Can cleverness and witness be taught?

Roadhouse1984 · 2018-07-19T01:12:47+00:00

1 Situational humor: Have enough social intelligence to identify something absurd going on around you or in a different situation being talked about. Be able to apply a range of extremes to how normal to how ridiculous something would be. Be able to point out and verbalize all of this. The more you do it, the less you will bomb. This is all I do. Girls have explicitly gone out of their way to tell me that I am funny...as if their chronic and sometimes uncontrollable laughter is not enough proof. You must be intelligent or have the capacity to build social intelligence enough to recognize what is absurd and how it compares to other stuff.

2 Puns: These fucking suck and people who use them should be locked up next to people who use prop humor. However, if you can use them very quickly in the moment then you show a lot of #1 and it's kind of under that umbrella more at that point.

3 Canned jokes. This shows nothing other than your ability to memorize lines. Do not ever use this unless you are Ron Dangerfield or you remember one that is extremely pertinent to your situation right now or some situation with principles from #1.

4 see the pun humor preface that addresses this.

Watch Louis CK, Bill Burr, Tom Segura. Watch their scene setting and story telling patterns.

Also remember you have to build up the confidence to do these in the moment. This only comes from practice. In the beginning you will bomb more than you will hit. Prepare for this and remember the feeling of when a joke does land and pursue that feeling with other people. Make it your goal to have fun with them around them. Starting out you should absolutely stay away from making fun OF someone in the group. Try to create laughter where everyone is in on the joke and people are laughing with each other and not at each other. Even self deprecating jokes people should know that you are laughing along and comfortable with yourself. Skew away from self deprecating at first for frame reasons. Once you get better and only 1 out of 10 jokes bomb then you can play around with teasing people without them hating you. You can say almost anything to anyone if you couch it in humor.

There is no easy shortcut. Watch it being done by comedians. Not necessarily the ones above but stay away from social justice warrior female worship. Their beta cuckness will infect you. Once you get a sense of what lands and what could bomb...go and practice. Fail. Succeed and improve the fail to succeed ratio over time.

That's it. Thats all there is to it

CalvinRichland · 2018-07-18T23:55:18+00:00

I find arguing and making fun of people good practice

CalvinRichland · 2018-07-18T23:49:01+00:00

It can be developed but some are natural

AllTheDevilsAreHere_ · 2018-07-19T00:22:56+00:00

I wouldn't get too hung up on trying to appear clever, because too many guys use it as a crutch. The problem with seeing these kinds of posts and profiles is that you don't know whether they lead to an actual meet up. There's a fine line between being witty and looking like a dancing monkey and it's incredibly easy to fuck up and come off as the latter. In my experience, being witty works better in person, because you can gauge how effective it is via body language.

In terms of being witty, yes you can learn it. Watch comedians and read books on comedy and stand up. Learn how to play with words (puns, sexual innuendos, literal interpretations, irony, etc.) and tell stories. More importantly, you need to learn when to use them and when not to, or else you become the dancing monkey.

boy_named_su · 2018-07-19T00:58:05+00:00

Watch stand-up (James Acaster is nerdy but very witty), improv, read some Oscar Wilde. Hang out at college bars. Join literary meetups

[deleted] · 2018-07-19T05:29:59+00:00

Act. Don’t think

Terdmuffin · 2018-07-19T06:36:04+00:00

I think it's a mix but it can be learned. To me wit is all about speed. "Thats what she said" is a good example. Sure its played out and everyone does it but it can be funny. The key is you have to say it before everyone else thinks it. Think about how when someone says something and you think of a clever remark but it's too late to say it because the timing has passed. The key is just saying it. Don't think it, think aloud.

It's also key to have shit you can continually go to. One of mine is "got you good fucker!" Like farva in super troopers. People know I say it and the fine because when appropriate I can say it before they realize I'm gonna say it because it's almost a reflex. Develop a couole of these and you'll learn how to reflexively say things instead of having to think about everything.

opper-hombre1 · 2018-07-19T16:54:49+00:00

I’m great at it online, in-person tho I’m a bit slower

Title	Can cleverness and witness be taught?
Author	resnine
Upvotes	3
Comments	21
Date	July 18, 2018 11:47 PM UTC (8 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/askTRP
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/asktrp/comments/900oyd/can_cleverness_and_witness_be_taught/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/askTRP/can-cleverness-and-witness-be-taught.103077 https://theredarchive.com/post/103077

Comments

2 Puns: These fucking suck and people who use them should be locked up next to people who use prop humor. However, if you can use them very quickly in the moment then you show a lot of #1 and it's kind of under that umbrella more at that point.

3 Canned jokes. This shows nothing other than your ability to memorize lines. Do not ever use this unless you are Ron Dangerfield or you remember one that is extremely pertinent to your situation right now or some situation with principles from #1.

4 see the pun humor preface that addresses this.