How does ‘funny’ work?
Let’s look at few cartoons to begin with.
Then let’s look at a comedian in full flow.
Then let’s look at a video.
And we’ll do the impossible.
We won’t just analyse ‘funny.’
We’ll replicate funny. We as in you and I.
Yes, both of us.
You’re ready?
Let’s start out with the cartoons
Is this funny?
Sure it is. So why are you suddenly so amused?
A guy with bandages isn’t funny. A guy on a snowboard isn’t funny.
And yet, a guy on a snowboard with bandages is funny.
It’s the disconnection that makes things funny
Or creative.
Or whatever you want to call it.
Example 1:
So if we look at an air-hostess serving muffins and coffee on a flight, it’s not funny.
But an air-hostess serving muffins and coffee on a canoe is funny.
Example 2:
A man saying to another man: “I’d like to be a prince, but I hate paparazzi ” is not funny.
A frog saying to another frog: “I’d like to be a prince, but I hate paparazzi” is funny.
But notice what’s happening?
It’s not just the disconnection at work, is it?
No it’s not. If you don’t know what an air-hostess does, or can’t refer back to the story of the Frog Prince, then there’s no joke at all. Then it’s just a string of words, and a well-drawn picture.
The core of what comedians use is a complete disconnection
But if you go up to a comedian and ask him/her: “Do you use disconnection?,” they may not know what to answer? They don’t know what to answer, because they haven’t analysed what’s happening. And right now, we’re in analysis mode.
So let’s head over to see how comedians use disconnections, shall we?
Let’s look at this clip by Jon Stewart, on Comedy Central.
Feel free to see the entire clip, but note than in about a minute and thirty-five seconds you’ve laughed twice or thrice already.
(Note that if you go past a minute and thirty-nine seconds, it stops being funny).
So watch the clip, and then let’s do the analysis.
So what was funny?
Tea? There’s a president of a country sitting on your show, and you bring out tea? Oooh, nice disconnect.
For exactly thirty-eight seconds in the video, you watched the video seriously.
Then the tea came out. So did your smile. 🙂
Then a whole bunch of disconnects crop up. Till the Osama Bin Laden joke.
Now imagine if Jon Stewart had asked that Osama Bin Laden question about ten minutes into a serious discussion.
Would you have laughed?
Maybe. Maybe not.
What made the joke hilarious was that Jon asks the question right in the middle of the first sip of tea.
Now that’s funny.
And of course, let’s look at a video
This video cracks me up every time I see it. And by now you can tell what’s really happening in the video. And why it’s funny.
But let me not spoil it for you. Watch the video first. (NOTE: It has some “adult” language and “swear words” so yeah, if you’ve got kids around, you may want to watch this one with the headphones on, or later when they’re not around).
And what was funny?
Sure it’s the disconnect.Why would Darth go to the canteen?
Why would the canteen guy associate Darth with his boss?
Why does Darth get hassled for an autograph?
At each of those specific points you laughed.
But what’s funny about someone going to a canteen?
What’s funny with someone mistaking you for their boss?
What’s funny about getting hassled for an autograph?
It’s not funny at all.
Except if Darth Vader is involved.
The whole craziness of the situation is what makes things funny.
The disconnection is what causes the laughs.
You want to create laughs?
Take a perfectly ordinary situation. And create a disconnection.
Of course, you won’t make anyone laugh.
Your jokes may not appear funny at all.
And there’s a reason.
You’ve just started to train your neurons to dance in a new way. You’ve just started to teach your neurons to look for a disconnect.
And when you first start to dance (even if you’re a neuron) you look a bit nervous and ungainly.
But if you keep at seeking out and putting disconnections together, you’ll strike up a neuron string of bulbs.
Then you’ll do what every cartoonist does.
What every comedian does.
What every funny video does.
You’ll simply put two disconnected objects or situations together, using your vast database of learning and memory.
And create laughs.
So remember I told you that we (yes, both of us) could create funny cartoons or situations?
Well, we will. But not just yet. Because this post has taken enough of your ‘work time’ already 😉
So let’s wait for the next post, ok?
Yes, we’ll do the impossible. We’ll get you to be funny, even if you have no history of being funny. 🙂 Until next time…
Have you ever seen fairy lights on a Christmas tree?
Each bulb is connected to each other.
Yet if one bulb fuses…
The next one seems to fail.
And then the chain seems to break.
So if you started out with five hundred lights on your Christmas tree, the failure of one bulb could take away the glow of about fifty bulbs.
In your brain you have about a hundred billion ‘bulbs’ called neurons (give or take a few zillion)
These neurons are pretty darned useless by themselves.
But turn on a memory, or a skill, and these neurons light up.
Now what’s really important is the understanding of how ‘talent’ and neurons are connected
Let’s say you can draw really well.
