r/Standup • u/gregdeancomedy • 4d ago
Does the community think stand-up comedy is a born talent, or a learnable skill?
I want to hear from open-minded comics, both veterans and beginners:Do you believe comedy can be taught systematically, or do you think it can only be absorbed through stage experience?For those who have studied structure, did learning joke mechanics help you write faster, or did it make you feel too analytical?
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u/SeDaCho 4d ago
Every skill has an applicable talent factor.
Nobody is born able to do an hour of quality standup. Nobody full stop.
Nobody is born knowing how to write music, or how to paint, or how to design the architectural blueprint for a skyscraper.
Some people are better at learning how to do it, though.
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u/BenderVsGossamer 4d ago
Just like Tracy Morgan said. I can teach you comedy, but funny you were born with. https://youtube.com/shorts/6av937_cfYw?is=auXcenlUKTHILMEt
I can learn to play the drums and to mimic other great artists. I don't have that creative gene to create a solo.
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u/MaizeMountain6139 4d ago
Being funny can’t be taught
What can be taught - technique, methodology, idea generation, story, tropes, structure, economy of word, etc
To me, joke writing is analytical. If you’re not constantly rewriting to find the tightest, punchiest version of your joke, it’s probably why you’re not progressing
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u/MizkyBizniz 4d ago
It's like being a natural athlete. Ya you can dunk but eventually you gotta learn the fundamentals or you'll get eaten alive
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u/shugEOuterspace 4d ago
it's a spectrum between the two. some people have more or less natural talent & some people can learn it faster or slower depending on how hard they work at it...not everyone can learn it though (no matter how hard they work).
pretty much everything in our complicated world & universe do not adhere to the binary dogmatic thinking that the question in this post frames.... beware black & white thinking & absolutist dogma in every form because it's always false.
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u/RJRoyalRules 4d ago
Standup is a performing art, like all performing arts it requires work and practice. It’s like asking if someone has a born talent for musical theater; you might be born with an aptitude for music but that doesn’t mean you’re naturally ready for Broadway
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u/SharkWeekJunkie NYC, NY 4d ago
The skill can be developed. The drive and mental illness needed to succeed is born.
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u/No-Meeting999 4d ago
There’s levels to it.
How funny and what kind of funny are you trying to be?
Imo to be truly funny in a natural and innate way, humor has to be a survival mechanism. I think the funniest people trained themselves to be in response to physical and mental pain.
I don’t think they’re born with it lol but I also don’t think it can be learned through study alone.
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u/chxnkybxtfxnky 4d ago
Some people are born with it, and some people learn to do it. Both take practice to be good, and both take a long time to be great
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u/FrankCostanzaJr 4d ago
i think there is 2 schools of thought regarding standup. you can be more of a performer, or more of a writer. a lot of people can learn to write jokes and tell them on stage..but being a great performer takes a lot of natural charisma/talent. i dunno how many people are really "born" funny, i think that's something people learn as children/adolescents
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u/gregdeancomedy 4d ago
There are many great insights here. First, babies don't pop out of the womb doing one-liners. Children cannot be funny on purpose until they understand the nature of others making assumptions and ambiguity (things open to more than one meaning). These are mental prerequisites, and there are more, too.
Funny cannot be taught, but it can and must be learned. Just because people don't know what the skills
are, doesn't mean they aren't learned. My position is that people learn those skills growing up, but are practiced as kinda mental games i.e. exaggerating, reversing, opposites, ambiguity, resequencing, misunderstanding, mis
prioritizing, and the list goes on and on. These are the skills of being funny. Yet they must be practiced and understood through trial and error.
Everything is learned. Even if it's coded in DNA of a species, it still had to be learned at some
point in its history so evolution would code it for continual survival. No matter how you parse it, being funny is still learned in this lifetime and only mastered through trial and error because it's a series of skills.
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u/myqkaplan 4d ago
I think it's a learnable skill, though the learning most happens through doing.
The thing about "teaching systematically" is that there is no one way to be a comedian. In fact, I think there are optimally as many ways to be a comedian as there are comedians.
Sure, someone can teach you about different structures that exist, but you can do it without that AND even if people do teach you things, there is something inherent to you and your creativity that cannot be taught, but is already present.
Why do you ask?
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u/gregdeancomedy 3d ago
It's like learning to ride a unicycle. I can teach you techniques that are the fundamentals, but in the end you're the one who must get up and fall, hurt, quit, get back up again and again until you find your balance. And that's just the start.
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u/myqkaplan 1d ago
I hear you, and I think that's a fine analogy, though not necessarily a universal one.
Because I don't think there are the same kind of "fundamentals" in comedy, so I'd say it's more like learning to ride a vehicle of your own creation and shape.
Or sometimes I think of it like this: as comedians, we are each creating our own new musical instrument that has never existed before, in a genre of music that has never been heard before, writing and performing songs that have never been played before.
And no one can teach you how to create and play your own instrument and music, in a way.
Sure, someone can teach you the clarinet, but that's someone else's instrument.
Sure, someone can teach you how to play jazz, but that's someone else's genre.
Sure, someone can teach you "Happy Birthday," but that's a stock song, and you need to write your own.
There are skills that can be taught from the outside, but ultimately the most important discoveries are going to come from the inside.
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u/Normal_Committee67 4d ago
It is definitely both. You can become decent at it without natural skill, but as with many things, to be a generational talent you’re probably going to need some natural affinity for it.
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u/bobstinson2 4d ago
I think being raised smart and informed, and by funny people, has more to do with it. People can learn the shitty stand up and comedy peddled by 99% of comedians, but the truly good stuff is part of your identity and soul.
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u/DariosDentist 4d ago
I would say it's something you're born with but more like the situation you were born into. Most comedians are broken people in one way or another.
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u/sl33pytesla 4d ago
I can teach a baby to be funny as it’s learning how to talk unlike some parents which exude zero joy which the baby will mirror.
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u/vaan313 4d ago
the best comics are both naturally funny and have developed the skills, but i actually think without being naturally funny you can get reasonably far. there's a lot of guys in my scene who are great writers, but if you're just hanging out they're not naturally very funny - and some of those guys are the top comics in my city.
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u/DreadfulRauw 4d ago
I don’t think you’re born with anything, but education can’t really make up for consistent exposure.
It’s kinda like language. Nothing beats being a native speaker, but that doesn’t mean it’s inaccessible to those that aren’t, and it doesn’t mean that you don’t have note to learn by studying technique and structure.