In on the Joke: An Autoethnographic Study of Stand-up Comedy

In on the Joke: An Autoethnographic Study of Stand-up Comedy

In on the Joke: An Autoethnographic Study of Stand-up Comedy

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This study is an examination of stand-up comedy from a performance perspective. I observed the culture of stand-up comedians by regularly attending an open-mic show at a local comedy club and doing interviews with comics of various experiences culminating in my own performance of three original works of comedy. During this process I observed recurring themes amongst the performers and interviewees and compared those to my own experience. The prominent themes consisted of self-deprecation and its interplay with the superiority theory of humor as a means to identify with the audience. The comedian culture I joined also demonstrated themes of personal narrative, self-disclosure and their cooperative effect of establishing shared meaning between the speaker and audience.

In on the Joke: An Autoethnographic Study of Stand-up Comedy

Introduction

The idea for this project evolved from an offhanded comment made by a friend and fellow coworker. It was a simple one, really. “That’s really funny, you’re such a comedian,” she said. Am I though? What makes a comedian? How are they able to consistently elicit laughter? Can I really do that? This paper began as an exploration into those concepts but I soon realized that to truly understand the makings of a comedian I needed to go where I had never dared go before: under the lights to perform for myself. Rather than simply analyze the communicative techniques utilized in comedy, this project became my attempt to actually join the community and culture of stand-up comedians and perform my own comedy. I was intrigued by recurring themes within the community and examined their emergence within my own experience of performing original material as an amateur open mic comedian. In the process of doing this, I was able to observe many aspiring comedians perform their material. Additionally, four of them were kind enough to open themselves up to me, share experiences and provide insight on their lives as comedians. The types of individuals that comprise the stand-up community range a very diverse spectrum from end to end so I understand that my small sampling of it may not be completely representative the entire culture. However, even within this small corner of it, I was able to recognize themes that remained consistent even to the testimony of more well-known comedians such as Jerry Seinfeld and Steve Martin. This paper begins with an explanation of my methodology, presents my themes, and concludes with impacts.

Constructing the Joke

My research and methodology for this project was divided into three key categories.

First, before attempting to join the community, were my own observations and notes taken of performers, their tendencies and interactions at a popular comedy club in Southern California – to be henceforth referred to as The Laughing House. The reason for this was to be able to analyze the performers and try to recognize common themes, habits and traits among both the first timers and regulars from an outsider’s perspective.

The second part of my research was the actual writing of my material followed by the performance of it including my observations and experiences during the process. This analysis included my brainstorming method, how I constructed the jokes, my rehearsal techniques as well as my expectations of how my jokes would be received. Once I had performed, I then reviewed my performance and gauged the response to my material after which I compared my own experiences to the observations of the performers whom I had previously watched in order to search for commonalities in terms of behavior, material, delivery and audience response.

The third part of my research involved my interaction and interviews with four comedians of various skill, experience and background: Victavia1, Tony, Nick and Jorge. Of the four participants, three were male, one was female, two were of African American descent, one Hispanic and the other European. Their experience as performers ranged from a matter of months to years. In these interviews I gathered information on the performers in terms of personality, background and their experiences doing stand-up comedy. The goal of this project is to provide insight to the reader on the life of an aspiring stand-up comedian as well as note prominent themes observed within the culture of the comedy community with which I was fortunate to have interacted.

The Art of Observation

“In autoethnography, the interaction between the researcher’s multiple identities as a researcher and as a member of a social world constitutes a major part of the ‘observations’ that are then analyzed” (Hokkanen, 2017, p. 26). Stand-up has always seemed like an experience that would be best understood in performance so an autoethnography seemed a natural fit. With that in mind, I made the commitment to actually perform stand-up comedy for myself. Like many bold ideas, however, it was exciting in theory, terrifying in practice. I’m going to do this. I’m locked in. Okay, how to begin? The first and most basic step, I decided, was observation. So with that in mind I reached out to a friend who had spent some time attending open mic’s in the past in order to find a location to drop by. As luck would have it, The Laughing House was a local club with open mic nights every Friday evening so I began my observations there.

