humor is one of those things that is
easy to point out but kind of hard to
explain there's no one definition that
everyone agrees on but I personally like
to think of humor as the ability to
surprise the audience by creating a
connection between two or more things
now there's two ways you can improve
your sense of humor you can improve the
content of your humor and you can also
improve the delivery of your humor now
in terms of improving the content of
your humor it's all about variety to be
funny you have to be able to catch
people off-guard when you rely simply on
one type of humor you become predictable
and predictable is not funny they call
it a punchline because you don't see it
coming
there's many different types of humor
I'll try to go over the most common ones
exaggeration is one of the most common
forms of humor it's great because almost
everyone gets it and it's extremely easy
to use simply put you take an
observation about something and you
exaggerate it way out of proportions the
more absurd the comparison the funnier
it usually is here are some examples
he's so dummy trying to climb Mountain
Dew I literally grew this beard waiting
for you mark it's like you wake up with
a beer can in your hand every single day
misdirection is another extremely common
type of humor almost everyone gets it
and it's pretty easy to use it's when
you make a connection that nobody
expects the conversation is going one
way and all of a sudden you twist it to
everyone's surprise here's an example
hey where are you from Corona
really I hate Corona my favorite type of
beer is Coors Light here's another
example you ever get that feeling when
you find that girl who's just perfect
and you're hitting it off yeah me
neither
storytelling can be a great way to not
only get a good laugh but also share
something about yourself and build
rapport stories are great because you
can hold a punchline all the way to the
end people usually never see it coming
because they're so focused on the actual
story the easiest stories that can
induce humor are embarrassing or absurd
stories now
key to pulling off a great funny story
is to learn how to tell a story properly
I'll get into that in another video
because that's just way too much stuff
to talk about teasing is an extremely
effective form of humor that has to be
used very carefully
basically you point something out about
a person and you make fun of it here's
an example let's say you're dating a
girl who's a germaphobe and she's wiping
down the table with one of those table
wipes before eating you could say
something like are you gonna wipe me
down - before we hold hands you have to
be very careful about teasing people
because it can easily come off as
offensive the key here is to have good
intentions behind the joke if you say
something with intentions to offend
someone they will be offended you also
want to make sure you've built a certain
level of comfort with the person before
making a joke like this and for the
daring that want to skip this step don't
expect it to work every single time
sarcasm is a type of humor that is less
commonly appreciated by people it's when
you say something that is obviously
opposite of what everyone is thinking
here's an example I used to be a
door-to-door salesman and there would be
days where the weather was just terrible
it would be pouring outside and I would
be drenched and I still had to knock on
doors so my favorite one-liner was kind
eyes to meet you beautiful weather right
now when it comes to sarcasm some people
simply won't get it people who do like
sarcasm usually love sarcasm but they
are far and few in between the key here
is to emphasize key words and also to
limit the amount of sarcasm you use many
people simply do not like sarcastic
people another less commonly appreciated
form of humor are puns puns are
basically words that sound alike but
have different meanings here's some
examples I tell you a chemistry joke but
I know I wouldn't get a reaction I used
to be a banker but then I lost interest
puns are a lot harder to get a laugh
from as compared to other forms of humor
because most of the time they're gonna
simply fly over everyone's head but
people who like puns they love puns the
key when it comes to using puns is to
use them very sparingly as they can get
old very fast role-playing is my
all-time favorite type of humor this is
because it's extremely hard to pull off
and it's just absurd and hilarious in
its own way very few people you
roleplay as a form of humor role-playing
is basically when you pretend to be
someone or something else here's an
example when I was in college I would
throw parties now once I had a bright
idea of going around and pretending to
be the sober police I would go up to
people and pull out an imaginary badge
and say sir this is the sober police are
you sober right now
wait what sir please step outside of the
vehicle at this point people would kind
of start getting what I was trying to do
we would go on to conduct sobriety tests
and even calling for backup if the
person still didn't get what was going
on now role-playing is extremely hard to
pull off because not everyone is going
to get it the key when it comes to
role-playing is to never break character
if you keep at it with enough
perseverance people usually get what
you're trying to do in terms of
improving the delivery of your humor
there are four rules you can abide by
one thing that you'll notice about
almost every great comedian or talk host
is that they will never be the first one
to laugh at their own jokes they'll
smile and they'll smirk but they will
not be the first one to laugh and this
is because being funny is all about
catching your audience off-guard you
want them to say hey wait a minute that
was funny when you laugh first you ruin
this surprise you're basically telling
them hey that was my attempt at a joke
please laugh with me rule number one
never be the first person to laugh at
your own jokes as we mentioned before
everyone has a different sense of humor
a common mistake people make is that
they only have one type of humor that
they constantly fall back on there's a
chance that whoever you're talking to
does not get that type of humor when you
notice that a certain type of humor is
failing you have to try something else
see funny people have an entire arsenal
of jokes they can draw humor from many
different perspectives to suit their
audience
for example kids don't really get puns
or sarcasm they actually enjoy
role-playing a lot
PhD students are more likely to enjoy
puns as compared to a high school kid
who probably enjoys exaggerations or
teasing rule number two is to adjust
your humor to your audience the essence
of jokes is about having fun a common
mistake that people make when trying to
be funny is that they try so hard or
care so much about being funny that they
accidentally adapt nervous body language
when you have nervous body language
everyone around you feels a little bit
more tense you're portraying with your
body that something is wrong and this
makes it very hard to tell a joke or
come off as funny because in order to be
funny you have to be in a relaxed state
so everyone around you can tell that the
vibe is calm and cool here's a couple of
tips and tricks in order to present
proper body language for humor slow down
your speech don't fidget that much and
open up your body roll number three is
to portray calm and confident body
language as well as tonality and finally
the thing about jokes is that not
everyone is going to find each and every
single one of your jokes to be funny
your jokes are gonna be hit or miss and
the key here is to maintain composure
even when you miss nobody's gonna notice
the misses unless you put a lot of
attention on it roll number four is to
keep calm and carry on and to close it
all off one of the greatest ways you can
improve your overall humor is to watch
stand-up comedians they are at the top
of their field it seems like they can
say anything and people will laugh and
this is because their delivery is
amazing