Cool is Needy
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Transcript:
Comedy feels very pure to me.
It feels like one of the very few things in my life that I’ve always had an intrinsic interest in. No one’s ever had to push me in the direction of comedy. It’s its own reward. It feels like the thing I’m in for the love a’ the game.
But the odd thing with doing stand-up is, you’re in front of a crowd. And your success or failure is judged based on the reaction of that crowd.
So you can kinda feel a need to protect yourself. Put up some walls an’ defenses to keep from getting crushed up there by a heap of judgment from the onlookers.
There’s a temptation to go up there with some bravado, a little swagger. People are less likely to mess with you if you look like you know somethin’ that they don’t.
The problem with that is, comedy is not cool. It’s not a genre for the smooth and hip and well-liked. It’s not supposed to be impressive. As soon as you’re up there posturing – that’s all fake. You don’ wanna try to impress anyone. There’s no one to impress in comedy.
The purity of comedy to me is that it’s a fun game. You’re playing a game with the audience. And it’s fun. There’s no winner or loser. You’re co-creating. It’s just a silly, playful game.
You mess up the game if you turn it into a competition where you’re tryin’ to be king of the hill.
Court jesters weren’t the king. That’s not how it works.
Cool in comedy, to me, it comes across as needy. There’s a neediness there. But also, whatever hole you’re trying to fill by coming across as cool, is not going to be filled by tricking a group of strangers into thinking you’re cool. That’s a weird byproduct of comedy; it’s not the art itself. That’s not a good reason to be up there.
The stage an’ the spotlight don’t help either. If you interpret it incorrectly, that can make you think you’re more important than you are, which is not helpful for comedy.
You need the stage an’ the spotlight, cuz it tells people to pay attention. You need people to pay attention. It’s a social art form. But that’s where the importance of the stage an’ spot light end for me in comedy. It doesn’t mean you’re special. That’s stupid. You’re lying to yourself if you let it go to your head.
It is weird. Cuz you need to get the laughs. That’s how you know you’re vibing and tracking with the audience. But you don’ want to interpret that as a sign that you’re cool and special. You want to interpret that as “Ok, I’m making good art. I’m approaching this in the right way. I’m being honest.”
There is a form of stand-up comedy that is sort of just like doing back flips. I saw a dude do a standing back flip at the gym the other day. He was just standing, jumped straight up in the air, flipped backwards. That was pretty cool. He basically dunked without a basketball hoop. There’s a form of entertainment you can do on stage that’s like that.
And that is cool. I don’t wanna take away from things that are cool. Cool things should exist and people should be allowed to do them and get applause and what not.
But I don’ think the funniest stand up is cool. I don’ think that works. Cool has a hard cap on how funny it can be.
If you wanna hit higher levels of funny, you gotta take the plunge and be uncool. You gotta let the audience judge you. Gotta drop the posturing, risk potential humiliation. Hopefully, that’s not the direction it goes in, but, if you miscalibrate things, that’s always a risk if you’re trying to find the funniest stuff.
And even if you mess up and it’s embarrassing, try not to lock up and throw up the defenses. Just keep it a playful game. If you keep it silly and light, generally people will follow suit. If you don’ try to act like you’re too cool for them, for the most part, people won’t act like they’re too cool for you. You all get to keep playing the game.