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I’ve been doing stand-up comedy for two months now, which is a total gear shift from my previous job in AI policy. I’ve learned some fascinating things about how humor works, but also about how people perceive each other, and how crowds can be surprisingly hive-minded. For those interested in improving their models of people and the world, here are five of those things!

1. People need to put you in a box

The first thing a stand-up audience craves, consciously or unconsciously, is for you to tell them what kind of person you are. Are you an artsy lesbian, a hard-working immigrant, a married average Joe? For some reason, people can’t laugh until they have a box to put you in. If they can’t place a comedian, half the audience’s minds will be occupied trying to figure out who is talking to them. Must be some sort of innate human drive to quickly categorize new people you meet. This is why so many stand-ups start by addressing their appearance, accent, etc. (“I know what you’re thinking… [generic punchline about their appearance].”)

I experienced this need to categorize myself when watching this set by Robby Hoffman recently. I couldn’t quite figure out who was speaking to me and just felt like I couldn’t quite settle until I got more of a grasp on who she is as a person. (This is less applicable to comedians who don’t tell stories or talk conversationally, and instead purely do one-liners. This style of comedy can feel less personal, so I suppose that’s why the urge to know more about the comedian may be lower.)

In comedy, something glaring in the audience’s mind that goes unaddressed is called a “loop”. Common loops are a strange/loud laugh in the crowd, something going wrong on stage, or mentioning something that makes the audience concerned, such as the death of a relative. Generally, comedians want to “close” such loops as quickly as possible because people just can’t laugh while thinking “She just knocked over the microphone and hasn’t addressed it!” or “Is he okay?” Some comedians go as far as to address their appearance/voice/etc. every time. Helen Bauer says she has to address being fat every time she goes on stage because there are some people in the audience to whom apparently this poses a loop.

I think people’s need to categorize comedians as soon as they get on stage is basically a kind of loop. And I think the fact that people do this to comedians is indicative of people doing this in everyday life too.

2. Laughter is very un-individual

I had NO idea how un-independent people’s impulse to laugh is of the people surrounding them until I got into comedy. You will get flat responses, awkward silences, crickets one day and then roaring laughter the next with the exact same set. And it’s not a case of a few people laughing the first day while most stay silent, and the reverse the next day. People’s laughter is pretty even on a given day; people adjust to the energy in the room.

What determines the level of energy in a room, other than the quality of the stand-up set?

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