Even the knowledge that I was simply there to observe wasn’t enough to keep my stomach from doing internal gymnastics upon my arrival at the club. Once there, as I walked up the stairs nearing the entrance, I noticed a small group of individuals scattered about the hallway nearby. The doors hadn’t opened yet so they sat or stood most of whom were staring intently at their phones or notepads presumably reviewing or modifying their planned material for the night. Immediately I felt a sense of pressure. These are comedians. It was hard to imagine that in a few short weeks, I would be among those faces buried in my notepad waiting for the doors to open. I was hoping it would happen yet remained incredulous at the prospect of it.

When the doors finally opened and I was let inside, I was impressed by what I saw. I couldn’t believe how incredibly average the place was. Four walls with a rogue item of decoration asymmetrically placed on two of them, small, tables strewn about, and a raised stage with a brick wall patterned wallpaper hanging loosely off of it. Not exactly the glamorous image of a comedy club that shows like Seinfeld and Louie led me to expect. It was like the club equivalent of the knock off brand cereals you’d find at the Dollar Tree. Even so, there was something exciting about it, a life to it. Like the knowledge of what was about to transpire provided the authenticity that the aesthetics of the room itself was only imitating. After a few moments, the lights dimmed and the show began along with my own exploration into this unique culture.

Over the course of my experiences observing amateur open mic performers, regulars, and even professional comedians, I was able to recognize several recurring themes. Of particular note were self-deprecating humor and its interplay with the superiority theory of humor as a means to identify with the audience, personal truths or “realness” aka self-disclosure in humor and how it creates shared meaning. Self-deprecating humor was the theme I noticed most immediately.

Self-deprecation & Superiority Theory

Self-deprecation at its most basic definition is criticism of oneself. During my observation of comedians at comedy clubs I noticed this used very frequently, however, I found that it served more purposes than simply making the speaker the subject of a joke. Lee, Slater, and Tchernev (2015) note that “studies have found that self-deprecating humor is more likely to establish an equal relationship between the speaker and the public than other-deprecating humor” (p. 1186). Additionally, “self-deprecating humor may serve as a courtship behavior that leads to audiences feeling a sense of affiliation with the speaker as an in-group member” (p. 1186). This was very evident in my observation of open-mic performers, however, it did seem to be a dividing feature between the amateur comics and the more experienced ones.

I noticed that many of the first timers and inexperienced performers had a tendency to overtly acknowledge either their inexperience or failings on stage, particularly when a joke fell flat or the audience didn’t respond as expected. This seemed to function as a self-defense mechanism similar to how a person might laugh at a joke directed at themselves or otherwise exaggerate it in order to ‘own’ and lessen the negative impact it might have had on them. Like if someone came up to you and said, “Man you’re the ugliest person I’ve ever seen in my whole life.” Rather than accept and subject yourself to the humiliation you might take control of the situation by saying “Fun fact, when I was born the doctors described me as a placenta with eyes.” By doing so, the power of the attack is diffused which serves to protect the individual’s pride or ego. In truth, for my very first performance I found myself employing this technique as well.

The night of my first performance my stomach was doing its best impression of a kaleidoscope of butterflies. Despite the fact that I had fully memorized three minutes of material that I was fairly confident in, I couldn’t help but be overtaken by nervous energy. Compounding the nerves associated with putting my sense of humor on full display for an audience to judge was the fact that the audience was double the size I had encountered in any of my previous visits with a headcount slightly above 30. To further enhance my anxiety, I was called up to the stage 5th out of nearly 20 comics that night. My opening went as follows:

Host: Now please welcome to the stage Jordan Sandoval! (applause)

Jordan: Wow, that was easy. Well buckle up, cause it’s all downhill from here.

