“Humor is really closely related to fear and despair. I believe the reason people have a sense of humor is if they didn’t, then they would look around, they would realize, with their perfectly rational brains, that we live in an extremely dangerous, scary world, run by all kinds of forces over which we have no control, and we’re all gonna get older and sicker and die. That’s the way it’s gonna work, biologically. It’s a scary thing. And if we can’t react to that in some way that allows us to release the fear and the anxiety that that realization comes along, we’re in deep trouble. So we laugh.” -Dave Barry on humor
When I drafted this post last week (yes, I know), I started out with a whole big intellectual introductory paragraph about Aristotle’s definitions of genres and the Poetics and things; it was pretty dry, but my professors would have been proud. Then, last night, I ran across this quote by Dave Barry, which essentially says the same thing in a much more accessible way. The main point is that everyone seems to agree on one basic definition of comedy: comedy happens when the crap in life becomes so absurd that you can’t do much except laugh at it.
Humor is a powerful form of communication, and can be used incredibly effectively by almost anyone, whether you’re marketing or teaching. However, lots of people get really nervous about using humor in their marketing and blogging, and I sort of don’t blame them. Humor is one of those subjects that is pretty subjective: just because you think it’s funny, it doesn’t mean anyone else will. Also, bad humor and bad jokes tend to be really bad, and can actually have a negative effect on things.
I’m not going to write a post telling you how to be funny, because if I could tell you that there would be way more comedy posts around here. I can give you some basics of what makes comedy effective though, which I hope will be equally helpful.
1) The funniest things are the truest things.
To paraphrase, Aristotle describes comedy as portraying the realistic through the unrealistic. The key here is that the heart of the joke has to rely on something that’s true. Per Aristotle and Dave Barry, this means that jokes don’t have to be based on anything inherently funny. In fact, the best ones aren’t. If you’re trying to figure out how to spin something in a funny way, try looking at what the universal truth is in your story.
2) Write for your audience: you don’t need to appeal to everyone.
This isn’t bad blogging advice either, honestly. When you run a blog, or you’re writing your new website, you probably know who you’re aiming things at. This is good, especially if you’re trying to be funny in print. Find the jokes that your specific audience can relate to. Identifying your audience’s fears, anxieties, and needs can go a long way towards making your joke not only relevant, but resonate.
If you’ve got any tips about humor writing, leave them in the comments. And remember to enter the contest if you haven’t already!
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