comedy what is it where is it why is it
these are all questions my name is
Spencer at churrito I am an unemployed
17 year old who wants to be a stand-up
comedian so obviously I’m way
overqualified for this however I do have
a lot of experience with comedy I’ve
done three stand-up routines on this
very stage all of which were wildly
unsuccessful I’ve I write political
satire every week and I send it to over
a hundred people who presumably don’t
read it I’ve watched every single
episode of Friends the office and How I
Met Your Mother I look funny I smell
funny I eat food so comedy is a very big
part of my life and because of that I
want to share with you some things that
I’ve learned about it I want to talk
about firstly what it is and secondly
how it can be used to empower us both in
society and in my own personal
experience so firstly we need to know
what comedy is well comedy is a sub
category of humor so what is humor well
it’s complicated humor is one of those
things that you can’t ever really
understand like love or Eric trump Plato
defined humor as the mixture of pleasure
and pain that lies in the malice of
amusement like what no humor is just a
way of looking at things we have a sense
of humor because humor is a sense just
like seeing or hearing things humor is
the scope through which we see the
world and it’s different for each person
nothing is universally funny now humor
can be created in in two ways it can be
created naturally like when your friend
falls down the stairs or it can be
created unnaturally like when you push
your friend down the stairs and that
second way that’s what comedy is comedy
is content that is created by humans and
is intended to be humorous for example a
baby elephant sneezing is very humorous
that’s very funny but it’s not comedy
because it didn’t occur with the
intention of being humorous now that’s a
huge oversimplification of what humor
and comedy is but I think we now kind of
have a gist of what it is and we can
move on with what it has to do with
today’s theme of empowerment and quite
frankly comedy actually has more to do
with the opposite of empowerment which
is deep our mint and we are all going to
collectively pretend that’s a word okay
so when you look at comedy you don’t
have to look very far to see that comedy
can take power away from people SNL for
example SNL Lampoon’s real world people
like the President and through a deeply
witty irreverence it humanizes these
seemingly untouchable people and thus it
strips them of their power but comedy
does more than just take away power
because well but humor me for a second
pun intended I want you to imagine that
power is a finite substance like like
mass okay power is like mass and mass
can neither be created nor destroyed
right we all know that from physics or
whatever so power is the same when
comedy takes power away from someone
that power doesn’t just disappear when
it takes away power it simultaneously
read
distributes that power to other people
thus empowering them so with deep our
mint comes empowerment and unfortunately
vice versa when you look at something
like minstrel shows in the 1800’s that
attempted to dehumanize African
Americans through blackface and
stereotypical farce you see that comedy
can be used both morally and immorally
and just like humor it’s all a matter of
perspective now finally I want to talk
about the most important perspective of
them all mine
so I want to tell you how comedy has
empowered me and what not who it took
power away from in order to do that so
here we go I have depression
I have clinical depression and before
you ask yes it’s a lot of fun now for
the longest time I had a lot of trouble
making jokes about my depression and
that was new for me because I’m the kind
of guy who can make jokes about anything
including and especially things that
probably shouldn’t be joked about but
for some reason I couldn’t with my
depression and that was not only scary
but it was also a little bit saddening
now I don’t know what changed but I’ve
had depression since about freshman year
and and I don’t know what happened in
between then and a few months ago but
for some reason a few months ago I had
this Eureka moment and I was just I was
able to write two different stand-up
routines about my depression
and I haven’t performed them yet but I
have shown them to people and it’s
received pretty positive reviews and
that’s very encouraging because once I
was able to laugh at my depression it
gave me power over it and that made me
feel awesome now now I’m not trying to
tell you that I used comedy to cure my
depression
it didn’t pills did lots and lots of
pills but I am saying that comedy is a
tool that is often overlooked and can be
used for very very very good reasons
such as getting over something like
mental illness
so in conclusion comedy is something
that we use almost every day every time
we tell a joke every time we watch
something that’s funny we experience it
all the time and yet we often overlook
it we often equate it with something as
meaningless as puns or or just jokes but
comedy is so much more than that it is a
tool that can be used to empower people
and once you recognize that you yourself
have a lot of power and with power comes
responsibility and that’s no joke
thank you [Applause]
