketch comedy. It should just be a given, especially if you’re in LA.
When I go to cafes or any public place, I always have at least a notebook. If someone has an interesting (or infuriating) conversation or way of looking at the world, I will listen closely and write down notes.
This gives me inspiration that’s outside my usual circle of acquaintances, as well as practice in listening and really absorbing human conversation. After all, I can’t interrupt if I’m pretending like I’m not there!
How to be funnier #2: Watch a lot of funny things
This does not mean just new stuff, or just TikTok, or just your favorite standup’s Netflix special.
Watch a LOT of DIFFERENT things. Different formats, different decades, different styles. Watch all the Monty Python sketches from their show, watch every Netflix standup special you can stand, watch cartoons, watch sketch comedy, watch avant garde plays, watch classic sitcoms, you get the idea.
But don’t just watch. You need to be more active if you’re going to get the most you can out of it.
How to learn from watching funny things
Obviously, huge numbers of people watch comedy and never get any funnier. Comedy is entertainment that can be absorbed passively, simply to refresh and entertain, and that’s fine.
I think that anyone who watches A LOT of comedy will probably be at least a little funnier at the end of it, but if you’re looking to get much funnier, not just a little, you’ve got to be more active.
When something makes you laugh, ask, “Why?” Why is that funny?
People say that explaining a joke ruins it. That might be true for the audience, but you’re not trying to be the audience. You’re trying to be the joke maker.
Or imagine people saying, "You're just born good at rocket science, it can't be taught." People are say that about comedy all the time, and that's dumb.
Nobody says this kind of thing to doctors. “Looking too closely at the human body ruins it.” Or imagine saying that to a rocket scientist. “Learning physics will ruin the magic of the missile launch.”
If you want to do a thing well, you have to study how it works. And that starts with asking, “Why?”
For example, if you’re watching standup, and a comedian’s joke makes you laugh out loud, pause the video and start thinking about the joke. What made you laugh? Is it because they said something surprising, or something you totally expected?
The more you think critically about why something is funny, the more you’ll be able to make that happen in your own comedy.
Bonus Points: Comedy Study Group
This can work even better if you get together with other comedians or people who want to be funnier and discuss what makes a joke work.
I love this, because sometimes only one person in the group will crack up, or someone will refuse to laugh at something everybody else likes, and then you can have some REALLY Interesting conversations about what makes jokes funny for some people and not work for others.
So, invite some peeps over, get some snacks and some notepads, and get watching!
How to be funnier #3: Laugh at yourself.
No matter who you are, if you are reading this right now, you are a human being (my apologies if you are a hyper-intelligent porpoise). And if you are a human being, you have flaws and silly quirks just like everybody else.
Before you try to laugh at other people, you have to learn to laugh at yourself. I mean this in a literal sense: make jokes at your own expense.
I have two main reasons for recommending this:
You know yourself better than anyone else, giving you access to more material.
Really good comedians have empathy and build rapport with their audiences. Sure, being a shithead to people can earn you a quick internet following, but the people who makes decades-long careers out of this know how to laugh at themselves first.
Consider Monty Python’s Life of Brian, which is a satire of the story of Christ. Eric Idle shares in his autobiography, “People say, ‘Oh, you'd never make fun of Mohammedans,’ and of course not. We're not Muslims. We were brought up as Christians.”
They didn’t mock Islam because they didn’t know anything about it. You should start with laughing at yourself, because that’s what you know, and when you know something deeply, you can be really, really funny about it.
Find what is silly and ridiculous about yourself, and find a way to joke about it (in a lighthearted way, not in a “please tell me I’m wrong about this and I’m actually perfect” way).
"NOOO I'M TOO COOL TO LAUGH AT." The fact that you think that is a sure sign that you are the silliest in all the land.
What if there’s nothing funny about me?
There is. You just can’t see it yet. There is something funny about every human being in the world. We are sacks of meat running on fear and the desire to procreate, we are ridiculous.
If you aren’t sure, ask your friends. The people who are close to you have definitely noticed something.
Ask them, “What’s the silliest thing I’ve ever done that you can remember?” or “What’s something I do that you think is ridiculous?”
Use words like “silly” or “ridiculous” because “funny” will make people try too hard, as it often does. You just want them to point out something about you that is different and uniquely you.
And if you take yourself so seriously that you can’t manage to do this exercise without getting upset… Maybe you need to work on that before trying to be funny.
How to be funny
Here are the three best things you can start doing today to be funnier tomorrow:
LISTEN.
Watch funny stuff.
Laugh at yourself.
If you do all these three things regularly, you are well on your way to being an extremely funny person.
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