Why Non-Comedians Should Try Stand-up

I have discussed the importance of stand-up comedy for aspiring comedians, as well as the appeal that the practice has for such hopeful humorists. However, I strongly believe that stand-up comedy can be an extremely useful activity even for those without ambitions of achieving fame in comedy. Approximately one year ago, I performed stand-up comedy in the basement of Calhoun College at around 1:00am on a Monday night for The Cucumber, a stand-up show hosted every other Monday by the Yale Daily News. The decision was largely spurred by a bet with a friend of mine, however, I am enormously grateful for the experience.

Much has been written about performing stand-up comedy for the first time--a significant amount of which I read in preparation for my comedic debut--but the process must be experienced personally in order to fully understand the practice. I had read that first time stand-up comedy was one of top 10 most adrenaline filled experiences, listed alongside base-jumping off the Perrine Bridge in Idaho and taking a parkour class in Melbourne, Australia (See Whole List Here). Incredulous of this description, I ultimately found it accurate. Although I have never completed the other activities on that list, I found that waiting nervously for the performers ahead of me to complete their acts was comparable to the anxiety just before the most serious and least prepared test I have ever taken, magnified times ten. While terrifying at the time, I now consider this practice rewarding because I was able to endure the most intense performance anxiety of my life and now feel more prepared for other daunting presentations as a result.

In addition, I learned much about myself from the experience. For example, when nervously performing in front of a crowd, I tend to pace, a custom that was pointed out by a friend in the audience. Also, my rate of speech accelerates, making my nervousness more obvious to the crowd. By taking a presentation scenario and pushing the situation nearly to its most intense and anxiety inducing form, I was able to understand how I react in these circumstances, and subsequently learn from the experience.

Video of a young Seth Rogen, age 13, performing stand-up. He has undoubtedly improved his talents since.

I believe that my time thus far at Yale has taught me most significantly the importance of social skills. I come from a particularly quantitative background and have continued my enthusiasm for the sciences at Yale. I consider the sciences to be invaluable in so much of our lives because of their foundation in concrete facts and data. However, I have also understood a substantial problem in scientists who have difficulty expressing their studies and conclusions in a public forum because of their lack of engaging social abilities. Without making this discussion political, I find that the debate surrounding climate change to excellently personify this issue. While nearly all scientific academics agree that humans are affecting the global climate, just over 50% of Americans believe the same issue to be true (2010 Study Here). Politicians have managed to convince Americans to the contrary of scientific evidence and I consider much of this to be a failure in the ability of scientists to effectively voice their opinions on a large public scale, although obviously the issue is much larger. While I do not consider stand-up comedy to be the solution to these social weaknesses, I believe that even a single attempt at stand-up can help individuals make wondrous improvements in their presentation skills and sometimes I wish that my scientific compatriots would try their hand at stand-up regardless of their interest in comedy--assuming they at least possess a sense of humor.

Time and time again, I have found social skills and presentation abilities crucial in allowing individuals to take advantage of opportunities and achieve personal success. Job interviews, thesis defenses, and even colloquial discussion and debate depend upon the ability to present oneself effectively. Few activities have so shockingly improved my presenting aptitude as stand-up comedy and although convincing myself to perform in the first place was arguably the most challenging hurdle of all, the rewards are undeniable and incredibly fulfilling.

Do Famous Comedians Hate Stand-Up?

To me, stand-up comedy represents possibly the purest form of comedy. The comedian personally delivers his unfiltered, unadulterated joke, directly to a live audience who then provides their unfiltered response in cheers, boos, or anywhere in between. The comedian is alone on stage with no one to play off of and there are no redo's if a joke is accepted poorly, the comedian can only hope to recover. In this way, I find stand-up comedy to be one of the best representatives of a comedian's ability to be humorous because there are no handicaps, no one to hold you by the hand and walk you through the process. That is exactly why the lack of prevalence of stand-up comedy performed by famous comedians has often surprised me.

