I’ve said it before, but what we talk about is one of the characteristics that defines us as a comic.

How we talk about it – with music, through a character, with stories or one liners, in a self-deprecating or cocky style, absurdly, ironically, etc – definitely defines us.

And what side we actually take with these premises – whether we’re progressive or conservative, misogynist of feminist, edgelord or snowflake – is another. But what topics we cover, what we find interesting and choose to spend our time onstage defines us most of all.

Philosopher Martin Heidegger, while making some egregious mistakes in his life (like being a Nazi), also advanced some powerful and salient concepts that we should pay attention to. One of them is is concept of Sorge, or “care.” He reasoned that we are what we care about. He said that aliens or archaeologists trying to understand us will get more information from the signs of what we cared about than by analyzing our bones.

There’s a cap on how well we can do as comedians, despite all the other factors (how much we prepared, how energized the crowd is, whether we’re wearing our lucky undies), our audience’s goodwill will never exceed their understanding. They can only like us as much as they understand us. And what we decide to talk about is their first clue when they’re trying to understand us.

I’ve covered what Premise Selection before, and I’ve also talked about a technique I create material with that involves collecting snippets of trivia and other items of interest. I could describe joke theory – the mechanics behind misdirects, analogies, hyperbole, puns, specificity, rule-of-three, meta-jokes etc – but the real challenge is what to write jokes about. To me, that’s most of the challenge. Applying common formulas and filters to a topic is easier than finding the topic to apply it to.

I don’t know how other comics do it when they start the work routine they describe. I’m sure a few will go through the paper and see what’s topical, but the rest of them can’t even begin until they establish what the conversation is about. I don’t love topical comedy, which has a short lifespan at the best of times. So, if not the newspaper, where to look? Here’s 4 places to look for joke subjects…

The Attitude Gap. What do you believe? How do you feel? If you’re a comedian you’re probably one of the many people who’s ideas are slightly different from the rest of the herd. That gap between your position and society’s position is the best place to look for jokes.

One of the most established, respected and effective comedy techniques is where the comic defends an indefensible position. This all comes from that gap between the comic’s position and society’s position.

Comedians like Jerrod Carmichael and Doug Stanhope are excellent at this. I recently saw an interview with Doug Stanhope where he describes his process as being like a shifty lawyer like Saul Goodman, looking for guilty defendants to write closing arguments for.

That’s a pretty good analogy and it’s been a successful process for him. If your feelings about something are different from the rest of the community or state, you’ve found a comedy goldmine.

Complaints and Grievances. This is the name of one of George Carlin’s albums because he worked out a basic truth about comedy – that everything which pisses us off is a potential joke.

What’s annoying. What’s stupid? What’s an absurdity that we as humans shouldn’t have to bear?

The Superiority Theory of humour is based around the idea that we laugh at people and stuff we feel better or smarter than, so by looking at the complaints and grievances in out lives, we can find plenty of material for jokes.

The Strangeness. I’ve touched on this in previous posts but where you see something weird or unusual, you’re looking at potential comedy material. If you see something that’s out of place or something different to what you expected, you have a potential joke.

Examples? I’m glad you asked. The time I saw a hipster riding a giant penny farthing bicycle down the street in an industrial part of Townsville, I knew it would become a joke. Townsville is conservative enough, hot enough and blue-collar enough that I never expected to see a gentleman in flashy clothing from another era with a giant impractical mustache on an even more giant more impractical bicycle. Later that night I’m on stage and the sighting is the basis for a joke.

Another example: I don’t know what I was expecting to see when I checked out the AI program Chat-GPT, but I sure didn’t think this robot pretending to be a person would ask me to prove I’m not a robot pretending to be a person. Why does the robot even care if I’m a robot? Weird. I selected the pictures with the traffic lights, but the event became a joke the very next night.

Misdirection is one of the most common and powerful joke formulas. When you perform a Misdirect you set up expectations for one thing and deliver another. When life does the same thing to you it’s giving you a joke that’s already laid out in joke format, served on a silver platter.

Life. I know, I know… it sounds like a cop-out, but hear me out. Your life is where the funny is. Specifically, the parts of your life that matter to you. Have a think about the stuff from that you care about (and yes, I’m thinking of Heidegger again). Where are you at in your life and what are the main parts of it?

I’ve said this before but I can’t ever emphasize it enough: Creativity comes from living and if you don’t feel creative you probably just need to live more. If you spend all your time in hotel rooms and airports you won’t have anything to talk about except for hotel rooms and airports.

That’s why I don’t think artists have to leave their day jobs. Day jobs are a whole genre of entertainment, and whole lot more relatable than stories from an ivory tower.

My first ever joke was this:
I don’t do this for a living. I work at a call center. Which one? I can’t tell you.
But if you’ve ever dialed a help line, just raging because your internet doesn’t work… you need to step up and take responsibility for my drinking problem.

Best joke ever? Of course not. But if there’s a competition for best first joke ever, I’ll submit it and see how it goes. Obviously my comedy debut wasn’t my best ever work, but I’m still really glad I started out honestly and drawing on my own life for inspiration.

At that time in 2019 I was working in a call center, one that was cutting our hours and incomes while they exported our jobs to third world countries. I was single again after a brief hectic relationship with a very attractive narcissist, and this involved getting setting up on the relevant dating apps. Seeing my dog and cat was the most, usually only, positive part of my day. I was living a bachelor lifestyle, eating a lot of fast food and drinking more than I should, I was extremely depressed and found it very hard to find meaning and hope in my life.

Jeez, that’s fucking depressing.

Now in 2023 I’m in a better place, but that’s not my point here.

My point is that all the ingredients of my life at the time featured in my first set. Back then I didn’t know anything about joke theory or comedy writing, but I did know that the defining aspects of my life were the right place to look for material. Heidegger was right. The things I cared about were smart topics for discussion.

The positive laughter you get will be a function of how understood you are. I used the qualifier of “positive” because you can get laughs without being understood but if you want the audience to laugh with you and not at you, being understood helps a lot. The best way to be understood is to show your sorge – the parts of your life that you care about.

So that’s it – Four places to look for humour. If you’re inclined to sit for a period of time to work at writing jokes, you don’t just have to go through the newspaper for fleeting topical snark. The attitudes you have that don’t match the establishment, the things that frustrate you, the things you see that seem weird and the key ingredients of your own life are four places that combine into a limitless comedy goldmine you can go prospecting in at any time.