#381: The Dichotomy of Comedy: Insults vs. Compliments

We explore why insults hit harder than compliments, how fast pacing shapes laughter, and how we test material that might bomb to find the lines that truly land. We share how we design sets for short attention spans with one-liners, stories, music, and even a little magic.

• compliments rarely trigger laughs while insults create tension and release
• negativity bias compared to how news grabs attention
• moving beyond standard stand-up with music and magic
• real-time testing of jokes and counterintuitive audience feedback
• pacing laughs every six to eight seconds for momentum
• adapting format for short attention spans with rapid one-liners
• maintaining effortlessness despite difficulty and precision
• vault of unused material and long-term writing practice
• using self-deprecation to keep sharp humor ethical

I am Benja Welldone, Thank you for listening. I'm out. Peace.

Chapters

• 0:02 Compliments Don’t Make People Laugh
• 1:04 Negativity Bias And News Analogy
• 2:37 Pushing Beyond Standard Stand-Up
• 4:57 Testing Jokes And Surprise Outcomes
• 7:10 The Demands Of Timing And Tempo

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:02

Compliments versus insults. You know, one of the craziest things that I don't I don't really understand, but it's just a fact, is uh for some reason, uh, as far as comedy goes, compliments will get you nowhere uh to make somebody laugh. However, insults, okay, especially if done properly, are always funny. Um, for example, if I talk about how great I am, that's not funny. But if I talk about how, you know, not tall or not strong or uh not attractive, I'm just making stuff up, not saying that these are true, right? Because I'm definitely uh hot, tall, and extremely strong. Um, see, I'm just messing. See, that's sarcasm, right? But um even then I you can't actually say those things and it registers with an audience. It's kind of like the news. Think about it like this. You don't ever watch the news. If uh there was a news story and they they said today was gonna be a uh or yesterday was a beautiful day out and the perfect weather and everybody had a great day. But if there was a news story where it was like yesterday was the worst recorded day ever, this and that, for some reason it's like negativity attracts. And I don't really understand it. But again, the crowd is always right. So that's why the primary things that I talk about is uh, but I try to make fun of myself uh as much as possible. But another thing that I do a lot of now is I'm actually doing stuff with music, uh, which is very uh different and unorthodox and funny, uh, and even some magic tricks. Um, and I'm not gonna get into that because uh, you know, I get paid for a reason. But uh yeah, I really want to do different things in comedy. And uh everybody has a very standard format. If you think of what a stand-up comedian is, it's a guy on stage telling jokes. Okay. Well, what if I could be more creative in addition to just that? I don't mean uh by doing funny songs. I'm being very vague because I don't want to give out what I'm doing now, and I don't I don't think that giving away a strategy is ever helpful. Um but uh anyway, getting back to what I was saying, I think it's very fascinating when I'm going through jokes and I'm trying to deliberate which ones I should add. If I come up with a new idea, I will say them to somebody. And honestly, when I say a new joke, I don't really have a clue if it's gonna work or not. So sometimes when I'm saying jokes, somebody looks at me like, this is the most unfunny guy I've ever heard. And then I'll tell them the next joke and they're like, that one was pretty funny. I'm not telling you a joke because I know it'll work. I'm telling you a joke the first time I'm saying it to figure out if it works. Because a lot of times, the even crazier part is when I say something, and I if I think it's gonna be a funny, a lot of times it's not. And the ones that I do not think are gonna make be funny, and they don't even make sense to me, like how they they just wouldn't make me laugh or whatever, are hilarious. Um, so it really does it works the most backwards way. Comedy is definitely, in my opinion, the the it's definitely the strangest. Um, and arguably it's the it's the most dedicated and most difficult to do because I'm not relying on my my band members. Um I after I impress you one time, I have to impress you again uh seconds after that and repeat it to the exact tempo. I can't just sing a song and have everybody uh dancing or singing with me or something like that. It's the only art form where you need crowd participation and the uh the success of each joke to continue the next joke. The success of uh a quality six to eight seconds, followed by the quality of a six to eight next seconds. I keep saying six to eight just because that's kind of like the ratio that that I like to have. I like to try to have a joke every six to eight seconds and making you laugh. Um that could just be the setup, and then directly after that, another laugh around like the 15-second mark. So I try to get at least like four to six laughs, eight would be great uh per minute. Um but again, these aren't complaints, these are just observations. It's strange that you know insults are more attractive than compliments. Again, I said this is like opposite world. Um, it's strange that uh unlike music, the technicality and the difficulty uh and the reward of even the observation of even seeing it be more difficult um is very uh non-apparent. No one really realizes that. Um and my golden thing that I always try to do is um I try to make it look effortless because I think stylistically there's something really beautiful when you see somebody do something that looks extremely easy when in fact it could be extremely hard, but it's hidden because they're so good, they're so practiced or so well rehearsed or so creative. And um uh I basically designed a new format because in the most non-disrespectful way, people's attention spans now are a lot a lot shorter than it used to be. I think they said on Instagram on average, if your video, if somebody isn't watching your video for the first two to four seconds, they've already decided against it and go to the next one. So even when you're swiping on Instagram, you I mean you turn into like a dang zombie, some crazy like robot machine, right? Or you're just like you're just swipe, looking, swipe, looking, swipe, and you get keep swipe looking, right? Until you're there long enough. So I'm starting to put one-liners, short, funny, separate jokes, massive amount of them on the front of my show to get everybody locked in, to get everybody locked in to their attention. Then uh I diversify my show and I start to get into stories, then I do some magic and some music stuff, uh, and then I hit one hour pretty quick. And uh yeah, I just wanted to get this out because it's always it's just very strange to me what when I'm I'm actually working on new material right now. Kind of. It's actually old material that, but I didn't ever say it. It's like I'm always writing more material than I ever get a chance to say on stage. Like, I if I read all the material I have, and I'm not exaggerating, if I read it out loud like it was, you know, chapters in a book, I could probably be reading for two weeks. And I'm I'm not saying that. I've been writing for a long, long, long, long time. And I've only actually been getting on stage. I've been writing since uh essentially 2008, right? Um and I have jokes in here that were funny that work, I haven't ever got an opportunity to say. So I had different folders between like one-liners and insults and this and that and everything else. But when I'm on stage and I start telling jokes, the ones that are the insults, more than the interesting observations, more the crowd loves to hear that trash talk. It's just it's just something about it. Um, I don't get it, I'm not mad at it. Uh, and ironically enough, it's actually my favorite kind of comedy is making fun of uh individuals and their shortcomings and stuff like that. But it's also kind of edgy, which it shouldn't be. Um because nowadays, in my opinion, everybody is very kind of caught up in arms with uh being nice and sensitivity. It's weird, like you can't have it both ways. You can't say that you you know uh you like insulting jokes until it's something that that's personal to you. I don't really know it's personal to you, so I just continue to say insults. But the way I way I um the trick that I learned is if I say these insults and they're about me and it's self-deprecating, that's like a second layer of being insulting because it's like a protected group that I can actually target, you know, like a like a girlfriend or a best friend or a you know, your car, something that you take ownership of. Um that's my best, that's my best advice if anyone was listening to this for advice on how you do that. So anyway, I'm gonna get back to my uh writing. And I know I had to um, as I always say, I the this podcast is isn't just for the listener, it's for me too to make a mental note and uh a physical impression of a memory and making it so I can uh instill this moment and be able to recall on it later. It's it's just fascinating. I love comedy, absolutely everything about it. Uh, I could talk about it for days, but uh, I gotta get back to my writing and I hope everybody has a beautiful day. I am Benjawell Dunn. Thank you for listening. I'm out. Peace.