Line Jumpers in Stand-Up Comedy
The Importance of Being a Student First (Comedy Mindhacks #73)
When some comedians see a newer comedian getting opportunities after 18 months that took them five years to land, the accusation comes fast: “They’re a line jumper.” But here’s what I’ve learned as both a researcher and a working comedian: that accusation almost always reveals more about the accuser than the accused. The belief that time served equals skill gained is wrong, like completely wrong.
Many comedians, for instance, think stage time automatically makes them better. Again: completely wrong. The fact is, many people spend time on the stage and mic week after week and they never get better. Many stagnate and stay the same and many get worse. Likewise, many spin their wheels in a way that does nothing but generate a damaging sense of entitlement (often resulting in resentment) instead of growth. Research backs this up. It’s been argued, in fact, that practice explains just 12 percent of skill mastery.1 A study shows that the number of hours to reach master status in chess has a very wide range: 728 to 16,120 hours! That’s a massive range. Some players, in other words, need 22 times more practice than others to reach the same level. Nothing’s a level playing field, including comedy, no matter how bad we want it to be.
The key difference here often comes down to how one’s hours are spent on actually acquiring skills. And here’s a fact: skill acquisition is typically very predictable when you break it into stages. Peter Hollins, in his book The Science of Rapid Skill Acquisition, orders it this way: a) select the right skill; b) deconstruct it into chunks; c) practice those chunks with feedback; d) refine through reflection; and, e) iterate. The point here is: you don’t magically learn; rather, you engineer learning. That’s a huge deal.
I do this all the time. It’s my “secret sauce,” if you will. I read books. I study articles. I watch comedians and reverse engineer their crowd work, joke writing, and joke logic. I break everything down into learnable systems. Most comedians think reading comedy books is a joke. It’s not.
But this is why when I hear someone accuse another comedian of something like line jumping, I ask three questions: 1) Is nepotism involved? 2) Have you been blacklisted? Or 3) Are you not putting in the study and work? The telltale sign is looking at their craft on stage. If their performance is solid, they probably didn’t jump the line, they just learned faster.
Many comedians resist the idea that comedy has learnable systems because they think it comes naturally. Some also believe comedy is for fun, not work. And, of course, lots of people don’t want to work. But if you’ve been grinding for years and are still feeling stuck, the most reasonable solution is simple and obvious one: Study consistently and see yourself as a student of comedy first. The comedians passing you by aren’t usually just connected better than you, they’re probably studying and working harder than you.
JOKE WRITING COURSE: By the way, if you have any interest at all in learning about your persona, how to write some jokes, or doing stand-up comedy, check out my online joke writing course, “The Joke Writer’s Lab,” HERE.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/10000-hour-rule-not-real-180952410/