Turn hack jokes into great jokes

Turn that crap into gold!

I’m on hols this week so please enjoy this repost :-)

I have this “chat” here where people can ask me anything about comedy, and I try to give a good answer. Feel free to ask me stuff too!

substack.com/chat/1742905

I said some of them might inspire articles and this question by

Zach Mandell

surely did. Thanks Zach!

I'm an open-micer just starting out, these past few months. I want to get better. And by "better" I mean be able to get more laughs. But I also desperately want to avoid being hack (because what's the point?) My question is -- how do you recommend balancing quality of laughs with quantity of laughs? If that makes sense...

My reply was this

Hello Zach! If you were in my beginner's class and I heard you do a "hack" joke, I'd just get you to examine what the joke is really about. I think hack jokes can pave the way to really good jokes if we deeply examine them. So make as many hack jokes as you like but wow your audiences by then deconstructing the joke.

In this article I’m going to explain what I mean in probably too much detail. But first things first:

What is hack?

Here’s a great quote I found on Reddit

I learned this from Robert McKee. A hack, he says, is a writer who second-guesses his audience. When the hack sits down to work, he doesn't ask himself what's in his own heart. He asks what the market is looking for.

The hack condescends to his audience. He thinks he's superior to them. The truth is, he's scared to death of them or, more accurately, scared of being authentic in front of them, scared of writing what he really feels or believes, what he himself thinks is interesting. He's afraid it won't sell. So he tries to anticipate what the market (a telling word) wants, then gives it to them.

In other words, the hack writes hierarchically. He writes what he imagines will play well in the eyes of others. He does not ask himself, What do I myself want to write? What do I think is important? Instead he asks, What's hot, what can I make a deal for?

The hack is like the politician who consults the polls before he takes a position. He's a demagogue. He panders.

It can pay off, being a hack. Given the depraved state of American culture, a slick dude can make millions being a hack. But even if you succeed, you lose, because you've sold out your Muse, and your Muse is you, the best part of yourself, where your finest and only true work comes from.

Steven Pressfield, The War of Art: Winning the Inner Creative Battle

Even though this book isn’t about comedy per se, this quote is 100% applicable to comedy and authenticity. I mean I have never read this book, and never will. But the title doesn’t make it sound like a comedy book.
One trick is to catch yourself in the act of being a hack, and make that the joke. Because the real joke almost always is you. I inadvertently just proved my own point, by catching myself being a hack/pretentious (implying I had read a book I had not), and wrote about that instead.

I would add to this quote that in terms of comedy, hack is a joke you feel you have heard before and it isn't always this deliberate act of pandering. With new comics they might literally not know the joke has been done many time before, and are not aware of the amount of detail a joke requires to be unique. A hack joke is often an undetailed joke.

Your father has his penis trapped in the sex robot

I asked a follow up question: What do you consider to be a hack joke you have made? He replied:

I once had a joke about how our parents call us to ask how to login to Netflix and in 30 years we'll be calling our kids asking them how to turn on our sex robots.

I haven’t heard the whole joke, but the concept is pretty good. The setup is very relatable and authentic, my mother is constantly asking me technology questions, and I do worry about becoming useless as I get older and having to rely on other people to navigate the modern world. It’s just the sex robot thing that doesn’t feel believable. That’s not to say in the right hands this couldn’t be spun in to a really great joke - anything can be. But it’s not authentic, and that’s what this whole substack is about damnit! Sometimes the truth can seem too mundane so we feel the need to zhuzh it up and make it silly, but the truth is what connects us so never ignore it.

What makes this idea “hack” is that the joke is pandering to the idea that sex is funny in itself. Sex sells, and rude jokes normally get a few free giggles. However Zach has made the common mistake of putting the funny idea before the authentic idea.

Future us asking our kids for help with our sex robots would be like our parents asking us for help with their dildos now, it's not a believable situation (I hope). After all:

Believability + Surprise = Comedy

from:

Why do we laugh?

What realistically and authentically might we need help with from young people in the future? Lists are always a good idea.

