People Sometimes Ask Me How To Do The Internet Comedy Thing, And The Biggest Piece Of Advice I Can Give

People sometimes ask me how to do the Internet comedy thing, and the biggest piece of advice I can give – and the one I see violated or misunderstood most often – is don’t step on the laugh.

Basically, since you can’t rely on tone or timing to push a punchline in text, you need to avoid making people keep reading after that punchline has been delivered. If there’s still more text, your readers’ natural inclination is going to be to stifle their visceral reaction with the expectation that there’s still more to come – and when there isn’t, the joke just deflates.

Ideally, the specific word that makes the punchline click into place should be the very last word of the post, or at least the last word of the paragraph. Going even one word beyond that point diminishes its impact.

To pose an example I’ve seen doing the rounds, let’s consider the monkey-with-anxiety meme:

god: i have made Mankind angels: you fucked up a perfectly good monkey is what you did. look at it. it’s got anxiety

Here, the word “anxiety” is the punch. When people quote it or do their own variations, I very often see them render it as “it’s got anxiety now” – and just like that, it’s not even half as funny, because that extraneous “now” dangling off the end is stepping on the laugh.

Obviously, this isn’t always going to be possible without resorting to contrived phrasing, which you also want to avoid because calling attention to the sentence structure is another common laugh-killer, but you should always make your best effort to identify the exact point at which the reader will have enough information for the punchline to snap into focus, and to put that point as close to the end of the post or paragraph as possible.

(This also applies to spoken comedy, albeit to a lesser extent, since you can just pause for the laugh if you need to. Ever wonder why a joke or anecdote isn’t funny when you tell it? Sure, your delivery might just suck, but I find the more common culprit is that you mangled the phrasing and ended up putting the punchline in the middle of a sentence rather than at the end.)

More Posts from Fade-22 and Others

fade-22

1 year ago

it will get better again :)

5K notes View Post

fade-22

2 months ago

every piece of ""autistic representation"" in hollywood sucks not just because of the infantalization and inspiration porn but because movie executives always fail to realize the real universal autistic experience: spending your childhood slowly and unfalteringly realizing all of your friends not so secretly hated and/or merely tolerated you at best and you've missed every social signal about it ever

45K notes View Post

fade-22

11 months ago

As a college student, currently really hungry with nothing to eat, I understand how hard it can be to get food. Sometimes you really just don’t have the money to eat and when you do, you waste it all on fast food instead of stocking up on cheap things because you’re so tired of Ramen Noodes and canned food you could barf. So, I’ve composed a list of recipes and resources that will fit a college kid’s budget and appetite. Don’t go hungry! <3

Ramen Noodle Recipes:

Ramen Noodle Stir Fry

Sirloin-Snap Pea Stir Fry

Chicken Noodle Soup

Chili Cheese Ramen

Egg Drop Ramen

Spinach and Ramen

Ramen Spaghetti

Ramen Alfredo

Cheesy Ramen Noodles

Mug Meals:

Cheesy Eggs Mug

Cheese and Broccoli Mug

Mac and Cheese in a Mug

Meatloaf in a Mug

Nutella Mug Cake

Cheesecake Mug

Coffee Cup Quiche

Coffee Cup Chilaquiles

Mug Egg Scramble

Microwave Recipes:

Potato Chips

Corn on the cob

Scalloped Potatoes

White Rice

Fried Rice

Baked Potato

Chicken Casserole

Garlic Chicken

Chicken Soup Casserole

Caramelized Onion Baked Potato

Soft Chicken Tacos

Pancakes

Recipe Generators

My Fridge Food

Fire House Chef

Dinner in 15 Minutes

Advanced recipe Generator

Cuisine

Recipe Matcher

Super Cook

Recipe Puppy

Cook Thing

Recipes by Ingredient

Recipe Key

Not Beans Again

Ideas 4 Recipes

Big Oven

Other Resources

Actual College Student Cookbook

Restaurant Coupons [1] [2] [3] [4]

Free Birthday food [1] [2]

407K notes View Post

fade-22

2 years ago

Why do you reblog your own fics so much?

Because someone might as well!? And look at this. Look. At. This.

Does this look right to you??

These are just the last three fics I wrote. I appreciate the likes, believe me I do, but you have to understand. Likes do nothing for content creators. It’s the reblogs. Because that’s how you find shit on your dashboard. Through reblogs. Not likes. This isn’t twitter or tiktok or instagram. This is a website that’s run by the reblog system.

Reblogging helps content creators put their stuff out there. Why do you think so many people stopped writing fanfic and creating beautiful fanart and edits? It’s because they put in hours of work and don’t get nearly enough notes for their masterpieces. Yes we do this because we enjoy it but like…some validation won’t hurt. A boost of confidence here and there might be all someone needs to finish whatever thing they started and left.

Anyway, I’m still going to reblog my shit…

97K notes View Post

fade-22

1 year ago

how’s everyone doin tonight i just broke tumblr

423K notes View Post

fade-22

1 year ago

reblog to break the thing at the mall

11K notes View Post

fade-22

9 months ago

23K notes View Post

fade-22

9 months ago

did you know you can look up patents by application number. patent number 1 in the US is a 1836 traction wheel design for locomotives. US patent number 100000 is a sun hat for horses

13K notes View Post

fade-22

6 months ago

please please does anybody have the “i love my this” image please i can’t find it anywhere i’m getting desperate

35K notes View Post

fade-22

7 months ago

does anyone have that unsettling oil painting of a dark window with a sheet leading out into the darkness? it did the rounds on tumblr a while ago and i need itttt

148K notes View Post