#371 - Finding Your Audience, In Stand-Up Comedy,

I recently discovered a game-changing approach to testing comedy material by identifying and targeting people who already share my sense of humor. This scientific method for joke development has dramatically improved my stand-up performance and writing efficiency.

• Find individuals who already have your sense of humor to test material on
• Use the scientific method for comedy: hypothesis, test, analyze, improve or discard
• My ideal audience includes police officers, military personnel, and first responders
• People with similar backgrounds often share similar humor sensibilities
• When testing jokes, you only get one true "first impression" with each person
• Multiple tests with different people help determine if a joke is trending toward success
• Target your specific audience first – anyone else who laughs is a bonus
• This approach applies to many pursuits beyond comedy

Thanks for listening to Psychological Warfare. I'm Benji Welldone, documenting my journey to become a professional stand-up comedian while overcoming mental health challenges along the way. Peace.

Chapters

• 0:01 Finding Your Comedy Audience
• 1:24 Scientific Method in Comedy
• 2:36 Targeting Police and Military Audiences
• 4:29 Testing Jokes Effectively
• 8:05 Applying Lessons and Closing Thoughts

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:01

Finding your audience in comedy. You know, a lot of what this podcast is is mental health and talking about obstacles and overcoming them, more importantly, and how I'm doing this on my way to be a professional stand-up comedian. However, sometimes I use these as a note to self, as I mentioned in a prior episode, because it helps not just remember something learned, but it also helps instilling it, because I'm making an imprint of this moment right. So recently I learned an extremely important lesson I'm sharing it which is this finding your audience in stand-up comedy. You know, when I test material, I had recently learned, out of all the years doing this, the best way to do that, which is testing my material okay, on an audience or an individual that I know already likes and has my sense of humor, and the reason why is because the people that have my sense of humor should be my entire audience. So if I direct, if I specifically try out material on someone that is not random, that I know has my sense of humor, I know that that will work for my entire crowd generally. Now, I want to do this for more than one individual. However, if I say to someone random that might not have my sense of humor and it makes them laugh. Anybody else outside of my target audience, okay, is a bonus, but I need to start with my base, and it's been such a huge improvement in my comedy writing and my testing and application because it really is a science. It's a scientific method. You know, you have a hypothesis, you have an idea. Okay, you test the premises and then you analyze it and then you improve it or discard it, or it's perfect, you just leave it as is right. I really do. I'm a big nerd, so I use a scientific approach when it comes to comedy, but, realistically, the scientific method is foolproof for anything period, whether it's talking to a girl swinging a baseball bat, you name it right Now.

Speaker 1: 2:21

There's another way of doing this, too, and it could be targeting, uh, an individual or individuals, okay, that have my background, so that we already start off by having a similarity and it's something that's pretty deep. So, for example, my perfect ideal audience would be police officers and, uh, military. I love cops, I, I love what they do. First responders are great as well, uh, but as an army veteran, um, I really do believe in that one team, one fight principle, you know, because it's because of police officers that you guys can go to bed at night in this country and not think about the crazy stuff like being bombed or random people, just you know, coming into your house.

Speaker 1: 3:12

We have in America a great presence of great, great police officers and military that keeps foreign and domestic enemies at bay, right, and I respect them and they have the best sense of humor. Man, they got the best sense of humor because their job is very serious. So they may have a dark sense of humor, but for sure they love to laugh and they have to. They got to constantly be light because they're always kind of dealing with some darkness, right. But again, outside of those people, in addition to those people, there's tons of great people that support them, that like them, and it's a weird thing because these commonalities and whatnot that these group of people have police and military, law enforcement, first responders and the people that may not have done that job but appreciate that job also similarly share a sense of humor to what they do, because I think they they're pretty thoughtful into the, the insight that the kind of jobs these guys and gals have you know. So more than likely, uh, if you like cops, if you like the uh military, you're gonna like me too, right and again spreading that net, so to speak, even wider. If what I say, none of that applies to you. As far as you loving cops, you might hate cops. Okay, you might hate America, but if I can still make you laugh and that's not a part of the type of audience you may still have my sense of humor, my type of humor, right. And if you don't have any of the above, if you're outside of all of these and I can still make you laugh, well then that's just a bonus. But I have to target a specific group. But the best way I can really test that out is, instead of trying to find random cops, instead of talking to random people that are looking for people in the military to try out a joke, I'm now going to select individuals, more than one because, similarly to a magic trick, you can only really test out a joke once, even if somebody has your sense of humor.

Speaker 1: 5:41

And again, going back to the scientific method, if by chance I have a joke and I want to try it out, I go to this one guy first and I test it out, get his reaction, and when you try something it can go one of a few ways. You either have it right on the bat, know right on the bat it's perfect and it's done. It could not work at all and you know, throw it away. Or it could be, there could maybe be something there, or you could think there is something there. Then you got to test it out a little bit more. So if I test it out a little bit more, I do the exact thing.

Speaker 1: 6:26

Ok, if it like 50 percent works. And I got to try it on somebody else, cause I can only really have that first impression once, one time, right. So I go to the next guy and then when I test out the one, that was like 50% working, it could go further, I can. I'll make some adjustments and whether I try it once or again, that exact joke was somebody else. It could go more in the direction of 100% working or more in the direction of not working. But I need to try it out a few different times in a few different ways to really get a handle.

Speaker 1: 6:59

As far as whether it's going closer to the not working side and I thought I had something, or closer to the working side, it I thought I had something, or closer to the working side, it's no different than talking to a girl. You know, you might have a first impression talking with a girl and it's not that great, and you can continue to try to talk to her and you might turn things around. Or the more you talk to her, the more she could want to get away from you. Right, want to get away from you, right, sopark figure, right. I didn't really know how to target my material and I would be very random with it, but now that I do, the results that I'm getting are so much better and so much faster and I wanted to document this, not just to make an imprint for myself to remember it, but, again, as always, to constantly instill it. So, anyway, thank you guys, so much for listening to my random note. Hopefully you can apply what I said to you if you sell cars or swing a baseball bat right as far as the scientific method goes, or something like that. But hopefully there's something in here that can benefit you Because, again, this is primarily about mental health and I call it.

Speaker 1: 8:31

It's called psychological warfare, right, and it really is documenting my trials and, more again, more importantly, overcoming them, on the way to be a professional stand-up comedian. However, if there's anything that I say here today that helps you out, the better, and I'm really happy to do that. That's great. So, with that being mentioned, I'm at the grocery store. It's like 6.20 in the morning. I don't ever come this early, but I got a pretty packed day and I got to get some stuff, get back to my house and then start to do everything else Stretch exercise, get out again. I got a lot going on, so y'all have a beautiful day. I'm Benji Welldone. Thank you so much for your time. I'm out, peace.