Are you funny?

You trying to be funny?

Let's all do the boards a favour and not post in this stupid thread. Since I am above the law, I designate myself to make this warning post.

I think it's sad you felt the need to preface this as "not a bait thread".

Anyway, I don't think I'm funny so I don't try to be funny very often. I do find a lot of things funny, though. I'm interested to see how people answer the follow-up question in the second post.

I don't think I'm funny and I try not to get involved in the horrible joke threads, because invariably they're a gaping chasm of awfulness.

I'll bite.

Do you think you're funny?
occasionally

Do you find a lot of things funny or do you feel you don't have a wide ranging sense of humor?
I like dark comedy, observation humor, toilet humor, insult humor.

If you don't think you're funny, do you still give joking around a shot?
I try to get better, but I'm no comedian.

If you do think you're funny, why do you think that?
I guess I got a weird look on things sometimes and I figure some of that could be humorous

Do you know people who are not funny and yet try to make jokes? Do you think they know they're not funny?
Yep. Yes and no.

Do you like to get involved in jokes, ie, adding to a joke someone else made, riffing on a joke, etc, or do you like to make your own jokes?
Sometimes.

PS. I fixed your second question.

I think I'm funny because a lot of people laugh at my jokes.
Now I've seen plenty of unfunny people getting laughs. When I worry, it's not that I worry about being unfunny. I worry that I'm that unfunny guy getting laughs from idiots.

This thread will prove to be unproductive.

Anybody quotes Pesci from Goodfellas, and they're gettin' stomped.*





*Mainly because it occurred to me to do it and I thought better. I may just be able to get off the MB shortbus yet.

I know I'm funny because the moment I walk into a room, people immediately start laughing.

Audience has a lot to do with whether or not your jokes and your humor fits.

I’d like to think I’m funny. I believe most people think they are funny or have a good sense of humor. The main problem with being funny here is a person’s sense of humor may not translate to the written word, a post. The biggest problem I have being funny here are my poor writing skills. I have no sense of syntax.

Most of my humor is improv and usually more a riff on the current conversation, while trying to get the most shock value in for my money. Subtlety and sarcasm do not translate well on a message board unless the writer is exceptional. And I, my friends, am not an exceptional writer.

I think it requires a certain amount of Narcissism to think that you're funny, and even more to think that you're funny enough to become an arbiter of what is and isn't funny. It's something I find kinda irritating about Chud, you have unfunny people, and then you have marginally funny people who think that because they're slightly funnier than the unfunny ones that they are the law on what is and what isn't funny.

I'm not funny at all and I've always been annoyed by that. I can get a good line off once in a while, but that's about it.

I think it's a matter of the audience. Some will find you funny, some won't, and I'm sure some people found that douchebag funny.

This place has a wide array of personalities, and you're bound to find some that don't mesh.

I know a lot of people who don't find me funny, or what I find hilarious, not at all. But then I have plenty of friends who think I am. It's all objective. And I think anybody who will openly say they know they're funny are just jackasses.

Miyagi, Otik, fleed. Just awful attention-getting arrogant asses.

Comedy is kind of a hobby of mine. Well, actually, it's a little more than just a hobby, Reader's Digest is considering publishing two of my jokes.

My best friend is really funny until he tries to be funny. I don't know if there are other people like that but when he tries to joke, it's just painful.

I think I can be funny because I make people laugh and they tell me I'm funny. Funny thing is, they're not funny.

On a side note, Seth Rogen, who is very funny, was laughing at everything in the Creative Screenwriting Q&A. Sometimes I think that really funny people are the ones with a very wide-ranging sense of humor, but with the wit and acumen to have good taste and great timing.

I have tried way too hard to be funny in the past (see post count), but I'm still learning.

Tell us a joke, funnyman! (I hate hearing this after meeting new people that know "of" me)

I wear Hawaiian shirts often, just so I can be funny when I'm not speaking. Learned that one from ALF.

My biggest humor flaw is that a lot of times I feel like I'm the only audience that matters. If I find something I say/do funny then as far as I'm concerned it's mission accomplished. This can be infuriating to other people around me in real life. I have played practical jokes on people and never actually revealed that they were a practical joke just because I thought it was funny and rather than bring the other person in on the joke I found it funnier not to.