Stand-up thrives in small, cramped New York City basements with dozens of attendees huddled around a small, claustrophobic stage. Stand-up also makes infrequent appearances on the Comedy Central television network however, these occasional examples are far outweighed by Comedy Central's presentations of shows like South Park, Futurama, or The Daily Show. Furthermore, while popular comedians almost always make their beginnings in stand-up comedy, why do they constantly turn their backs on the practice once they achieve fame? The television show I can recall having most embraced stand-up comedy is Seinfeld and even so, the show only provided a minute or two of stand-up at the beginning and end of every episode. While late night television hosts begin their programs with a few minutes of monologue, I still find this representation of stand-up performed by popular comedians to be significantly out of proportion with the presence that I feel stand-up comedy has on the comedy industry as a whole.

Without stand-up the discovery of up-and-coming comedians would be far more difficult, so why do famous comedians appear to abhor the practice. Rather than viewing such comedians as Adam Sandler exclusively on the silver screen, I would prefer to enjoy occasional stand-up shows in venues like Carnegie Hall. I'm sure there are some reasons why comedians prefer to make feature films rather than continuing their stand-up careers for example comedians do not have to write the scripts for the movies they star in, and standing in front of a camera that can re-record any flawed scene is clearly less stressful that standing live in front of hundreds or thousands of people. However, I still very much enjoy stand-up comedy and believe that many others do as well. Therefore, I believe that the demand is present, and I wonder how significant the incentives would need to be in order for the supply to meet that demand. Perhaps this is in fact the major problem, it is possible that the profitability of a major motion picture with a global presence far exceeds the profitability of a live performance in a limited capacity hall. Maybe the incentives will never be present because of this incredible disparity in profitability, however something else gives me hope that perhaps my dreams of stand-up comedy featuring some of today's most famous comedians is not out of reach.

A video of Adam Sandler's early stand-up in the 80's.

A few years ago, I first saw the movie Funny People, a film about comedy, made by comedians. The movie starred Adam Sandler--who I mentioned as an example earlier--a famous comedian who found had been diagnosed with fatal cancer. Sandler's character decided to put large scale movie productions aside and return to stand-up comedy. This leads me to believe that there is a sentimentality that comedians associate with stand-up possibly as a means of remembering their beginnings. I find this film particularly encouraging because it was created by a group of filmmakers who themselves started in stand-up comedy and therefore hopefully provide a perspective representative of the comedy industry as a whole . So hopefully, as some of the more famous comedians age, they will return to their roots and return to the stage.

Do Sexist Jokes Make Us Sexist?

Unfortunately, stand-up comedy is not always fun and games. We live in a world of increasing sensitivity and it is nearly impossible to make a public statement today without offending someone in the crowd. Some of the most highly discussed topics in stand-up humor are race and gender, yet they are also some of the most personally sensitive subjects. Therefore, I think it is important to address whether or not it is possible to make a joke with a race or gender reference and not consider the joke to be racist or sexist.

I would like to start with a discussion of a comedian who I have only recently become to appreciate, despite his television show already being in its third season making me somewhat behind the curve, Daniel Tosh. Many of Tosh's jokes contain racial references, but his most significantly low brow humor involves sexual references and can easily be construed as sexist.

It might be somewhat premature to include a gender joke before concluding whether or not inclusion of the joke makes me, or the joke teller inherently sexist, but I think it lays out a helpful context for the discussion.

This is the most blatant example of a gender biased joke I could find. When listening to the joke, I did in fact catch myself laughing, yet I recognize that I do not agree with the message and consider women to be on the same playing field as men. Even more amazingly, Daniel Tosh himself is quoted as saying," “I’m not a misogynistic and racist person... But I do find those jokes funny, so I say them” (Full Quote Here). So how do I reconcile this obvious problem, I laugh at a joke with sexist undertones but disagree with what is being said. This is where I think the important distinction needs to be made on this type of humor. I believe that we can recognize humor in another individual's point of view without agreeing with that perspective.

But what exactly are we laughing at? Is it the ridiculousness of the claims being made? I do not think that this entirely explains the humor. Maybe we are laughing at the recognition of how controversial the claim is and we sadistically enjoy knowing that there is a group of people that are somewhat offended by the humor. Perhaps instead we laugh mostly at the delivery of the joke and the conviction with which the comedian makes these incredulous assertions. I personally believe that it is a combination of these things and possibly a few others. However, I hope that of all of the reasons for which I find humor in this somewhat bigoted joke, none of those reasons include a personal agreement with the statements conveyed. I consider myself to be a strong proponent of sexual equality and I would like to believe that laughing at this humor does not actually make me sexist. However, maybe this is just wishful thinking...

