Be the idiot
Also: F– me is funnier than f– you.
Invite me to come perform in your town, at your work thing/conference, or somewhere else by replying here or emailing mattruby [at] hey [dot] com. Some upcoming cool gigs…
March 6 - Narrowsburg, NY - The Parlor
March 12 - New York, NY - Gospel (promo code JOY20)
March 14 - Philadelphia, PA - Next In Line Comedy
April 4 - Boston, MA - Elephant & Castle
Idioteque
Be the idiot. So says Will Hines:
One major difference is in real life a lot of people express their humor by characterizing OTHER people’s foolishness. I call this the “get a load of this idiot” school of funny.
You complain about a mutual friend. you comment on something annoying about society, etc.
In an improv scene, you must be the fool. Improv wants you to say “Get a load of THIS (pointing at yourself) idiot.”
It’s true for standup too.
In the post, Will also refers to this James Mastraieni comedy tip: F– me is funnier than f– you.
P.S. I wrote about something vaaaaaaguely related in this Rubesletter post: Make Art Complicated Again.
I get it, we all want representation for our group onscreen and elsewhere. But social media activists/scolds seem incapable of understanding that art is not supposed to be an endorsement of behavior.
Not everything is supposed to be a proud representation of your gender, race, tribe, etc. Nor do villains need to be one-dimensionally evil so we all can dunk ruthlessly on them. In fact, those things are the seeds of crap art. We shouldn’t insist on turning every production into an afterschool special/”very special episode” morality play. Let go of the childish notions of identity and representation tech platforms incentivize.
