Viral Stand Up Clips

process breakdown

Writing a good joke starts with being present through my daily life. I try my best to meditate on a daily basis, for both the mental health benefits and to improve my ability to be observant of the little things that make me laugh each day. Many studies claim meditating decreases anxiety, which I certainly confirm based on my own anecdotal evidence. I also think laughter decreases anxiety and increases overall wellness, so my meditation serves a dual attack on stress and anxiety: stay mindful, laugh more.

Every month I keep a new running note on my phone, filled with everything I find funny. When I go to open mic nights, I scroll through the list, read a prompt, try to expand on it in the moment, and see what resonates with the audience. If I feel like an idea has legs, I'll listen to my audio recording, sit down and write out the concept, keep working it out at open mic nights, and hopefully, eventually incorporate the joke it into my headlining set. On average, one joke a month survives a year of reiterations, personal changes, and adapting of my hour.

To turn jokes into social reels, I have to be diligent about recording my sets, reviewing the tapes, and pulling the best snapshot of my material, without feeling like I'm revealing too much. If I expose too many of my story lines, I'm afraid that my live act won't have the surprise it needs to hit right, so I'm very selective over what material I put online. Although the editing and selection process can be quite time consuming and purchasing all the technical equipment needed to record high quality sets is frustrating, the video editing process does improve my work overall. While editing video, I can clearly see the strongest jokes and trim away the unnecessary verbiage, which I then will mentally note as an edit to my live set.

For the reel itself,

I have a few principles:

1. Make sure video is clear and facial expressions are fully visible

2. Subtitles are large, centered, and pace perfectly with the audio

3. The color palette is bright and welcoming

4. Video copy sparks conversation (generally the more people argue in the comments, the more views a reel gets. I'm not pro arguing, but I am fully fine with being a 'conversation starter'.)

5. Cover image, title, and typography matches the tone of the joke

6. Remember that everything is fleeting, social media is inherently transient, and the haters will hate, but if you're proud of your work, why not share it?