The Power Of Lists

It helps me to think of current needs I have now, and the kinds of tecky things my mum asks me in order to keep the list authentic. I can’t help throwing in some hacky ones, so I'll just let them flow. For example: pandemics and climate change are not exactly things that are authentically true to me, but rather an idea I pulled from the zeitgeist. Here's my list so far of: Current needs that could be filled in the future by technology & tecky things my parents ask me but make it futuristic (I never said lists had to have snappy titles). Following real emotions always garners authentic results for me as well.

• Next pandemic app

• Need help getting hologram from one device to another

• Food slurry Soilent green machine

• Holodeck “is doing that thing again” / needs setting up

• DHL package transporter. Package is in space depot.

• Virtual exerciser stuck on crunches

• Anti depressant / ADHD meds something

• Roomba has become sentient and refuses to clean and has formed a union

• Dad's ghost hologram has too many ads? I thought I had premium? What's the password?

• The Pirate Bay (still going)

• Alexa but a person, and she's always whistling. How do I make it stop?

• Mum’s desktop PC is so slow because it’s from 2006 but she refuses to replace it because “It’s fine”. if it’s so fine why do I have to reinstall Windows XP every damn Christmas?? “Can you make it faster?” No mum, only a trip to Costco can do that.

• We are subservient to chat GPT . You have angered chat GPT so

A thought that perhaps capsizes this whole premise is people of my generation (Gen X) and younger grew up with technology, so we'll never be as hopeless as the boomers. Even when I'm presented with a new technological advancement, I'm usually able to figure out how to use it in the same way a trained musician is able to apply their skills to new instruments. That being said I'm definitely not as sharp as I used to be. I can't stand anything Mac based as I'm an old school Linux nerd.

I was also trying to think of a heading for this joke. What I mean by “heading” is explained here:

This editing technique is guaranteed to instantly make you the best comedian in the world

Brainstorming headings always helps me figure out what I actually want the joke to be about.

My parents always annoy me with tech questions, I wonder what tech questions I will annoy my hypothetical children with?

My parents always annoy me with tech questions but they didn't grow up with technology as I did so I should have more empathy. But I have low self esteem stemming from a childhood of never being accepted for who I was, so figure out how to transfer photos from your phone to your ipad your damn self!

Boomers are alwas asking the younger generations for technology help, what exactly are they useful for - casual racism? OK I guess they gave birth to us and raised us and stuff - CRINGE! LEARN TO USE A MAGIC GLOWING SQUARE INVENTED 50 YEARS AFTER YOUR BIRTH, ASSHOLE!

When our generation is seen as cringey boomers, what cringey boomer stuff will we be doing? What will be our “minions” etc?

Brainstorming these headings made me realise that for me this joke is about guilt for feeling so angry when I’m asked tecky stuff by my mum. it’s not about the thing at all, I usually love answering tech questions because it makes me feel clever. But when my mum does it I want to punch a wall! I wonder if it’s maybe about something else?? it kind of reminds me of this awesome Nick Kroll bit.

Here’s a little bit I wrote from my brainstorming the topics above.

My brother bought my mum the latest iPhone. Pretty generous, pretty nice… unless you’re the family tech support. That’s me. (miming a phone call - neutral calm voice) “Hello family tech support this is Caroline speaking…… I see and Barbara emailed you a photo to your phone? But it’s not on your iPad? Alright I’m going to take you through some steps here Mrs Clifford. (still in a calm tone) Is your fucking iPad connected to the fucking wi-fi? Like I’ve told you 157 times before? Your phone has its own internet and your iPad doesn’t. It’s just the way it is, you just have to accept that some things are the way they are like you have to accept I don’t want to wear a big puffy dress to my brothers’ bar mitzvah and I never want to wear dresses ever AND I WANT ROLLERSCATES!” (hang up phone) Bitch.

What the fuck does she need the latest iphone for? (mum voice) “It has an amazing camera” As I get older I want worse cameras, I want those cameras you used to get on mp3 players, I want photos printed out with a gameboy printer. I do not want to see the cruel never ending march to the grave in 4K

You’ll notice it diverged from Zach’s original bit, but this is what felt authentic to me and therefor more fun to write about.

Related:

The pros and cons of being a hack

Irony, bigotry loopholes and minority hacks

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