Original Comedy Gets Fans: Why Funny Isn't Enough

This article covers:

• Why creativity is necessary if you want to become a successful comedian
• Why originality gives audiences a reason to remember you after the show
• How originality helps stand-up comedians build a stronger fan base
• Why many new comedians fear originality
• How to start becoming more original without trying to be weird for no reason

Part two: 4 Steps to Increase Your Creativity as a Comedian

Why Originality Matters If You Want to Become a Successful Comedian

In this article, I want to discuss originality and creativity in stand-up comedy, and how that creativity can expand your fan base and help you become a more successful comedian.

Creativity and originality are severely underrepresented in stand-up comedy training, comedy classes, and especially books on how to write comedy. The prevailing idea seems to be that if you use a step-by-step formula to write comedy and apply it better than anyone else, then that is going to equal success in the end.

That is what many stand-up comedy classes teach.

The problem is that this simply is not what you see when you study great comedians. Successful comedians do not just apply the same rules better than everyone else. They are highly original and very creative.

Look at the top comedians of all time and you will see that they were all different from each other. The only common factor is that they were creative enough to stand apart from everyone else.

That is an important point for new comedians to understand. If you want to become a successful comedian, you cannot simply apply the same rules better than everyone else.

Being 5 to 10 percent funnier than the other comedians on a show might help you get laughs that night, but it usually will not expand your fan base in any meaningful way.

Being Slightly Funnier Is Not Enough

A lot of new comedians focus almost entirely on getting funnier. That makes sense. You need laughs. You need good jokes. You need material that works.

But if your only goal is to be a little bit funnier than the other comedians on the show, you are aiming too low.

Audiences do not usually leave a show saying, “That third comedian was 8 percent funnier than the second comedian. I need to follow him forever.”

That is not how fans are created.

Fans are created when an audience member feels like they saw something specific, memorable, and different. They need a reason to remember you, talk about you, follow you, subscribe to you, join your email list, or come back to see you again.

That usually does not happen because you had one good joke. It happens because the audience feels like they experienced a comedian they cannot easily replace.

Originality Gives Audiences a Reason to Remember You

When you are highly original, you appeal to a certain type of audience member much more strongly than other comedians do.

I know the word “niche” scares some comedians because they want to be mainstream. But some of the most successful comedians started out as niche comedians. Comedians like Zach Galifianakis and Steve Martin built strong followings because they were not trying to sound like everyone else.

Steve Martin was a niche comedian for years while he developed the idea of anti-comedy. Anti-comedy did not appeal to every audience member early on. But it appealed so strongly to a smaller group of people that those people wanted to tell their friends, “You have to see this comedian.”

That is the reaction you want.

If you want to become a successful comedian, you need audience members to feel like they just saw something worth talking about.

That is really what it comes down to. You do not want to just go through your jokes, get some laughs, and call it good. You want to give the audience an experience. You want to give them a reason to remember you.

You want them to come up to you after the show, engage with you, sign up for your email list, follow you, subscribe to your YouTube channel, or look for the next place they can see you perform.

That does not happen when you are just a little bit funnier than everyone else.

If you are not original, you will keep struggling to expand your fan base because you are not giving people enough of a reason to talk about you.

Successful comedians are worth talking about. Not because they are already successful, but because being worth talking about is one of the prerequisites for becoming successful in the first place.

Why Niche Comedians Can Build Stronger Fan Bases

Think about the comedians you love most.

You probably enjoy telling your friends about them. You want to introduce people to them. You might even get annoyed when someone does not agree with you about how great they are.

That is the feeling you want to create in your own audience.

You want audience members thinking, “I need to tell people about this.”

That feeling does not usually happen because you were just a little bit funnier than the other comedians on the show. Even if you have the best joke of the night, the audience might remember the joke more than they remember you.

That is not enough.

You cannot guarantee that you are going to be the funniest comedian on any given night. A comedian before you might destroy. The audience might be tired. Another comedian might bring half the room. The show might have weird energy. Those factors are outside of your control.

But you can control how original you are.

Your originality helps determine how strongly you appeal to the audience members who are naturally drawn to your point of view, your style, your topics, your delivery, and your way of seeing the world.

Yes, originality can alienate some audience members.

That is not automatically a problem.

If you try to appeal to everyone right away, you often dilute your material until it becomes lukewarm. Lukewarm comedy might get polite laughs, but it rarely creates passionate fans.

You do not need every audience member to think you are their favorite comedian. You need the right audience members to feel like you are exactly the comedian they have been looking for.

That is where long-term fan growth comes from.

Why New Comedians Should Not Fear Originality

A lot of comedians fear originality because originality creates risk.

The more original you are as a performer, the more you will alienate some people. That is part of the deal. If you only look at comedy from a short-term perspective, originality can feel dangerous.

But from a long-term perspective, originality gives you a major competitive advantage.

Highly successful comedians learn to place long-term growth ahead of short-term approval.

Look at the comedians who have broken out. Demetri Martin was a highly original performer, but not in the exact same way Steve Martin was. Steve Martin pushed originality to an extreme with anti-comedy. He broke heavily from stand-up comedy’s past.

Demetri Martin was different. He worked within a more familiar framework, but he still applied his own originality to it. He did not need to destroy every stand-up comedy rule to become memorable. He simply needed to be different enough that audiences could not confuse him with everyone else.

That is a key lesson for new comedians.

You do not need to be weird for the sake of being weird. You do not need to trample every rule of stand-up comedy. You do not need to become the most experimental comedian in the world.

You just need to become more clearly yourself.

That means developing your own point of view, your own style, your own rhythm, your own topics, and your own way of making audiences laugh.

If there are 20 funny comedians on a show, the most original comedian often becomes the one people remember.

And being remembered is the first step toward building real fans.

How to Start Becoming a More Original Comedian

Originality is not something you should save for later in your career. It should be part of your development from the beginning.

Here are a few practical ways to start:

1. Stop asking, “What joke structure should I use?”

   Instead, ask, “What do I genuinely find weird, wrong, frustrating, exciting, embarrassing, or interesting about this topic?”

   Joke structures can help, but they should not replace your point of view.

2. Notice what you naturally care about.

   Your originality often comes from the things you cannot stop talking about. Pay attention to the topics, complaints, stories, and observations that already create energy in you.

3. Do not confuse originality with randomness.

   Being original does not mean being strange for no reason. It means showing the audience a specific way of seeing the world that feels like it could only come from you.

4. Let your niche audience find you.

   Do not panic when some people do not respond to your material. The goal is not to please everyone equally. The goal is to create a stronger reaction in the people who connect with your style.

5. Build comedy around your real instincts.

   Your natural sense of humor is not something to hide until you have more experience. It is the thing you should be developing.

If you are a new comedian, do not make the mistake of thinking originality is advanced. Originality is not decoration. It is one of the main reasons audiences remember you.

Being funny gets laughs.

Being original gives people a reason to become fans.

And if you want to become a successful comedian, that is the reaction you need to create.

If you want a more hands-on way to understand how jokes work and start writing material that sounds like you, try Playfully Inappropriate: Interactive. It teaches joke writing through interactive lessons, real comedy examples, and step-by-step practice instead of long lectures.