Let's define-what is a joke? Simply anything that makes people(audience) laugh. It can be merely a word, a smirk, a raise of the eyebrows, or even a momentary silent pause. As long as it gets a smile or a chuckle or a guffaw from the audience. Which means a joke or comedy needs the audience to decide or judge whether it is funny or not. The keyword is audience response.
An audience is a prime importance in humor. Its participation which ultimately decide whether it is a joke or otherwise. There is no humor until the audience confirms it with laughter. Therefore, humor is a partnership. Humorist and the audience. So that's why many comics like to include them in their acts. A humorist must treat the audience as a participant because it is the audience that is going to reward the humorist with spontaneous laugher. Learn to capitalize on audience participation.
Therefore, the important point is to know what is funny to them because they are the decision makers of your jokes. For a joke to work, the audience has to know what you are talking about. Do an in-depth research of your audience. Find out what tickles their funny bones and what offends them as well. As you already know, different people have different sense of humor. There are jokes, which can send some people rolling on the floor in uncontrollable spasms of guffaw and some of them may just only chuckle. The worst scenario is they do not get your jokes or they find them appalling. As they say, humor is in the mind of the beholder. The reasons why different people laugh at different things are individual and idiosyncratic. Remember you cannot create humor that will appeal to everyone, but you can churn out specific funny ideas tailored to elicit laughter from people who belong to a particular group. We slanted our ideas that incline towards a specific audience who will find the humor relevant to them. The basic devices for these slanted ideas are the props, settings, characters, jargons and lingo that are familiar to your target audience. The idea is to see from the point of view from the audience you are trying to amuse.
The bottom line is not just, how funny your lines are. However, whether the jokes are funny to your target audience. There is no bad audience, only bad jokes. And that is no joke!
A freelancer from Malaysia who dabbles in both visual and performing art.
Read more articles and free tips on humor writing at: www.http://funny-ideas.blogspot.com/