The (Un-)Selfishness of Stand-up

Comedy is a topic in which it the motives of the comedian can sometimes be a little hazy. It is a career that is almost inherently based on likability, success is measured by one's social prowess, the ability to make others laugh. So does this mean that comedy is a popularity contest? Maybe so, but does that mean that a successful comedian is selfish? I would say not.

Fortunately, this discussion is made approachable because comedy, unlike maybe other careers such as finance, poetry, or science, is something that everyone has likely dabbled in. Therefore, situations that comedians experience as part of their jobs can be related to almost anyone. For example, few have stood on stage and performed for a seated crowd, but most have delivered a joke to a group of buddies thats sent the whole crew into a laughing spree. I think most would agree that it feels pretty damn good to make a comment that our peers find uproariously funny  So how do we categorize the emotions we feel after making such a well received one-liner? I can only speak for myself but personally I think that telling a joke is in a way a win-win situation. The crowd has just been provided a period of joy and a temporary feeling of lightheartedness. Meanwhile, the "comedian" enjoys knowing that he/she has received the acceptance of his/her peers. However, I feel that a professional stand-up comedian feels more than just this sense of approval. Moreover, the comedian maintains a sense of pleasure in his performance, much like that of any self-respecting worker who takes pride in his work. A comedian recognizes a well received joke as an indication of his own skill, similar to how a teacher feels when a student demonstrates significant improvement after a semester's worth of input and education. Any individual hopes to be good at what he/she does and a desire to succeed at one's own profession is hardly selfish.

Now I think this conclusion can be returned from the framing of a professional comedian back to an individual in the presence of peers. We all pride ourselves in how we behave amongst friends and making a funny joke reflects on our social skills. In this way, I think we can distinguish comedy and telling a successful joke from something that I would consider to be more narcissistic, such as a talent show, in which the sole mission is to be liked or even praised, and very few skills are being employed by the contestants, other than maybe the skill of looking good in a swimsuit. Social aptitude is an expertise that each of us builds upon every single day, and affirmations in our own social abilities, should be approached not hedonistically but rather as a representation of our own self-improvement. And based on the current societal direction of continually making interactions less personal, I think any means of promoting social communication, especially that of mutually beneficial humor, should be heavily praised and hardly discouraged.

The Appeal of Stand Up for Aspiring Comedians

While laughter is most frequently a casual activity amongst friends, for some it is a means of achieving greatness. A lucky group of people are able to turn their humor into a successful career, simply making people laugh for a living. However the number of people at the top is very small, one can list only a few household comedians and even fewer stand-up comics. Despite little room for fame in stand-up comedy, there still exists stiff competition fighting for this success, enough so to prompt shows like “Last Comic Standing.” Before discussing stand-up comedy in more specific detail in later posts, in this example, I would like to describe the reasons for why there is so much competition to get into comedy, not necessarily because of the fame it affords, but due to the positive personal effects of making people laugh.

                Throwing together a few concise words into what can be considered a witty response is one of the most rewarding feats one can achieve in a social environment. The satisfaction received from making a statement that thrusts one’s peers into a fit of laughter provides an almost charitable sense of accomplishment after providing your friends with a reason to laugh and a temporary sense of happiness and relief. Furthermore after constructing a funny joke there is not only the joy of making others laugh that follows, but also a sincere sense of pride for realizing that you have created a product, in this situation being the joke, which is accepted by a large community and therefore are accomplished in a field that is valued within society.  In fact, a couple weeks ago at Yale’s Fall Show, the comedian Michael Ian Black described how in a particular situation, he responded to a woman’s question with what he considered to be an extremely funny comment and despite the woman not laughing at his joke, Black gave himself a theoretical “pat on the back” for what he considered to be a significant accomplishment.

                As a result, we can see that while humor can for some be a means for reaching a high level of success or fame, it is actually much more than that. Being a comedian can be one of the most rewarding careers, experiencing a feeling of benevolence for making others laugh, as well as a sense of pride for the quality of jokes you have created. Therefore, it is no wonder that so many which to enter this field and it is such a competitive occupation.