Joke Stealing.

When I started stand up I was very worried about joke stealing. But after doing it for years, stand up not joke stealing, I am not worried about it. I don’t worry about it for a few reasons. Part of my worry about joke stealing was exaggerated by the fact that someone was outed for blatantly stealing all their jokes, they were blacklisted from the comedy scene. There is not a lot of protection from this so it's usually regulated by the scene and bookers. This was unfortunately one of the first people I met in the scene. It happened around the same time I started going out to mics. I thankfully was able to distance myself from them because I didn’t know them very well yet, but it really made me hyper aware of it.  

“Joke stealing is a big deal to me, but I mean I’m not going to investigate it if it doesn’t effect me directly” -Greg Giraldo

In my first year of writing jokes, I had a joke that I realized was close to another comedian’s joke. When this happened I had to cut it and never do it again. This was really hard because when I started all my jokes were sacred. I had so few they were my babies, cutting one joke was like a quarter of my act. It felt devastating, but I had to do it. It has happened a few other times where me and someone else has a similar joke, my personal rule of thumb is that I cut it. If I can find a way to rewrite it so it's different I might do that but it's usually easier to just be done with it. This time writing and crafting is not wasted. If I truly did the work to create this joke that is all that matters. It means I am just a little bit better than I was before and after years I know that I will be able to write another joke. It is easy to kill your darlings if you create new ones every day. I have said this for years, I also like to write it in the front of my notebooks. Just to remind me to write more.

Now I personally cannot write in a headspace where I am worried about joke stealing or originality. That is for later in the process. The writing is what I hold sacred not the end product. I now look at it like oh wow I had a thought that another comedian had, great I am thinking like a comedian, but just cut it and don’t look back. I trust that I am a better writer now for writing it. Nothing is more discouraging to me as coming from a place of fear. I search for ways to make things funnier not just for reasons it's not good. I have enough issues of doing that naturally. I try my hardest to practice finding solutions, not reasons to drop a joke. This sounds counter to what I have been saying in the article. I do not seek out other peoples takes on things, but if it's brought to my attention I deal with it. Whenever I seek it out or search twitter to see if the joke has been made it makes me want to quit comedy, twitter can be such a downer to me.

I had a friend who was less than a year into comedy ask me about confronting someone who they believed stole their joke. I asked him to tell me the joke. Now it was what I would consider a very gettable joke. I knew this because I had at one point tried a very similar idea and even seen the core of the joke done in a movie. I told him to just cut it because it was low hanging fruit and not worth the confrontation. I know it was not the nicest response. Often if it is observational or a play on words it's very likely someone has made the joke. This is one of the reasons I use personal experience as much as possible for the jokes I write. I say write the joke and then cut it. Chalk it up to practice. Move on with your life a better writer.

Honesty: I have written about a few times on this blog but I strongly believe it's important to be honest. Autobiographical true stories are much more likely to be original ideas. It’s the surest way to know that it will be original. Something that is made up is likely influenced by something I saw or heard. It is infinitely more likely that it is not an original idea. When I write what I think would be funny I don’t know where that was influenced from, it could have been another comic for all I know. But if it’s a true story from my life, I know its original. That’s not to say similar things or events happen to people, it's just gives me more confidence that its original. Also people know when you are lying to them. Something that is fabricated often sounds too good to be true. So rooting it in something true is always more powerful. I believe that exaggeration is important to enhance a joke, but it must be at its root true.

So at the end of the day if someone has a similar joke: is what I am saying is true? If it's new, cut it or change it and trust that I can write another joke. The longer I practice comedy and writing, I will get stronger anyway. I am not saying that joke stealing doesn’t happen, it does. If it happens to me I always ask myself is this low hanging fruit? Is it worth it? Let me search it, put my thing down, flip it and reverse it. Often I just err toward cutting it rather than fight it. I love to write new jokes anyway.

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Thank you for reading, You’re doing great. 

Bjorn RG.