Stand Up Comedy
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You are currently reading a thread in /adv/ - Advice
You are currently reading a thread in /adv/ - Advice
I've been told that my sense of humor is above average, and I've always wanted to try open mic not caring if I bomb or not but I wanted to ask 4chan for tips on anything, such as anybody have experience, overcoming stage freight etc etc
Never explain the joke, unless explaining the joke is actually part of the joke.
What's the deal with airline food?
Say things like "pleb" oh and also "zozzle"
>>17098617
Why do they call it ovaltine? The mug is round. The jar is round. They should call it round tine
Thank me later
>>17098617
small-time standupcomicfag here.
Here are some a few tips I wish people would of told me.
1. Tons of people have friends who say they should do standup. Don't use this as a reason to not actively write and workshop material. The difference between a great joke and a shit joke can be a few words and a bit of inflection. Don't fudge the details.
2. NO RIFFING. NO CROWDWORK. Its a cheap form of comedy that, while may get a neat reaction out of a crowd every now and again, won't get you any new gigs. Anybody can get on stage and ask people where they work etc., that isn't what any club owner is looking for. Besides, until you get a good amount of usable, tried and tested material you shouldn't be doing any crowd work anyways.
3. Practice dealing with hecklers. The quickest way to get a crowd to turn on you is to get into a yelling match with a drunk asshole. Ignore hecklers unless you feel the opportunity to throw out a good response. If it bombs, oh well, you tried.
4. You're going to bomb. Accept that if you ever want to try comedy, especially open mic. Every room is different, every night is different. Comics of all levels bomb frequently. Don't stop, don't pause, don't comment like "Woah I guess you guys didn't like that one". Just move on to the next joke.
5. Relax. Being tense and worried about whether or not your jokes are good tenses up the room and even if you are hypothetically funny people will be too uncomfortable watching you to laugh.
Other than that just write things that make you laugh out loud. Try them out with friends, hanging outside of bars. Hang out with any other comics at the venue. Soak it all in and the rest will just be practice, feeling out rooms and adjusting your set accordingly. Open mic are typically between 5-10 minutes so don't sweat it, you won't need to be THAT funny to begin with.
The worst thing that could happen on stage is that you could fall in love with it.
Good luck.
>>17098617
Look up the funniest stand up comedians and just literally tell their jokes word for word. Come on so you really think ppl in the crowd will have them memorized? You csnt vo wrong doing this
>>17098722
Damn saved, well said. Pretty much pumped me up.
Kinda wanna do an open mic night as well. I have about 3-5 minutes worth of material. I'm just scared to look like a fuckboy
>>17098840
No problem. After the first few times you'll loosen up, so don't sweat it. Be confident in your material and it will show.
>>17098895
I constantly write things I find funny on twitter like a workout routine some of it has to be worthy but im just scared i'll run out of things to say you know like stop mid sentence and be like so um...
>>17098914
Great, to hear I feel like i''ll need a few drinks then go up to be able to preform.
>>17098915
The best way I've found of combatting this is kind of leveling your jokes. What I mean by that is having multiple ways to expand on jokes. If you want to go with the most widely used form of "story telling" comedy and not Steven Wright style one liners, that is.
For example, I have a joke about shopping for clothes alone. First I pretty much talk about wandering around the store looking for someone to tell me if I look good. Then, if I feel the joke is going well I'll talk about how my mom is the only one that buys me clothes that fit me. If I'm still getting a couple laughs maybe I'll expand a little further and transition into some material about my relationship with my mother.
It all sounds kind of dry and technical but it leaves you with a lot of room to "unfold" jokes as you see they're working. Still, make sure the punchlines to each stage are still funny and you're not just telling a long ass story thats "supposed" to be funny but leaving the audience wondering when its going to end.
Still, always have a LOT of joke ideas written down just in case you roll through 5 or 6 of them and you aren't getting any laughs and you have to move on quickly. When I first started I'd have a pad with just a few words like "shopping alone/mom clothes" so at the very least, if I wasn't funny I wouldn't be stuck on stage with nothing to say.
Its all about preparation. Don't skip the preparation and you won't get caught with your pants down.
you don't need to think about it this much. don't even listen to anything anyone says.
there is only one way to overcome stage-fright, and that's to get on stage. so get on stage as much as you can.
don't even bother writing material. think about a topic, maybe something you brought up to a friend and it made them laugh.
you'll naturally want to talk about things that you think will make people laugh but you've never said them in real life. it won't work well, but it doesn't matter and you can do this too.
just get on stage, eat dick, and do it again and again and again. it doesn't matter if you suck, everyone sucks. then start writing and trying stuff, and you'll still suck just as much as when you didn't prepare anything.
eventually you'll find something that makes people laugh, so you should make note of it and get to where you can get laughs with it consistently. it will take a while to accumulate enough of these to have anything that resembles a set that doesn't suck.
after a long time you'll start getting better about predicting what will and won't work on stage, and when it doesn't work you'll be better at knowing why, or if something worked one time and not another you'll be able to narrow down why.
long story short, just start doing open mics even if you have no material.
I have a sibling that is a pretty famous comedian and I've had the opportunity to meet some of the best imo. I've also done stand up a few times. The first time I did a joke about cot death and I died. It was the greatest feeling of my life. To go up there and hear crickets and come out the other side of it feeling ok. This is my advice to you. Just do it. Try to be a bit hacky, use some basic formula's talk about shit in the news, before trying to reinvent the wheel. Write down stuff constantly and be prepared to die a lot.