That comment was not something that I expected, rehearsed, or in any way planned. In fact, in all of my numerous practices I had planned to immediately go into my first joke in order to start on a strong and positive note. However, in the moment, I could feel the expectation the audience had of me and my instinct was to mock myself and that expectation in order to level with my audience. In this way I believe that self-deprecation and the superiority theory of humor have a degree of interplay in terms of connecting with an audience.

The superiority theory of humor is the concept that people find humor or some sort of satisfaction in idea of being superior to others. Greene (2012) explains “The superiority theory can be found in stand-up through stories in which we laugh at a comedian because the aftermath of a story being told has never happened to us; we feel that we are above such humiliation” (p. 136). In this way self-deprecation is a means of lowering the perceived position of the speaker and raising that of the audience. This ideally serves the dual purposes of protecting the vulnerabilities of the less confident comic while placing the audience in a position of control, making them more receptive to the performance

Along with myself, I noticed this theme amongst my interviewees Victavia, Tony and Jorge. Victavia – the least experienced of the comedians I interviewed, with only months under her belt – acknowledged the use of self-deprecation in her set. However, she, along with Jorge and Tony, utilized it in a different and more impactful way. It was incorporated in what Tony aptly termed “realness.”

Realness & Personal Truths

Tony, a five-year veteran of the comedic arts calls it realness. Jorge, who has been involved in comedy writing and stand-up on and off for the better part of ten years, labels it personal truths. In communication we know it as self-disclosure through use of personal narratives. Personal narratives are autobiographical stories which allow us to share certain events from our own lives with an audience (Crick, Pecchioni, and Butcher p. 111). Self-disclosure on the other hand is the depth and breadth of personal information that we share with others. According to Tony, this is the hallmark of great comedians and what separates real comics from the “fakes.” This is where self-deprecation comes into play. In this case it is not used simply as a mechanism for self-preservation or artificially creating a connection with an audience. It’s a means of honest communication and expression through self-disclosure. The self-deprecation, then, acts as a means of establishing a shared meaning between the speaker and the audience. Langellier (2014) describes the effects of this process saying, “Telling personal stories and listening to life histories is an intimate interaction, with the gaze and ear trained on the vulnerable body as a site of experience and testimony, [and] especially in live performance” (p. 447). Once the audience is able to understand the performer’s perspective, a true connection is established and the response from the audience is more genuine. “The real comics” Tony says, “the best ones put themselves into it ‘cause it’s real pain.” He argues that this is where the best laughs come from. Jorge noted something very similar in his description of personal truths explaining that his best material, for better or for worse, is derived from his own life experiences.

During the course of this project, I performed comedy on stage on three separate occasions with three completely unique sets of material, each a progressive improvement over the last. Prior to each of my performances I had my own expectations of the audience’s response and each time I was surprised by the response I received. It was this evolution of material where I experienced the impact of self-disclosure in personal narratives.

My very first set was comprised of what Tony termed “rinky-dink jokes” or jokes that had no real meaning. They were silly or shocking just for the sake of it. The main focus of this set was the use of the incongruity theory of humor. The basic idea of it as explained by Morreall (1987) is that people find humor in the unexpected and this is what I tried to implement during this set. I worked hard on that set, writing and rewriting until I felt I had material that was clever and unique. There were a few things I was uncertain of but even so, I felt confident. Truth be told, in the back of my mind, I thought I had the chance to be a surprise hit. Shocking everyone as a no-name open mic performer with unexpectedly hilarious material. As I performed, the opposite reality set in very quickly.

As I mentioned earlier, I began that set with a bit of unnecessary self-deprecation which served no purpose other than to set the expectation that I was just another first-timer with bad material. Some of my early jokes received modest laughter but there was a steep drop off after that. Most of that set revolved around the concept of Jesus as a terrible superhero and poked fun at various aspects of Christianity for no reason other than because it was humorous to me and provocative. Those jokes fell flat. They really didn’t resonate with many people and I realized after the fact that I made some assumptions about my audience when writing the jokes that inhibited my effective communication of shared meaning.

