Dunning-Kruger Effect.

The only thing more common than dick jokes in standup comedy is the Dunning-Kruger effect. I have seen it in others and even regrettably in myself. The thing is, we wouldn’t have any comedians if it wasn’t so common. Getting good at comedy requires one to hold the often delusional belief that “I am funny.” I personally hold the belief that I am getting better to keep myself humble yet on the path.

“The Dunning-Kruger Effect is a cognitive bias in which people wrongly overestimate their knowledge or ability in a specific area.” -Psychology Today (https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/dunning-kruger-effect)

With standup comedy the longer I practice it the less unsolicited advice I give. So many new comedians are so eager to give advice. I personally love to listen to all of it. I know for many comics it’s the result of hours spent listening to their favorite comedian whether it's Rogan, Maron, Holmes, or some other podcast. I was always fascinated by how the newest and least experienced comics were always so eager to spit advice to any newbie who showed up to an open mic. I think part of it is an establishing of dominance, but more so I think it’s the Dunning-Kruger effect.

In the study (Dunning-Kruger) they found that people grossly underestimated their abilities in places like humor. They believe it was a problem of metacognition or the ability to evaluate one’s own performance. People were overconfident in their abilities, especially when they were new. Sometimes this confidence is from their expertise in another area, so they believe they are equally as good at comedy. I look back at myself and how I spoke or acted, and I am not immune to it. I read every book on comedy, watched every comedy documentary, listened to all sorts of podcasts, I listened to everyone who was telling me anything about standup comedy. I haven’t stopped, it’s like my favorite thing. Then I went and repeated it to others. And to an extent I am doing it now with this blog. But for me I have always held the belief that I don’t truly know something until I can explain it to another.

The more I write about comedy the more I feel I know nothing. The longer I do anything, the less certain I feel about it. I am fascinated by the fact that for me as experience goes up certainty goes down. I had the most confidence in business when I was fresh out of business school. I am on my 3rd business and the longer I run it the less certain I feel about things. I have a lot of real experience and a lot more knowledge now. With that knowledge and experience comes more uncertainty. This is not a bad thing; I can approach things with that knowledge and experience and the results are usually better. But I often miss that blind confidence I once had, rather than this realistic sight. The advantage is I now can take feedback a lot better. I am much more open to constructive criticism. I am not using this as a reason to quit but I believe it is important to acknowledge it.

I love the concept of beginner’s mind. I remind myself to apply this as often as possible. I am not good at this, I am not bad at it, but I do know that I am better than I was a year ago. I find that an open mind can collect more than a closed one. The longer I practice standup comedy the more important this becomes. It is a great way to deepen my practice in it. In 2019 I took a comedy class. It was hard, but I forced myself to be a beginner again. I feel I got a deeper appreciation of the concepts. I think when we start comedy, we are just throwing things at the wall and seeing what sticks. The next step is to turn that into a repeatable process. That second step is the hardest. I have broken down jokes that I wrote in my first year of standup and been amazed that I was able to write that. The deeper concept is how do I repeat that and duplicate the process. That has taken me a lot longer than it took to write those early jokes.

I got great advice from my stepdad. He told me that he tries to learn something from everyone he meets. No matter how old, young, rich, poor, educated, or not, his approach is: “what can I learn from this person?” This is a brilliant way to pay attention and truly listen to people. I love this and try to remember it often. It forces me to respect everyone and look for something I can learn. Even when someone treats me really bad, I learn something from them, how not to treat someone. That can be a valuable lesson. Oh, when I don’t respect the venue, they won’t book me again. Good thing I didn’t have to do that.

I am not perfect; in fact, I do or have done most of these things wrong. But I am always growing and I’m better than I was yesterday. Keeping a growth mindset and continuing to move forward is all I can do. I will continue to write about what I learn and what I am thinking about.

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Thank you for reading, You’re doing great.

Bjorn RG.