I am not a funny person, I am a serious person. This isn't to say that I don't laugh or something. I laugh really frequently, with friends or alone in my room like a crazy person. I crack jokes with friends, I have a pretty good sense of comic timing, nothing amazing, but every once in a while I can tell a joke or story a little better than someone told it to me. I have no issues making my friends laugh (which is natural in a group of friends) and sometimes I can make total strangers laugh as well, mostly because I am kind of a ridiculous person.
But I would never categorize myself as funny person. A friend of mine showed me this hilarious site: http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/. A little later we watched Day9's Valentine's Day Funday Monday (http://blip.tv/day9tv/day-9-daily-260-funday-monday-contaminate-this-4785628) as well, which I've seen probably 5 times at this point. And I laughed like crazy at both of them, but I was also in awe somewhat that people can be so funny. It's not really that Day9 and this lady with the blog are particularly special, since you can find funny people everywhere on the internet. It's more that they are special in relation to me. I just cannot be funny the way they are.
Reading those stories from the blog, they feel personal in nature; stories of oneself told with the goal of making light of the situation. The same thing is apparent in Day9's stories. He sees the comedy in his own life. I cannot say I do the same. I can certainly laugh at myself, and frequently do, but I do not look back at my life and see a lot of funny moments. Rather I see a lot of defining moments in my life, either awesome or awkward, uncomfortable and painful, happy, sad, whatever, but not particularly funny. They are all personally meaningful, if perhaps universally average, but I see them in relation to myself as "serious". So I consider myself serious and am wondering if that is part of the reason why.
For any of you funny people, is this one of the reasons you are funny, this ability to see lots of funny moments in your life? Is it other things, or a combination? I'm just curious about the nature of the funny personality since I have no personal experience.
Sure, I mean clearly you and just about everyone else finds them funny too, so its just about finding the humor originally. Personally I can't help but think a lot of serious/awkward/uncomfortable events are just intrinsically darkly hilarious....I think the real secret is just understanding how similar almost all humans are. If you went through something that was crushingly embarrassing or awkward, just describing the event and how it felt to you honestly is going to resonate with people. That honesty is funny. Even if you do something fucking stupid, just describing your actual train of thought that led you to the action is oftentimes really funny, not to mention going miles to avoid others getting mad or thinking you're an idiot or a jerk. Humor is often just a release of tension. Thats why jokes about really terribly uncomfortable situations and racial/taboo topics are always the best. Standup routines consist entirely of the comedian telling others their honest and relatable opinions on topics. Look at Day9's famous Jerk-off on a plane. If that happened to you you'd probably be mortified at the time, but the fact that he goes through the events frankly describing what was going through his head turns the story from disgusting and embarassing to fucking roflolomgbbq.
So I think probably the most important element to being a "funny" person is just to never cave to embarrassment or tension and just say what you believe. The difference between doing that well and doing it poorly is simply how well you can explain yourself.
I think it's a combination of all sorts of things, not taking yourself and life all that seriously is definitely one of them. A guy like Day9 is able to be funny because he doesn't try to romanticize himself, he's comfortable being himself even in situations where "serious" people would feel embarassed.
On top of that, thinking on your feet and being good with words is obviously going to help, as well as a positive attitude towards life.
Personally I think most humor is being able to relate to something said, take George Carlin the guy said some random stuff but almost all of his jokes revloved around him noticing something interesting about things that people see everyday and then telling you about it in a funny way. Everyone can relate to things that happen everyday to everyone but it takes a certain personality to see the humor in almost everything and then relay what was funny to most people who missed it when they saw it.
EPT