For my next set I took a different approach. I realized that part of the reason my first performance fell a little flat was because my material was forced and more an imitation of a comedian than representative of me. With this in mind I looked to hone in on what more accurately represented my voice. After doing some self-analysis I decided to base my next set on an actual experience I had and focus more on what I perceived as my comedic strengths.

My second time on stage was less nerve-wracking than the first. After having demystified the experience I was able to deliver my material with more confidence. The subject matter in question: a story of my walking into a public restroom only to witness a gentleman standing in the middle of the facility with his pants completely off. Even though I felt more confident in my material and delivered it more akin to the way I naturally tell stories, the response was still rather lukewarm. There was laughter and less instances of jokes completely failing, but it still didn’t match the expectations I had in mind before I began.

When the time for my third performance came, I had once again completely shifted the focus of my material. Rather than tell stories about quirky and rather inane observations, I prepared material that had more meaning to me. This time my set was based around the concept of an Alcoholics Anonymous confessional, only rather than admitting a problem with alcohol, I was admitting to being a newly converted sports fan from a former life of a conservative nerd. I solemnly described how this radical conversion in my life negatively affected and ever ruined my romantic and platonic relationships. While this topic isn’t necessarily groundbreaking, it was based on real experiences that had real impacts in my life. Again, the response wasn’t what I expected. Though this time it wasn’t underwhelming. While there wasn’t any uproarious laughter, the average amount of laughter I received was more consistent throughout. By utilizing incongruity theory as well as a more self-disclosure driven personal narrative, my material appeared to connect more with the audience than my more uninspired material did.

Getting off the Stage

My experience performing standup has proven to be more than a simple learning exercise in the art of writing jokes. Over the course of my three performances onstage, the impact that has personally affected me the most relates to my perspective. After having worked diligently on three separate original works of comedy, what I have gained was a better understanding of my perspective on the world and how to utilize it in my comedy. For instance, we all have opinions on things we encounter, whether it be news, aspects of relationships or even daily experiences. However, most of us don’t consciously think about how we form those opinions and how those perspectives are unique to us. My experience in stand-up has shown me that successful comedians have honed in on this perspective and the way they are able to incorporate it into their personal narratives is what allows them to succeed. This knowledge has made me reevaluate the way I interpret the stimuli I encounter in my life so that I can better recognize what makes it unique and more clearly convey that to others. These fourteen weeks of time spent observing and performing as a stand-up comedian have shown me that there’s more to comedy than just being shocking, telling funny stories or delivering on the unexpected. These elements are important but they combine in order to communicate something greater and more important to the audience which our unique world view. I’ve begun to learn how to do this more effectively and I hope to continue to use this skill throughout my life in my communication with others whether it be to connect with another person or to simply get that next laugh.

Endnotes

1. The participants of this study agreed to be referred to by their real names.

References

Crick, N., Pecchioni, & Butcher, J. (2007).Deconstructing communication.Pearson Custom Publishing.

Greene, Grace F. (2012) “Rhetoric in Comedy: How Comedians Use Persuasion and How Society Uses Comedians,” The Corinthian: Vol. 13, Article 11.

Hokkanen, S. (2017). Analyzing personal embodied experiences: Autoethnography, feelings, and fieldwork. Translation & Interpreting, 9(1), 24-35. doi:10.12807/ti.109201.2017.a03

Humor in Health Messages. Journal Of Health Communication, 20(10), 1185-1195. doi:10.1080/10810730.2015.1018591

Langellier, K. M. (2014). “’If You Ask’: Troubling Narrative Interviews.” Departures in Critical Qualitative Research, Vol. 3 No. 4, (pp. 442-456)

Lee, J. Y., Slater, M. D., & Tchernev, J. (2015). Self-Deprecating Humor Versus Other- Deprecating

Morreall, J. (1987). The philosophy of laughter and humor. Albany: State University of New York Press.