Is this thing on?
"Comics are going on the offensive, giving [Jeb Bush voice] 'please clap' energy when their jokes bomb."
Comedians Are Demanding Laughter From Audiences. It’s No Wonder They’re Not Getting It.
A few months ago, I attended a comedy show that wasn’t the best I’d ever seen — a feeling that the audience seemed to share. Instead of the out-loud, boisterous laughter that comedy shows should evoke, comedians were met with quiet, polite laughter — if any. And while even that reaction should have been enough for the performers to play off of, it instead became a major obstacle.
Comic after comic came on stage, immediately addressing the audience’s lack of laughter instead of diving into their prepared sets. There was one comedian who spent their whole set scolding the audience. “I’ve heard more laughter at a funeral,” “You know you’re supposed to laugh, right?”, and “My dead uncle laughs more than you guys,” were all things the comic said to the audience. It wasn’t a bit; they were genuinely mad at the crowd. I was shocked! Offended, even! I had paid to be there, and sure, maybe I could have laughed louder, but I was there, and I was listening, and suddenly, I was being told I was a bad audience member. That was one of the few times I’ve ever thought about walking out of a comedy show.
Since then, I’ve noticed it’s become commonplace — and even accepted, to an extent — for comics to aggressively call out audiences for being too quiet, whether they’re politely laughing or not laughing at all. It’s shocking to me, considering demanding laughter isn’t a great way to get it, but I can understand the desire to do so regardless. When comics get on stage and don’t get the reaction they’re expecting, it can cause them to tense up just as much as the crowd and ruin their set.
But typically, in those instances, comedians lean on “savers,” a.k.a. one-liner statements tacked onto the end of poorly received jokes that are meant to catch people off guard and break through tension. Johnny Carson was famous for these. “When a joke fell flat during Carson’s opening monologue on the Tonight Show, the late-night host referenced the failure of the gag—getting a big laugh at his own expense and, in essence, saving the failed joke,” wrote comedy historian Kliph Nesteroff in his book We Had a Little Real Estate Problem. And 60 years before that, Nesteroff noted, Indigenous comedian Will Rogers used savers whenever a rope trick in his vaudeville rodeo act went awry.
The strategy is a classic example of Sigmund Freud’s relief theory of comedy, which argues that something is funny because it cuts through built-up tension. Addressing the lack of reaction with a one-liner gives the audience permission to laugh again after a failed joke or an uncomfortable moment. However, I’ve been seeing comedians skip savers and jump right to aggressively calling out a crowd for not laughing. That seems ineffective to me, considering that rather than cutting the tension in the room, being too aggressive with the audience adds to it. Just imagine being at a comedy show, not finding a comedian funny, and getting scolded for not laughing. It would be difficult to enjoy the comic’s set, considering you’d be more concerned with how you’re being perceived as an audience member, rather than whether something is funny.
At its core, seriously attacking a crowd for not laughing shows a lack of respect, which is necessary in an art form that requires participation from both the artist and the audience. When it’s clear respect is no longer mutual, crowds tense up, becoming cold and defensive. And once an audience is lost to the comic, they’re no longer receptive to jokes, instead more worried about being scorned again than being entertained. At that point, there’s no way to win them back.
Despite that, though, comics are going on the offensive, giving [Jeb Bush voice] “please clap” energy when their jokes bomb, rather than figuring out how to pick the show back up and keep going. And sure, comics have every right to request laughter from a crowd that has intentionally gathered to watch live comedy — which should make you laugh when done right — but they can’t be thrown to such an intense degree if they don’t receive it.
So what are comics to do when the reaction they receive isn’t the one they want? Figure out how to use it. They should learn from how the crowd is reacting — maybe it’s not a funny joke, or maybe your energy isn’t matching what the audience wants at that moment. I once heard comedian Rufat Agayev say on stage, after getting up in front of a particularly laughless audience: “I love a quiet crowd. Good.” He took that polite laughter and rolled with it, not demanding anything from the audience members but what they were already bringing to the table. He dove right into his set, and because he had broken that tension in a well-meaning and non-aggressive way, he ended up getting a fair amount of laughs. So many other comics harped on the lack of laughter as though it were the most horrible thing to happen to them, but Agayev used it as a way to read the crowd.
Dealing with less-than-enthusiastic audiences is part of doing live comedy, and when a crowd isn’t laughing, comedians should be able to navigate the situation with poise, rather than breaking down. While there is a way to curry favor with audiences by calling out tension in the room, forcing the requirement of laughter on an audience is an ineffective technique. Plus, it’s just a way for comedians to remove blame from themselves for a failed set and place it on the audience for reacting poorly.
It’s the comedian’s job to be funny, and sure, the audience should laugh, but yelling at a crowd in an attempt to elicit a positive reaction only achieves the opposite, making the atmosphere uncomfortable and tense — which isn’t really how a comedy show should feel.
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