Don't BS Yourself
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Transcript:
If you get to a point in the writing where you’re trying to be clever or witty in order to carry the bit?
It’s over. STOP.
That shit is fake.
It’s fake bullshit.
That’s a note to myself. I need to read it more often.
If I’m working on a joke, and the joke isn’t working how I want it to, sometimes I try to clever my way out of it.
I try to play with the language - “Let’s see how cutesy and witty I can be…”
That’s barking up the wrong tree. It never works. It doesn’t connect with people. Nobody’s impressed by your fancy baubles dangling and jangling about.
The feelings in the joke have to be real. That’s the substance of the bit.
Being clever is window dressing.
Picking the right words isn’t a substitute for saying something authentic.
If there’s a part of the bit that is making you feel like you’re not being yourself? Cut it. It needs to go. It needs to goooooo! Bye bye.
I was listening to John Vervaeke, philosopher slash cognitive scientist, was listening to Vervakes an’ he was talking about Socrates and Sophists back in Ancient Greece.
Socrates, the Socratic project, is, you’re supposed to seek wisdom. Wisdom is knowing how to act properly in the world. Wisdom is moral or ethical knowledge. What is the appropriate, just, good thing to do in any given situation?
The Socratic Method, you’re asking questions in order to draw out wisdom. You interrogate yourself and others and try to come up with the best way to live.
By contrast, there were the Sophists. And the Sophists, not that they were bad people, they just had a different goal.
Their goal was to teach rhetoric. Rhetoric, that’s the art of effective and persuasive speaking and writing. That’s what the Sophists focused on.
Socrates - how do we cultivate wisdom - taking the right actions in our lives.
The Sophists - how do we convince people to agree and go along with us.
Different goals.
And John Vervaeke, when he’s talking about the contrast between these two, he brings up the term bullshit.
He says, bullshit is not lying. Not the same as lying. Bullshit is not saying something that is false.
Bullshit runs deeper than that. Bullshit makes you unconcerned with whether something is true.
He brings up marketing and advertising. These are disciplines that utilize bullshit to convince you that you need cars and clothes and drinks and vacations that you don’t need.
You can look up the rhetorical techniques developed by the Sophists - ethos, pathos, logos. These are ways that can be used to make bullshit emotionally appealing in a consumerist society.
The problem Socrates saw with the Sophists is that their techniques can be used to convince people to focus their attention on bullshit that has nothing to do with living a better life.
They can distract your attention away from trying to get at the truth of yourself and how you can act wisely in the world.
How does this relate to stand-up comedy?
You can do a form of stand-up that is all bullshit.
Nothing wrong with that. Done well, it can be highly entertaining.
Some people like a bullshit artist.
Sometimes I like a bullshit artist. I’ll watch an action movie. I like explosions.
But it will never be more than entertaining. It’s not gonna help you figure out anything about yourself or other people.
And maybe it doesn’t need to. Maybe that’s not why you’re personally attracted to stand-up comedy.
But that has always been part of the attraction for me.
I’ve long been fascinated by stand-up as a way in which people process complex topics and emotions. I think the attitude of the stand-up comedian is a good counterweight to standard societal perspectives on all sorts of issues.
I think stand-up has more to offer than just bullshit. But only if you approach it intentionally.
So if you want your audience to feel like something is resonating emotionally on a deeper level, you can’t rely on the techniques of the Sophists.
The Sophists are all about presentation. That is important. But it won’t take you as far as substance.
Substance is Socrates. What actually matters in the world? What is this saying about the types of human beings we should be and become? Different question.
Whatever fancy packaging and baubles you cover your joke in; what commentary does it have to offer on the project of becoming a better human?
That’s the non-bullshit thing people can connect with.
Also, this almost always shows up in a backhanded way in comedy. You never come out and say, “Here is what wisdom would be.” That’s not a funny way to approach it.
But there are lots of opportunities in comedy to demonstrate what wisdom isn’t. And then you let people draw their own conclusions from there.
If you wanna learn how to live a better life from comedy, you’re gonna have to glean it indirectly. It’s all implied. It’s all subtext.
But yea, the writing tip, again. If you’re writing a joke and you’re obsessing too much over the exact words to use, getting the phrasing right, coming up with the witty line – I’m not saying don’t pay attention to that. That is important and it does make a difference. But also, maybe take a step back and ask, Why are you struggling so much to come up with the words to approach this? What do you actually have to say here? Where’s the substance?