these are all questions my name is
Spencer at churrito I am an unemployed
17 year old who wants to be a stand-up
comedian so obviously I’m way
overqualified for this however I do have
a lot of experience with comedy I’ve
done three stand-up routines on this
very stage all of which were wildly
unsuccessful I’ve I write political
satire every week and I send it to over
a hundred people who presumably don’t
read it I’ve watched every single
episode of Friends the office and How I
Met Your Mother I look funny I smell
funny I eat food so comedy is a very big
part of my life and because of that I
want to share with you some things that
I’ve learned about it I want to talk
about firstly what it is and secondly
how it can be used to empower us both in
society and in my own personal
experience so firstly we need to know
what comedy is well comedy is a sub
category of humor so what is humor well
it’s complicated humor is one of those
things that you can’t ever really
understand like love or Eric trump Plato
defined humor as the mixture of pleasure
and pain that lies in the malice of
amusement like what no humor is just a
way of looking at things we have a sense
of humor because humor is a sense just
like seeing or hearing things humor is
the scope through which we see the
world and it’s different for each person
nothing is universally funny now humor
can be created in in two ways it can be
created naturally like when your friend
falls down the stairs or it can be
created unnaturally like when you push
your friend down the stairs and that
second way that’s what comedy is comedy
is content that is created by humans and
is intended to be humorous for example a
baby elephant sneezing is very humorous
that’s very funny but it’s not comedy
because it didn’t occur with the
intention of being humorous now that’s a
huge oversimplification of what humor
and comedy is but I think we now kind of
have a gist of what it is and we can
move on with what it has to do with
today’s theme of empowerment and quite
frankly comedy actually has more to do
with the opposite of empowerment which
is deep our mint and we are all going to
collectively pretend that’s a word okay
so when you look at comedy you don’t
have to look very far to see that comedy
can take power away from people SNL for
example SNL Lampoon’s real world people
like the President and through a deeply
witty irreverence it humanizes these
seemingly untouchable people and thus it
strips them of their power but comedy
does more than just take away power
because well but humor me for a second
pun intended I want you to imagine that
power is a finite substance like like
mass okay power is like mass and mass
can neither be created nor destroyed
right we all know that from physics or
whatever so power is the same when
comedy takes power away from someone
that power doesn’t just disappear when
it takes away power it simultaneously
read
distributes that power to other people
thus empowering them so with deep our
mint comes empowerment and unfortunately
vice versa when you look at something
like minstrel shows in the 1800’s that
attempted to dehumanize African
Americans through blackface and
stereotypical farce you see that comedy
can be used both morally and immorally
and just like humor it’s all a matter of
perspective now finally I want to talk
about the most important perspective of
them all mine
so I want to tell you how comedy has
empowered me and what not who it took
power away from in order to do that so
here we go I have depression
I have clinical depression and before
you ask yes it’s a lot of fun now for
the longest time I had a lot of trouble
making jokes about my depression and
that was new for me because I’m the kind
of guy who can make jokes about anything
including and especially things that
probably shouldn’t be joked about but
for some reason I couldn’t with my
depression and that was not only scary
but it was also a little bit saddening
now I don’t know what changed but I’ve
had depression since about freshman year
and and I don’t know what happened in
between then and a few months ago but
for some reason a few months ago I had
this Eureka moment and I was just I was
able to write two different stand-up
routines about my depression
and I haven’t performed them yet but I
have shown them to people and it’s
received pretty positive reviews and
that’s very encouraging because once I
was able to laugh at my depression it
gave me power over it and that made me
feel awesome now now I’m not trying to
tell you that I used comedy to cure my
depression
it didn’t pills did lots and lots of
pills but I am saying that comedy is a
tool that is often overlooked and can be
used for very very very good reasons
such as getting over something like
mental illness
so in conclusion comedy is something
that we use almost every day every time
we tell a joke every time we watch
something that’s funny we experience it
all the time and yet we often overlook
it we often equate it with something as
meaningless as puns or or just jokes but
comedy is so much more than that it is a
tool that can be used to empower people
and once you recognize that you yourself
have a lot of power and with power comes
responsibility and that’s no joke
thank you [Applause]
Please follow and like us: