How to Write Funny
A couple years back, Scott Adams posted an article called Humor Formula, about how to write funny stuff. He removed his archives when he published his book, but you can see it here courtesy of archive.org. In it he defines 6 elements of humor, which are:
Cute (as in kids and animals)
Naughty
Bizarre
Clever
Recognizable (You’ve been there)
Cruel
He claims that the more elements something has, the funnier it is. It takes two to be funny, four is great, and five is "virtually unheard of".
Since reading that, I’ve been analyzing everything I’ve come across and checking for those six criteria. I think it holds up very well, but I’ve come to realize that one of those categories is far more important than the rest, and that’s Recognizable.
Something that’s recognizable but meets none of the other criteria can still be viewed as funny by a lot of people, especially if not much else is similarly familiar. A great example of this is the web comic XKCD. Viewed from any objective standpoint, that site is about as funny as a partial birth abortion. Take this one for example:
Hahahahahah! A parody of The Night Before Christmas! Never seen that before. How original. And the dude is up at 3 a.m. using a computer! I’m practically dying here. (For those who cant tell, the preceding paragraph was dripping with sarcasm.)
Sadly, that’s above average for that site too, at least from the 5 or 10 I’ve seen. But it’s extremely familiar to it’s audience of uber-geeks, and that’s a group to whom not much humor is catered. So even though that site is not actually funny at all, and I’m allowed to say that because I actually get the "jokes" (parentheses required there), a lot of people enjoy it because it’s a sort of recognizable that little or nothing else is.
The above comic certainly fits none of the other categories. It’s clearly not cute, naughty, or bizarre. Well, it’s bizarre that anyone thinks it’s funny, but that doesn’t count. It’s certainly not clever or cruel. And most of their comics are the same, which means that the site has found a substantial audience through sheer familiarity.
I’ve yet to see anything like this with the other categories. Anyone have any examples of popular humor that fires only on one cylinder? Or something unpopular that does 2 or more?
January 29, 2008 at 7:10 am
Thanks. XKCD's staying power consistently confuses me; I find it thoroughly unremarkable and almost entirely unamusing. Now I see why it gets so much airtime — it's a communal touchpoint rather than a source of actual humor.
Sorted.
January 29, 2008 at 7:34 am
HI Matt,
I agree the comic you sited isn't funny, but this one?
http://xkcd.com/297/
January 29, 2008 at 7:49 am
It's kind of hard to insist that someone else share your sense of humor, but for the record: I usually find xkcd screamingly funny.
Since nothing kills a joke more than explaining it, I won't elaborate. Matter of taste, I guess.
January 29, 2008 at 8:21 am
Adams seems to overlook the main element of humor… surprise. (Perhaps this is covered within the “clever” category.) But without a surprise (i.e. punchline) most attempts at humor fall flat.
January 29, 2008 at 8:48 am
Actually if you ask your coder partners, they probably think that xkcd is funny as heck. You're not a coder, so it's not funny to you… I am and xkcd hits home WAY more often than it doesn't. The one you show above was especially close to home since whenever I'm at the inlaws I'm just like the guy in the comic.
January 29, 2008 at 8:49 am
This is my favorite: http://xkcd.com/149/
January 29, 2008 at 9:34 am
No, they all agree with my partial birth abortion statement. And for the record, I've been up at 3 a.m. on the computer every holiday of every year for probably 7 or so.
January 29, 2008 at 9:34 am
I am one of Matt's “coder partners” and I find xkcd to be about as funny as a prostate exam.
January 29, 2008 at 9:38 am
I code with Gene. 1 out of every 100 XKCD posts is funny.
January 29, 2008 at 9:39 am
“Code partner” sounds like you're my gay cofounder/lover or something.
January 29, 2008 at 9:42 am
Well, I suppose it's closer.
January 29, 2008 at 8:43 pm
See, I would say that the above fits in the recognizable category for everyone that reads it- that already fits in one of your categories. Additionally, I would say that the above fits in the “cute” category. I think Christmas and the holiday season falls under the “cute” category.
Whether or not you find it funny, of course, probably depends on whether or not this comic fits your “cute” definition.
January 29, 2008 at 9:35 pm
I think cute generally means more like puppies or babies. I suppose it's relative though, so maybe people who like XKCD just think stick figures are either cute or bizarre.
January 30, 2008 at 1:59 pm
those are “quotes” not (parenthesis)
January 31, 2008 at 12:49 pm
Yeah, I really don't buy into his categories — I don't think they work very well to explain why his own best strips are his best strips.
To the extent that there are humor theorists (I imagine them as old men peering at Garfield strips through magnifying glasses) they generally suggest that the key to humor is a sudden unexpected shift in point of view. Not that anyone has a very good handle on it, but I think all the stuff Adams talks about is just icing on the cake of a basic gag, which you need to make the strip work.
January 31, 2008 at 12:52 pm
So long as I'm replying –
The xkcd strips that really get good reactions/get forwarded around/etc don't just do so just because they're about recognizable topics — I write strips with that 'recognizability' constantly. You learn quickly when you're writing this stuff that just referencing something recognizable doesn't get you laughs. To get the laughs, you also have to write a joke that works.
I won't argue with your take on the quality of the humor — I think my strips are funny, but hell, I'm the author. I could pull out a bunch of strips and say “SEE THIS ONE IS A JOKE IT REFUTES WHAT YOU SAID ISN'T IT FUNNY” but convincing someone that something is funny is inherently kind of silly (ever tried explaining a joke after you've told it?). It's okay that you don't like xkcd (I mean, it hurts me deep inside, but I was planning to fall asleep sobbing tonight anyway). But I do think you're misunderstanding why other people like it, which is why you're baffled by how popular it's managed to be.
