Poor Yorick

What I’ve Learned After Doing Standup for 12 Years

Photo by Faruk Tokluoğlu: https://www.pexels.com/photo/black-and-white-photo-of-man-performing-on-scene-10063045/

I was awful when I first started doing standup. My first joke was about lobotomies and it did not work. (Still funny to me, but audiences disagreed.)

While I’ve never had a late night spot, I am booked frequently on local shows and I feel good about my material and my performance now. I feel I am consistently improving, which is what’s most important to me.

I used to care more about what other people were doing or what people thought of my set.

It’s okay if not everyone thinks you’re funny

You don’t need to make every single person laugh. You will not be everyone’s cup of tea.

Instead you should do what you think is funny and the people who agree will eventually find you. You’ll be booked on the shows where people enjoy your style.

And though I don’t want to make a habit of it outside of open mics, the occasional bomb is kind of fun.

Being a standup comedian requires a lot of testing of your jokes. Even after twelve years I still have a hard time predicting how audiences will respond to my new jokes. Some of the ones I find hilarious are flops, while some of my dumb ones end up becoming pillars of nearly every set because they work…