Funny Side up

There’s pottery for some and gardening for others, but if your weapons are word, wit, and wicked humor, do we have the hobby for you! Stand-up comedy, the vintage wine of performance arts, reinvented as one of the coolest, most millennial-adored talents ever, is a low-investment but high-thrill hobby, challenging and satisfying in equal measures. Unlike conventional hobbies, a knack for stand-up comedy might be tricky to identify. It involves the unnerving aspect of performance, pitting us against our ingrained fear of public speaking. Or it may not be an inborn talent but born out of a cultivated interest. What’s more, stage fright and fear of criticism might keep us shackled as an audience instead of soaring as a performer, but read on to explore how you can morph from an everyday Joe into a relatable entertainer, living akin to us and yet with a unique take on life’s experiences.

Our mediascape is rife with artists who dabbled in comedy as a hobby before going full-time. ‘The Guardian’ carried a story in 2017 where comics such as Gina Yashere and Ellie Taylor fondly relive their former strait-laced professions when they employed comedy as a means to blow off steam after work. Closer home, Shankar Chugani was enamored with stand-up comedy videos at 20 and challenged himself to tell jokes on stage, shunning nerves and poker faces from the audience. For two years, stand-up remained a hobby until he found his rhythm. Several other comics such as Ricky Gervais and Jim Gaffigan, are quintessential late bloomers, long harboring a flair for comedy while working regular jobs.

At the crux of comedy is figuring out what your groove is. Humor that makes one person yawn can keep others guffawing non-stop, and you might be a total dud at one genre while being a natural at the other. This step is deceptively important – to find your innate comic style. To get started, here are the most ubiquitous genres of comedy: