How To Be Funny | Video Essay

Eddie's everybody know where's my map come on sir thank you god it's a barren featureless desert out there the other side what makes something funny when someone tells a joke and it makes people laugh what qualities must that joke possess almost everyone has their own answer to this question some will argue it is to do with the element of surprise whilst others will argue it's a release of built-up emotion the problem is all of these techniques are exactly that various ways and styles in which a joke can be delivered there are a thousand and one ways to tell a joke but really the singular quality that is required in order for a joke to be a joke is something far simpler than many would have you believe instead of me telling you what that quality is I'm going to play you three clips from three films while you're watching them I want you to ask what quality do they all share Sting's the nostrils in a good way Yeah right I'm going to be honest with you that smells like pure gasoline they've done studies you know 60% of the time it works every time that doesn't make sense morning the Swans escaped right and where's the escape from exactly Pei steak right piss taker come on yes mr. everything we can can you describe it the hotel the captain we've got to land as soon as we can this woman has to be got into a hospital a hospital what is it it's a big building with patients but that's not important right now so no you've seen those clips what was the one quality they all shared so in anchorman he says 60% of the time it works every time this is a funny line because it's a total non sequitur he contradicts himself in the same sentence and by doing so he looks like a total idiot this joke is at his Spence all look at the example from Hot Fuzz the policeman receives what he thinks is a prank call and makes fun of the coolest name only for him to learn that the call was legitimate and that he had just insulted a random member of the public this joke is at the expense of the policeman because he misunderstood the call which resulted in him looking like a total idiot or you can look at airplane this joke is at the expense of the doctor because he misunderstood the question an argument could also be made that it was also at the expense of the hostess because due to her poor choice in words she left their selves honorable to this misinterpretation what is the one trait these three jokes have in common they you'll have a victim and this leads me to make this rather controversial statement every joke ever told has a victim and if you right now disagree with this idea try to think for joke that doesn't have a victim feel free to pause the video and Google knock-knock jokes or what's your favorite sitcom and whenever you catch yourself laughing ask who was the victim to that joke I think that epicfail videos are really comedy in its purest form where we see people being physically hurt for their mistakes the Germans have a word for this and it's called shouting Freud er which means pleasure derived from someone else's misfortune and there may be some of you right now thinking well what about puns when granddad opens a cracker at Christmas and says a pun that makes everyone groan who is the victim to that joke well it's him the joke teller himself most puns fall into a very specific kind of humor that being self-deprecating humor the essence to self-deprecating humor is the victim to the joke is not another person but the joke teller themselves this is a technique that is very popular amongst stand-up comedians and I think a comedian who has mastered this style of comedy is Conan O'Brien these clips being an example of his style of humor a social networking site where you can find people in your area you've never met there in your vicinity and they're ready to meet and maybe hook up naturally because I'm a creep I'm intrigued find out about this not even drug why are you assuming that Cube knows more about this neighborhood than I do why aren't you asking me about this neighborhood yeah you're absolutely right about that class racist what is it Pedro Pedro I'm not sure I've never been down here and I'm terrified as you can see conan has built himself the character of an egotistical creep now it's obvious that Conan in real life is not like this but he are like most successful self-deprecating comedians have learned that when you build a character for yourself and that character has multiple flaws such as being a pervert or having a massive ego that can allow set comedian to create witty jokes based around that characters flaws and this particular style of humor has several advantages to realize those advantages you need only look at another late-night talk-show host Jimmy Kimmel Kimmel has done something similar to O'Brien he has established a character for himself which enables him to create jokes however his character is based around making other people the victim rather than himself I wonder if any of you remember when two years ago Kimmel attacks the video game community on YouTube and made them the butt of his jokes for a number of shows YouTube launched a new video network yesterday where you can watch other people play video games for real let the whole network it's called the we should all be very ashamed of ourselves for failing his parents channel I was called YouTube gaming all you need to do is look at the like bar to realize the response from the online community was overwhelmingly negative any sensible comedian after the first show would have backed off and never mentioned video gaming again in a bad light but because of Kimmel's persona he doubled down on the matter and made a great number of videos reinforcing his opinion the vast majority of comments on his videos were very civil and well-structured however Kimmel cherry-picks the absolute worst comments and betrayed them like they were the average member of that community yeah effing kill yourself you ignorant F it's clear you have no clue what you're talking about you irrelevant old man you stupid fat boy I guess that's me people love watching people play video games you're just mad because you will be jobless in a one-er you stupid bearded gorilla now technically speaking what kill did here was good comedy however he held back no punches and was so totally unafraid of receiving negative backlash this irreparably damaged his reputation amongst those who like to play video games because many people even today years later have not forgiven him for his remarks I think this presents the number one danger when it comes to creating comedy the danger of crossing the very fine line from being a comedian and being a bully however when we look back at Conan O'Brien and his self-deprecating humor it is an entirely different story he often makes comedic commentary on religion and foreign culture just watch this many ancient sites here Mount of Olives Wright Dome of the rock over there oh this must be a very ancient site it says Hyatt Hotel this must be this is the hotel where Joseph and Mary couldn't get a room completely booked and they gave it a terrible yelp review in this clip conan makes a joke around a foreign culture which too many comedians is a very easy way to be offensive yet Conant does it in a way where he gets a good laugh however offends absolutely no one firstly when addressing foreign culture he never comment on something that people might feel insecure about if he were to comment on the violence between various religions in the area that would have definitely offended some people however he commented on the fact that a Hyatt Hotel exists in Jerusalem nobody in Jerusalem feels insecure about the fact that there is a hotel in their city so nobody would feel offended when he comments on it and secondly this comes back to his self-deprecating humor he says the joke in a way where his captor believes the modern hotel existed back in the time of Jesus's birth now of course he didn't believe this however when you look at this joke the main victim to it it's not the people of Jerusalem but himself for being an idiot foreigner who doesn't understand the local culture and that really underlines the reason why Conan O'Brien is too many people their favorite comedian because his humor is so desperately inoffensive the only real victim to most of his jokes is himself this is the main benefit of doing self-deprecating humor you can create some extremely funny jokes while offending absolutely no one and that is a good lesson you can apply we're not just doing creative writing but also in your everyday life if you want to be a more likable person be sure to create jokes that poke fun at yourself rather than other people because if you do so it will make you more likeable more approachable and you very well maybe one day the host of a late-night talk show okay maybe not that last one I expect most people will disagree with me on this video essay but at the end of the day that is not what this channel is about the point of these videos is to start a conversation to help people think in new ways that they never did before so what do you think does every joke require a victim or is the real key to creating comedy something else entirely I'd love to know what you think in the comments down below also before we go I just like to say that if you enjoy these video I say some find them entertaining then please do consider donating to my patreon you do not have to donate a single penny however if you do you will not only be receiving a number of rewards such as watching all of my videos a week early but you will also be supporting me doing the thing I love most in this world and the fact that so many people whose names are all in description down below believe in me enough to help me achieve my dreams by donating by patreon means more to me than that money ever could anyway thanks for watching please do like and subscribe and I'll see you guys next time on the closer look

Channel: The Closer Look

Views: 761,719

Keywords: video, essay, video essay, the closer look, henry sharpe, funny, comedy, humor, humour, how to be funny, how to, ancorman, hot fuzz, airplane, conan, jimmy, brian, conan obrian, conan o'brian, jimmy kimmel, kimmel

Id: ngwOuLzQiHE

Length: 11min 6sec (666 seconds)

Published: Fri Oct 13 2017