I have been trying to figure out how to be more funny. It would be amazing to be a stand up comic, but I’d settle for just being able to make people I meet laugh. I have done some stand up and I enjoy it, but it doesn’t come naturally. Also, to analyze a joke is like defenestrating a chair or quantum mechanics – as you examine it, it goes away. That’s my humor. Just barely on the edge of making any kind of sense.

There has been some serious studies into the subject. Most recently, I’ve been trying to apply the 11 Funny Filters of Scott Dikkers. Scott knows his stuff as he was the founding editor of the Onion. His stand-up is not that great, but he sure knows how to write it, recognize it, and promote it in others.

It’s probably a bit of a mis-translation, but Aristotle defined humor as a mistake or deformity that doesn’t cause pain or hurt others. I like that definition. It’s the difference between a lie and a joke.

In the podcast Factually! by Adam Conover, he interviews authors Matt Sienkiewicz and Nick Marx of the book That’s Not Funny about what is comedy today and how it is being used for political gain, especially by the right. I liked how they talked about how there is no inherent bias in comedy, but it can easily be used to create a political argument that bypasses logic.

I’ve gotten a lot of tips from these videos by Charisma on Command that talk about some humor hacks you can do like answering a question too literally, punching up and never down, and not giving a straight answer to common questions like “What do you do? Where are you from?” the channel is a little click-baity and is essentially a sales funnel into their $600 Charisma University, but it has some good nuggets of info.

So that’s my non-funny treatise on how to be funny. Basically, do a bunch of online searching and watch some videos.