I think I'm funny at times, although not all that often on message boards. I do gravitate towards the people who are funnier on message boards and can certainly appreciate their humor. When I'm with a group of friends I'd say they all consider me very funny, but that's a loaded audience. You naturally end up hanging out with buddies with similar senses of humor.

What about those people that regurgitate other comedy bits? I know I've done it, everyone probably has one time or another. I'm talking specifically about those people that do this as their only source of humor.

All comedy is niche comedy to some degree, though. I imagine physical humor probably translates to most cultures, but so much humor is a product of specific place and time. It's not just a language barrier that prevents something like Knocked Up from going over as well in India (for instance) as it does here. For that matter, there are plenty of people who live in the same general culture as we do who don't find Knocked Up funny at all for various reasons. Humor, I think, is even more subjective than beauty.

I think I can be funny in conversation. But, I'm never funny in written form. I think I just have a funny voice.

A few weeks ago a buddy and I listened to the latest CHUD podcast and I consistently found myself cracking up and he looked at me like I was crazy. On the forums here people generally seem to have the same taste when it comes to humor, and occasionally the "funny" threads where everyone's trying to one-up the last post can be amusing to read and take part in.

I've always thought that I've had a pretty decent sense of humor, and enough people have said that to me. Am I, or is anyone, always funny? No. But oh well.

I consider myself funny about 50% of the time. Half my jokes land, the other half do not. A fair average, I suppose.

The trick is to find the balance between being a humorless, dreary asshole and an obnoxious clown who won't shut up until he gets the guffaws he feels he is owed. It can be a slippery slope at times. My motto is: Know your audience. I can make jokes here that I could never make with my mother (who has a great sense of humor) and vice versa. Get a feel for the room and know when a communal joke has run out of gas or isn't appropriate in the first place.

I don't have any idea whether or not I'm funny, to be perfectly honest. My wife thinks I'm funny, and that goes a long way in a relationship to cover up over disparities; my stock retort to people who complained that there's no reason in the world why Heigl would be with Rogen was that he makes her laugh.

The problem it seems to me comes in our inability to move past subjectivity when it comes to humor. It's difficult to put aside one's own sense of humor and appreciate a joke that you don't find funny by understanding why someone else would find it funny. For example, there are lots of ideas or things that I don't believe or affirm, but I can understand the logic or attraction behind them and can separate myself from my subjectivity to grasp why others might believe them, but I don't find that I can do that with
humor. If it doesn't make me laugh, it's hard for me to understand why it makes you laugh.

What's the old saying? "Comedy is like porn. It either works for you or it doesn't."

I laugh at my own jokes... alot. My wife rolls her eyes at me and just chuckles ("at", not "with") most of the time, when she's not genuinely amused.

I tend to throw a lot against the wall to see what sticks. Rapid fire always seems to work better for me in group settings, if something I say bombs. It's easier to misdirect and leave the awkward comment in the dust that way.

On a MB, you don't get the immediate feedback of a laugh, so it's mostly for myself.

Do you think you're funny?
Sometimes.

If you don't think you're funny, do you find a lot of things funny or do you feel you don't have a wide ranging sense of humor?
I suppose this question doesn't really apply to me since I do occasionally find myself to be funny.

If you don't think you're funny, do you still give joking around a shot?
I joke around with close friends and family mostly. Trying it around people I don't know as well or who don't know me well is never a good testing ground.

If you do think you're funny, why do you think that?
I think I have a good sense of humor, but that is based mainly on the reactions of those who have laughed at my humor in the past. A lot of my spur-of-the-moment humor is observational humor and those closest to me can vouch for me that I've had a few zingers in my day.

Do you know people who are not funny and yet try to make jokes? Do you think they know they're not funny?
Oh yeah, there's plenty of people who are not funny "in my opinion," though whether or not they know it is questionable.

A guy in my office thinks the pinnacle of humor is a good Seinfeld quote. He's not funny.

And what DaveB said rings true for me. My friends think I'm the funniest guy they know with off-the-cuff humor. But a lot of people on these boards make me feel like Lt. Steve Hauk. See, obscure references aren't always funny either.