But I don't know — I try not to take this whole thing too seriously. Maybe everyone's just crazy.
January 31, 2008 at 1:08 pm
Right, the strips that get forwarded around have recognizability and one of the others. The rest are familiar, which is pretty constant.
There is no accounting for taste, and what's cute to one is not necessarily to others. There are some things that are universally cute (kittens) and some that are universally not, but much falls in the gray area. What's clever to one person (a farce of a popular poem) might seem hacky and cliche to anyone who has already seen 50 of them.
I don't think the theory is airtight by any means, but I have yet to find anything that disagrees with it, other than the one caveat that is the focus of this article.
January 31, 2008 at 1:49 pm
I don't think your first paragraph is right at all, actually. The most popular strip I'd ever done (back in the day, anyway) was the “sudo make me a sandwich” one. That has recognizability and none of the other elements, but thanks to the unexpectedness of the point-of-view shift, people laughed a whole lot. I think if you go over the other strips, you find a similar trend, and I think if you look at Adams's most popular strips, you find that his theory doesn't explain them very well.
Take his most popular strip: http://img507.imageshack.us/img507/9960/dilbert…
That's got a bit of cruelty, but it doesn't succeed because it's very cruel, and maybe a bit of bizarre, but nearly every joke has that if you stretch it right. It works because of the point-of-view shift as you realize they're talking about an etch-a-sketch.
Or take Perry Bible Fellowship (pbfcomics.com), a webcomic that's sustained almost entirely on well-done gags (last handful haven't been so great, so skip to a point early on to get a good sample). When they fit into Adams' categories at all, it's almost coincidence. In nearly every one, the key is the point-of-view shift, the unexpected reveal. That's what makes people laugh. Making things cuter or more bizarre just helps a little — they're not enough to sustain a joke on their own.
Moreover, you won't find your desired two or more elements in nearly ANY newspaper comic. Take the first result for “calvin and hobbes” on GIS — http://aoife.allegracom.ca/images/verbing_sm.jpg
That line, “verbing weirds language”, is going to be quoted forever, and the strip works pretty well because of it. And it has none of Adams' elements.
I don't know — we could debate by example for days, but even cartoonists have to do real work sometime, so I'll need to go. I guess it's just opinion, but I've been reading/watching humor obsessively since I was a kid (and reading a lot of theory stuff about it, too). I've read the archives of most major funny newspaper comics more than once, and most of the 818 section in the library. All that experience (along with my own experience doing a successful humor strip, ahem) has led me to decide that his theories of humor are bollocks and don't teach you how to figure out what will make people laugh.
Also, it was kind of assy of me to barge in here — I usually just let these things go, but I'm in kinda a petulant mood today and I guess I felt like an INTERNET ARGUMENT.
Whatever makes you laugh, hope you keep finding more of it! Later.
January 31, 2008 at 2:04 pm
I can see how the XKCD example you just gave would be considered clever by a lot of people, as well as recognizable, and maybe cruel too, since someone is hacking someone else for personal gain. So I'd say that to a lot of people you got 3 out of 6 there. It's maybe even bizarre, given the notion of using programming terms in real life, so I'd guess some people would rate it as 4. Good work.
I would argue that to many, the Dilbert example is recognizable (luddite boss who can't tell the difference between a laptop and an etch a sketch) cruel, and bizarre. Likewise, the cited Calvin and Hobbes is cute (that comic is always that), bizarre, clever, and maybe even recognizable if you're into wordplay. I would say that to some people, that's firing on four cylinders.
I agree that I wouldn't find two elements in most newspaper comic strips, which is why I don't find most of them funny. Humor is definitely relative.
January 31, 2008 at 4:56 pm
If you're making “clever” a category, then that practically encompasses all gag humor by default. On the other ones, I think you're stretching the definitions quite a bit, to the point where using the same reasoning I could use them to cover anything.
January 31, 2008 at 5:10 pm
Clever is one of the categories. Some people think all gag humor is funny.
I don't see what you mean about the others.
February 19, 2008 at 12:38 pm
You hit the nail on the head about xkcd when you said that it caters to an audience that isn't usually catered to. Or something like that.
February 29, 2008 at 3:00 am
Haven't read Scott Adams “Humor Formula”, but with so much talk about XKCD, I'd like to know if you find this humorous: http://xkcd.com/123/
For me, I laugh every time I see that strip or even think about it. It is so clever and incredibly recognizable.
Its an interesting concept anyway, reducing humor to a formula. Kinda takes the fun out of it though, huh?
Looking through those six elements again, its occurred to me that they are very broad. Too far reaching. I can't think of anything that doesn't fit into at least a couple of those in some way. I think I'll read the article now to see if maybe those categories are broken down even further.
I wonder… using these guidelines, is “the aristocrats” the funniest joke ever told?
Just musing. I found your site because of the Y Combinator link. I'll visit again.
Aloha
March 21, 2008 at 10:51 pm
[...] in the case of sci-fi and fantasy, are geeks. It’s works on pretty much the same principle as XKCD. There are, of course, a few good writers in the genre (and every genre for that matter) but for [...]
June 2, 2009 at 9:26 pm
interesting. never read this kind of article before. but sorry do not have any kind of example.
June 3, 2009 at 10:41 am
Humor abuse is swiftly moving up Amnesty International’s right leg, but I think with your post and some ointment, it might clear up.I like how you broke this all down in to easy-to-digest sections. That’s another huge part of having a successful blog, funny or not – make your content ‘easily consumable’.