When someone gives you a pen and a sheet of paper, and asks you to draw something, a set of those lights fire up. And when you look at the firing up, it seems that all the lights fire up at one go.
But in reality there’s a gap.
The neurons fire up in different sequences for each thought or skill
So if you’re drawing a cat, it’s firing one set of lights.
If you’re drawing a dog, it’s quite another set.
If you’re drawing a girl in a bikini. Heck yeah, it’s a whole different set. 🙂
But the firing up of the neurons depends on the database in your brain
Which is why ten thousand cartoonists can look at the same political drama unfolding, and can draw ten thousand political cartoons that are totally different from each other. The cartoons still reference the same drama.
But the cartoons differ in terms of gag timing, in style, in size etc. And that’s because of the pathway that each cartoonist’s brain is following.
So what’s really happening in their brain?
Think of the fairy lights on the Christmas tree.
And imagine they were not all yellow lights.
Imagine instead that the lights had the ability to mix (like you mix colours on paper)
So as you turn on the switch, a set of red lights ignite and race to turn on.
At the very same time, the yellow lights ignite their sequence.
And at one point, the red and yellow lights meet at a junction.
And you get an orange.
This is the genesis of an idea
Bulbs of different colours mixing at one specific point.
It’s how the neurons in our brain work.
Now instead of just red and yellow lights, think of millions of shades of lights (millions of neurons).
And they’re all racing, and meeting at different junctions.
And mixing
Mixing and creating different shades.
Red mixing with blue.
Blue mixing with yellow.
Yellow mixing with green.
Suddenly there are millions of shades. Shades that all culminate to create a neuron dance.
And the neuron dance ends up with you saying “Eureka!”
Which is why ten thousand cartoonists can look at the same drama
And each draw one, two, even ten funny gags.
It’s because of how their bulbs light up.
But the question remains.
We can indeed fire up millions of neurons in our brain. We can reference vast memory banks.
But why can’t we come up with gags?
Why can’t we be funny too like that cartoonist or comedian?
Maybe it’s just that we’re not talented enough.
Maybe it’s just that cartoonists think in a different way.
And it’s true. They do think in a different way
In fact, somewhere along the line, their brains worked out a neuron dance with one added combination: the combination of how to make something funny.
So what’s happening here?
Remember that fused bulb?
The bulb that prevents about fifty lights from coming on? That fused bulb prevents the lights from igniting in your brain. When we replace that bulb, suddenly all the lights are aglow.
All the fifty bulbs come alive.
What we have to do then, is to find that darned fuse bulb. And make sure we replace it pronto.
And when that bulb is replaced, then we have a new dance.
A neuron dance that enables us to think ‘funny.’
Pretty cool, huh?
So how do we start to think ‘funny?’
Let’s find out, in the next post, shall we?
Imagine you have a computer at home
And this computer is linked to another two computers.
And let’s say you wanted to search for a file named ‘monkey’.
If you initiated a search, guess what you’d get?
You’d get what you searched for: Namely all the files named ‘monkey.’
So if you have no files named ‘monkey’, you’d get zero responses.
Now let’s suppose you tried to do the same thing when you were online.
Let’s just say you typed in the word ‘monkey’ on Google
You know what happens next, don’t you?
You get 186,000,000 responses.
That’s 18.6 million responses
But that’s not the cool part. The cool part, is that the responses are visual, and textual, and there are thousands of variations on the topics. Topics that range from what monkeys eat. To where they live. To how monkey are connected with spiritualism. If you can think of the word ‘monkey’, and think of another word that’s not even remotely connected to ‘monkey’, you’ll find it on Google.
Smarter people are not smarter.
They have a database in their brain.
A database consisting of millions of ideas, concepts, and learning beyond what the average Joe seems to have.
Because of that database…
A smart person can answer questions out of left-field.
A smart person can literally see things that others can’t see.
A smart person is able to take completely disconnected situations, memories and learning and merge them together to make sense instantly.
So will reading a million books make you smarter?
Yes it will. A lot smarter than you are right now.
But just having a database is not enough.
Google has a database. But that’s not enough.
What makes Google smarter, is the ability to recognise the pattern of the keywords.
So that when you type in keywords, Google brings up a close match to what you’re supposedly looking for.
And it also brings up several matches that you hadn’t considered.
Your brain works in a similar fashion
When you have a problem to solve, and you put that problem to your conscious brain, it does a brain-wide search. It brings up connected and disconnected memories, situations and learning.
Which means that that if you spend six years reading up on ‘monkeys’, your brain is more than likely to make hundreds of connections with ‘monkeys’ and something random—like ‘coffee.’
This random mix is what we refer to as um, creativity Most people who appear smarter work in this manner
Someone asks them a question. Or put forward a challenge of sorts.
And their brain races wildly through their personal database.