Do you think you're funny, Devin? When you pop into a thread and you're only contribution is a one-liner that is putting everyone else down who has posted, do you do it out of contempt or because you think people will get a laugh out of it? Or both? There are times when I laugh at what you post, and other times it just seems odd and arbitrary. And while not as jokey as some of the other main site contributors, I do continually find your articles very humorous because of the cleverness of your jokes rather than going for the obvious.

Although, when done with the proper amount of tongue-in-cheek that's funny as well.

To sort of echo what DaveB said, it isn't whether or not you have a sense of humor that matters. Everyone's got that. Its whether or not we share a similar sense of humor that's important.

Oh, I'm not setting myself up for failure like that.

I'd like to think I'm a pretty funny guy. I've always wanted to dabble in stand-up to see how I'd do, but I've just never taken the plunge though I've got some material that I've written.

Despite that, and as much as I love to make people laugh (especially my son and wife), I really just want to make myself laugh. If I end up going my entire life without knowing that I was or wasn't funny, I'll be okay, as long as I think I'm funny.

I also don't think I'm very funny on these boards... I find I'm rather sarcastic, and that doesn't always come off well in text. Matchstick, though. He's a friggin' comic genious on these boards. I don't even want to try to compete with that!!! So no... riffing isn't my thing unless it's:

ARE YOU THINKING WHAT I'M THINKING THAT IS NEXT TO THAT TABLE!!!!!!!!!!11!!!!!!!

Or whatever that line was.

We should leave Dane Cook out of this conversation.

There's also internet funny and real-life funny.

I certainly amuse myself when I'm writing--like A-Pathetic, I'm a lousy comedian because I'm more interested in trying to make myself laugh first--but it's also easy to be clever or cruel when you've got all the time in the world to type a response.

In real life, I don't think I'm particularly funny. And I've got a bad habit of passive-aggressively needling people with intentionally bad jokes whenever I'm in a lousy mood.

The best comedians are the ones who are self-abusing and don't act like they know they're funny.

That's why Dane Cook is horrible. The dude oozes arrogance.

I don't know if this is necessarily true. I think this assumes that there big F Funny out there. I don't know if that is true. So much of comedy is completely timing and knowing the audience. It is impossible to read every possible audience. I think the guys from Monty Python are probably the best comedians ever, but I am not sure they would be big hits on the Yurt circuit. I don't think that comedy is ingrained in humans when they are born. It is a process of socialization just like the idea of beauty. I may very well be wrong, but I think you pointing out how comedians "instinctively" understand this backs up my point. They are more keenly aware of social circumstances (at least in the sense of reading peoples reactions to comedy). This is a result of years of consciously and unconsciously realizing what makes those around them laugh. The most successful comedians are able to transfer these realizations onto a wider audience. However, if you put them in a social context that does not share any of the same keys they would probably not be successful within that context. Of course this is all just speculation, but I think the question is an interesting one.

Edit to say: Even if the Pythons attempted to use different material, without a lot of study, I am not sure they would be able to make mongolian herdsman to laugh.

Does everyone got that? Or can we say that some senses of humor are bad by any scale or definition, analogous to color-blindness, deafness or any other deterioration of a "sense?"

I'm funny in certain situations. Mostly a conversation, written mind you, where I can play off what the other person is saying and spin it into some non-sequitur. But when it comes to internet jokes, I come up empty. I guess I feel as though, well, if I have to think too hard about this shit, it probably isn't funny and I inevitably add to the pollution of once hilarious threads (ie 'the human hand' thread).

But put me in a conversation with a few other people and I'll be worth a laugh or two.

Edit: I understand I'm late to the conversation (though I think it was just posted a few minutes ago) but wanted to get my two cents in about my own personal humor rating.

This is me. I tend to be funnier when I just don't give a crap if anyone laughs or not, probably because I'm more relaxed. When I'm trying too hard, it's like a big fried egg laying out there. My first four years in NY, I was trying to break into stand up comedy, and let me tell you, I failed miserably, and eventually decided to quit - at which point, the audience would laugh at my stuff because I just didn't care if they did or not. Only a few times when I literally thought, "This is so not fun anymore. It never was fun. I could really give a shit if they laugh", was I mellowed out enough that they laughed. Same jokes, same schtick. So alot of it has to do with just not being desperate for the laughs.

It might very well be. This would an interesting sociology thesis.