How to be Funny – Balance
If you want to know how to be funny you have to know how to balance truth with exaggeration. You have to be able to balance the audience and the situation (I am not just talking about telling dirty stories – even the cleanest funny joke needs the right audience dynamic). If you learn balance you can tell a joke at the right moment at a funeral or wake. If you don’t learn balance you won’t be able to share a joke at open mic comedy night.
How to be Funny – Self Deprecation
If you struggle with how to be funny the first and easiest step to being funny, is to make fun of yourself. Even this mode of humor has to be limited. If every time you take part in a conversation you are running yourself down you will be annoying and not funny.
How to be Funny – Not Copying
This is an easy step on how to be funny. Don’t plagiarize other people’s jokes. Just because you found a funny joke on line doesn’t mean you should mass email it to everyone (that is not funny). Don’t repeat the joke you heard someone else tell or even read online. In fact the hardest one of all is you should rarely copy yourself. Don’t use the same joke or anecdote more than twice. One new person in the group doesn’t justify repeating a joke that made everyone laugh. The group dynamic will make the second or third telling of the joke more and more uncomfortable.
How to be Funny – Don’t use humor for real criticism
If you have a problem with someone and would like to address it, NEVER use a joke or comedy to take a shot at them. In my family several of us make comedic slams at each other in jest, but we have one family member who joins in and tries to be funny while saying critical things about the rest of us that he really means. People can tell if you are trying to make a point and that is never funny.
How to Be Funny
