Written by Kathleen Thomas
Editors note: stand up comics often discuss the necessity of sucking before they’re great; and the author here is not challenging the validity of that path. this essay covers one person’s take on what that suckage is like from a audience members perspective; a perspective that hasn’t really been included in this conversation.
There are no moderately talented stand-up comics. There are two kinds. There are the hilarious ones, hands-down the funniest folks you’ve ever met. And then there are people who you feel need to be put on suicide watch because they are so obviously awful. They pity themselves, and mistake their desperation for public approval as ‘bravery’. The type of person to do open mic stand-up is typically insanely far below the normal threshold of funny. It tends to draw in people who are unable to make their peers laugh, though they fail to learn from that inability. So they LARP as the “funny guy” in such a manner where no one can deny them in the moment (stand-up, YouTube video, podcast, etc). You can find these trifling creatures haunting cafes in Bushwick, or performing verbal terrorism to a crowd in a Williamsburg bar on a slow Thursday evening.
This is not a new form of natural disaster, these criminals have peeved us for centuries. “Evil doesn’t die, it reinvents itself”. One may recognize it as the Michael Scott/Jim Halpert Paradox. The Michael Scott/Jim Halpert Paradox states that if man recognizes himself as the “funnyman” in the room, he automatically eliminates himself and becomes incredibly annoying. Self recognition simply cannot be done without self destruction.
… which is necessary to become great at stand-up. The sheer nerve is reminiscent of gladiators throughout history, it takes guts to humiliate yourself for the greater good of your career. Don’t misunderstand me – I inherently respect someone who cares more about making people laugh than the possibility of embarrassing himself. However, that doesn’t mean anyone has to enjoy it. The critical tendencies of mankind are nature’s purier. Everyone has to suck at a certain point, but you will ascend no higher until you shed your nonsense.
If a comedian has been funny his whole life, he may graduate to “decent” faster than others. We observe a similar circumstance with the whole “new money vs old money” debate. New money (or new funny) will behave in a ashy, tasteless fashion. An example of the comedy equivalent could be a comic leaning extremely hard on shock value, or “ghting” for a joke that didn’t land. Arguing with the silent room that actually that joke was really good and you guys just don’t get it. This is the behavior of a guy who just started making his friends laugh last year. Old money (old funny) is the wiser, alpha-like older brother of New Funny. He’s been funny for a while now, and doesn’t experience the same pitfalls as those without experience. Old Funny doesn’t fight for his joke. Where new funny would go for shock, old funny subverts expectations and underwhelms, leaving his audience wanting more but impressed by the chasm of need he’s created. This is the eye of the hurricane in the world of comedy. This seems to be the rare “good stand-up comic”. These can be discovered at places like The Tiny Cupboard or Brooklyn Comedy Collective. Still, they will be adorned in a tiny beanie resembling a penis or sneakers so white they could belong to a dentist. But those golden idiots are still out there.
Good or bad, poised or meek, no comedian can compete for the title of Most Audacious as well as a “Crowd Work Cody”. A Crowd Work Cody is a man so bold, so unwaveringly self-assured, that he has taken the stage with full intention of using this opportunity to force people to have a conversation with him. One may notice that he is very excited for this endeavor, for he is bubbling over with the joy of being in a position where he can make people laugh by asking someone a dubious question. Then he alooy responds with a “huh-what now?!” or maybe “umm did someone stumble in from crazy town?!” Perhaps he will daringly just repeat what they say with a cocked eyebrow and just wait for the hysterics to ensue. Groundbreaking.
As a society, we need to recognize how insane it is to be on a stage with a microphone if you aren’t 1. A musician or 2. a charismatic politician. New comics are earning their spot, and that’s okay, but it’s not a crime to realize some of the clichés they’ve fallen into lately. A demand for my attention is a promise to try to make it worth it. I’m willing to watch you crash and burn, as long as you don’t go around the audience asking what everyone’s jobs are. That’s worthy of a lifetime sentence of being the cool high school history teacher.
