The Pros and Cons of Watching Other Comedians
A Huge Shift In My Writing (Comedy Mindhacks #97)
When I first got into comedy, I watched specials relentlessly. I watched them the way I used to watch preachers; I studied their every syllable, every gesture, and the structure of their sermons. I did the same with comedians early on. I studied them the way athletes study game film. And just like I had done with so many preachers, with the comedians I was looking for structure, timing, and the mechanics underneath the laugh. I told myself I was learning the craft, and for a while I was. I learned things for sure.
But what I didn’t see coming was what all that consumption was quietly doing to me on the other side of it or the underside of it. What I mean is, something kept feeling slightly off when I’d try to write jokes. I’d sit down to write, for instance, and I’d start a premise. But before I could finish my thought, someone else’s cadence would show up in my head. I felt like I wasn’t writing my own comedy anymore as much as I was negotiating with other comedians’ voices.
What I’m getting at is, there’s a point where studying other comedians stopped sharpening me and started replacing me. I didn’t want to believe that at first because watching specials seems productive and just seemed like the right thing to do. But I also started paying attention to the comedians around me, the ones I was performing on shows with, the ones who had the most distinct perspectives. A lot of them were consuming far less comedy than me, not watching nearly as much, but were hilarious. I think they probably understood something that, at that point, I hadn’t figured out yet.
For example, when I constantly fill my head with how other people see the world, whether it’s preachers or educators or comedians, my brain can start solving problems the way they would. If I watch or listen to enough of them, maybe I reach for their tools instead of building my own. The realization that smacked me right in the face, however, was this: The audience feels that even if they can’t name it. It’s kinda like the difference between performing an original song and a cover. People always know which one they’re listening to, even when they can’t explain how they know. And it seems to me that the gap between those two poles is where a comedian’s credibility lives or dies.
So, I made a shift. I stopped watching other comedians right before sets. And I stopped binge watching specials before writing sessions because it was muddying the water at the exact moment I needed clarity. Instead, I started watching documentaries about comedians, their processes, their philosophies, and the way they think. That let me keep learning without filling my head with their actual material or style or voice. The shift was almost immediate in what it did to my writing.
I started trusting my own setups more than I had before. I stopped editing myself halfway through a joke and started taking risks that actually sounded like me, not what I thought a competent comedian was supposed to sound like. More importantly, it started to feel like mine in a way it hadn’t before which is huge because it changes how you show up on stage.
The real work of finding me in my own comedy happened mostly in silence. I mean that literally. It didn’t develop while I was surrounded by other performers doing their thing. It developed (and continues to develop) in the quiet moments when it’s just me. The freedom in that is that there’s no way to say someone else did it this way so I’ll do something like that. It’s just me and a blank screen or page trying to figure out what I myself actually think.
And, to be honest, that space is uncomfortable. But…it’s the right kind of uncomfortable. It forces me to sit with my own perspective long enough to hear it clearly. It removes the safety net of imitation and replaces it with something much more honest. Over time, that’s where my voice has actually started to take shape. So, heres’ the “Comedy Mindhack” for this one: Limit input when you’re creating output.
When I write, I still often ask myself a couple of questions to stay honest: 1) When I write a joke, whose voice do I hear delivering it in my head? If it’s anyone other than mine, that’s a problem worth stopping for; and, 2) I also ask myself whether I could go a full week without consuming any comedy at all. If that feels impossible, that usually tells me I’m leaning on outside input more than I should be.
Studying the greats matters, no doubt about that; I’m not walking that back. But there comes a point where each comedian has to stop asking what Person A or Person B would do and start asking what they themselves actually think. And let me tell you, that second question is the harder of the two because there’s no model to follow and nothing to hide behind. In that scenario, it’s just my perspective and whatever raw material my life has given me. But honestly, that’s the only place anything worth remembering ever gets made.
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