De lette klap vs de svære grin

"Political comedy has been my full-time job for a decade. I’ve had lot of time to think about what hits, what doesn’t, and why. I find there are basically two things that people respond to. One is humor — some of my most popular pieces are goofy things that are barely political at all. And the other thing that people like is — you’ll love how obnoxiously pretentious this is — a statement. Generously interpreted, “a statement” means “a trenchant analysis of important matters.” Less-generously interpreted, it means “some shit people agree with.” But probably the most accurate interpretation is: “a cynical regurgitation of your audience’s beliefs that flatters their self-image, which creates a fucked-up relationship based on mutual puffery that — somehow, some way — ends in you getting money.”

siger Jeff Maurer og Jesse Singal følger op

"I love that phrase, mutual puffery, and it seems really poisonous to a genuine relationship between a comic and the people they're trying to make laugh."

"I don't know. I don't want to make overgeneralized lame statements about what comedy is for, but I do think part of the point is to jolt the audience one way or another. And I don't see how you can really jolt someone if you're jerking one another off, if that makes sense. Yeah, it makes perfect sense. And you're right that a big part of comedy is taboo, right? And that's a huge part of stand-up. Stand-up, nine-tenths of the time, is somebody in a basement saying shit that you're kind of not supposed to say. Late-night TV, at its best, has this aura of being kind of edgy. And the opposite of that is saying stuff that you know your audience agrees with. And that's probably part of the reason that a lot of this falls so flat to people [---] It's real hard to write hilarious comedy, as I would argue Conan did for a long, long time. And if you look at the writers he had, you know, he had Bob Odenkirk and Louis C.K. and Brian McCann and John Glaber. He just had a fucking murderer's row of writers. And that's why I think we look back at Conan and we're like, that's hilarious. Yeah, he was one of the best ever to do it. And his team was amazing. And yes, doing that is really hard.

If you can't do that, one thing you might be able to do is say something people agree with. And then I think it was Seth Myers who coined the phrase clapter. You get claps instead of laughs."

Comedy Has Gotten More Political Partly Because Opinions are Easy and Jokes are Hard

Finally, a question I'm qualified to answer

Episode 225: Can Anybody Stop NYT Pitchbot's Infuriating Descent Into Annoying Dumb Lameness? (with Jeff Maurer)

Plus: Jeff discusses his time writing for "Last Week Tonight with John Oliver" and why Conan rules

The Rise of ?Clapter? Comedy

The phenomenon coined by Seth Meyers is everywhere in comedy. Is it hurting the form?