Linking connected and random memories, situations and learning.
And it comes up with a superb answer.
And their audience is astounded at how smart they are.
But in the end it’s the database.
If their database can’t access data on ‘monkey’, then it accesses nothing.
And it makes them look very chimp-like, doesn’t it?
Note: The obvious graphic to put at the top of this post would be a real monkey. But because I can access the term ‘monkey’ in my brain, I can think of soft toys, or dunces, or bananas. Or a zillion other things. Spend some time thinking of the word ‘monkey.’ You’ll be amazed at how many associations you have with this single word.Â
And in on my journey in the world of advertising, I ran into a creative director called Adi Pocha.
Adi hired me to write 30-second commercial scripts for clients.
Now I’m not really sure why he hired me.
Because frankly, I didn’t have any real skills in copywriting.
Well I thought I had, but now I know that I didn’t.
What’s worse is that I’d never written a thirty-second commercial in my life. (And Adi knew it).
As you can imagine, I was totally at sea, when I was given my first assignment
Two days later, Adi asked if I’d written anything.
I told him I hadn’t.
“I can’t seem to get it done,” I said morosely.
And Adi turned to me and said these golden words
“If you and I go onto the street, and I pull up an uneducated person, give them twenty rupees—and ask them to write a commercial, what will they say?” he asked.
” That they can’t write a commercial,” I answered, matter of factly.
“So that uneducated person says, they can’t. And you say you can’t. So what’s the difference between you and that uneducated person?” Adi asked.
“Any body can say the word ‘can’t‘.
You were hired, because you should give it a shot. And make the mistakes. And then learn from your mistakes.”
And then I was commanded to go and write three sets of commercials.
Can’t do this. Can’t do that.
If everyone on the planet has a talent, it’s the ability to say the word ‘can’t’.
It stops us from improving our lives, and harnessing the enormous power of our brains.
It stops us from improving our weaknesses.
But surely we should work on our strengths and not our weaknesses...
That statement is only half true.
There are situations in business and life, when working on your weaknesses are counter-productive.
But this isn’t weakness myth isn’t true for learning.
We were all weak at learning to walk.
We were all weak at learning to talk.
We were all weak at learning to drive.
We were all weak at things that we take for granted today.
Learning isn’t a matter of weakness or strength.
It’s a matter of the teacher. And the willingness of the student. And the simplicity of the code.
Your job is to seek out the teacher.
To be the willing student.
To find a code, a system that’s simple to crack.
And suddenly the ‘can’t’ factor disappears.
Suddenly, you’re not like everyone else.
Suddenly the word ‘can’t exists, but you know there’s a way out.
And you’re willing to take that way out.
If there’s one talent you don’t want to have it’s this one: The talent of saying ‘I can’t’
Adi would not be pleased.
When you look around you and see talented people you may run into a common misconception.
You may believe that those considered ‘talented’ or ‘creative’ require less practice.
Makes sense, huh?
If you’re already talented, where’s the need for practice?
You already have what it takes.
Your brain is genetically engineered towards your talent.
You should be coasting downhill, while the others struggle.
Yet the evidence all around you, points to the exact opposite situation.
The top athletes in the world practice long hours.
The top artists in the world seem to be stuck to their palettes.
The best speakers go over their material, time after time, after time.
The best figure skaters do their routines hypnotically.
In fact, when research was done on the top figure skaters, here’s what the researchers found.
They found that the mark of the top skater is the ability to do their spins and jumps.
And that the absolute crème da la crème skaters did more jumps and spins, when practicing.
The researchers found that the slightly lower-ranked skaters did just a little less practice.
And took more breaks in between their jumps and spins.
Less practice, eh?
And yet we strongly believe that talent is inborn.
Because if talent were indeed inborn, then where’s the need to practice?
Where’s the need to do yet another jump and turn?
Surely even at the highest level of sport, one figure skater would be so overloaded with talent, that it would be impossible for others to catch up. Surely it would be impossible, no matter how many hours of practice their competition puts in.
Talent or creativity is the result of many, many hours of frustrating practice.
Because when we have courses, like say Article Writing for instance, I can tell you who’ll be the star of the course.
I can tell you within days of the course beginning, who’ll write better articles than anyone else.
I can tell you, even without knowing that person’s background, or capability, or any so-called talent.
I can tell you based on momentum.
The ones who consistently write better, faster, and with more panache are those who practice.
Day in, day out. Week in, week out.
The momentum builds on itself.
Suddenly patterns emerge.
Suddenly the achievement is higher.
Suddenly the pats on the back increase.
But is momentum alone enough to create a factor of skill?
Obviously not.
However, it is one of the most critical factors, as compared to everything else.
Because whom would you rather believe?
The perception of the average person on the street—who believes in inborn talent?
Or the figure skater doing yet one more practice jump and turn?
