“If you know me, you know I’m not exactly what you would call dating material. I mean, I do some carbon dating from time to time, trying to find out how old the rock in my backyard really is, but that’s beside the point. So, when I do see someone checking me out, I feel like of one those insulated coffee cups, the one that says Caution! Hot stuff inside.”

I sneak a glance through the haze of spotlight at the five hundred high schoolers in the audience, who are guffawing. Phew. Glad I don’t need to play the sitcom laugh track tucked in the back pocket of my jeans.

How did I come to stand on this stage? How did I go from being that shy nerd in class who could barely get through a presentation without practicing for hours to performing stand-up comedy in front of hundreds of teenagers?

***

The Benefit of the Doubt

As a child, watching and listening were my favorite pastimes. My perception of the world was based on observations and the inferences I would make about these observations. Despite life often being spontaneous and unstructured, patterns and predictability constantly seemed to present themselves to me – like the palindromic date September 19, 2019 (9/19/19), or the truncated Fibonacci sequence that occurred every day in English class (12:35 P.M.). When I was learning how to drive, turning across a four-way intersection morphed into the rational function 1/x, somehow creating order and purpose behind the asymptotic turn.

Over time, my observations became an internal monologue of sorts. The sheer volume of sights, conversations, smells, and ideas flowing around me shaped my worldview. However, I didn’t understand the impact of internalizing these thoughts until the first day of high school. I had just walked into my freshman medical biology class, (part of the Medical Sciences program I had enrolled in), and was seeing the other freshmen in the specialty center for the first time. Our teacher, Mr. Bosher, quickly put us at ease, joking that his bald spot originated as a result of the pure genius shooting out of his head. But, as is always the case on the first day of school, especially a new school, the inevitable question-and-answer session began: “Tell the class your name and a little bit about yourself.” The few brave souls who volunteered first discussed their love for soccer, future career aspirations, or the fact that they just joined band. This seemingly simple question reverberated in my head as I pondered over the tidbit that would be unique and interesting enough while minimizing my airtime:

My name’s Anusha, which means morning star in Sanskrit. Too cultural.

I’m Anusha and I like to watch Jeopardy! Too nerdy.

After debating various ideas, I settled on my usual answer: “My name’s Anusha, and I’ve been playing the piano for ten years.”

As my turn approached, I quickly stood up and recited my memorized blurb, carefully crafting my statement as to appear as “normal” (a.k.a. as natural and unassuming) as possible. I didn’t want to be defined by others’ perceptions of me – of being an introvert, or the only one in the room without a phone. The fear of judgment from my classmates, not only during that first day of school, but in the following months, led to the realization that the harshest judgment came from myself. Why was I doubting my identity, repressing my desire to stand out, or quelling my nerdy self?

The internalization of my observations, coupled with the immediate judgment of their merit, prohibited my self-expression. On the occasions I did summon the courage to speak my mind or disregard my self-consciousness, I encountered puzzled looks and confusion: “What do you mean the time is a Fibonacci sequence?” How could I speak my truth in a way that people would understand?

The short answer: comedy. The long answer:

If my quirky observations about the world were misunderstood in conversation, why not deliver them through a medium where people were more accepting of idiosyncrasies, namely, comedy? In fact, comedians often enter the field to better express their truth. Long-time stand up Matt Ruby stated that his purpose for going into comedy was simple: “I love telling the truth and I realized that being funny was the best way to do it.” Empowered by the fact that comedy could somehow traverse the social boundaries and illuminate the message sometimes lost in translation, my mindset shifted; instead of imbibing information and containing it, why not spread the love through humor? The myriad of observations and words present in my brain gradually transformed into word patterns and stories, finding a home in my jokebook, a multiple page Word document containing a compilation of one-liners and comedy bits (like thinking “outside the carboxyl” and how “significant” others seem to have p-values less than 0.05).

***

How much does the average male polar bear weigh? Enough to break the ice.

Throughout sophomore year, puns became my language, a dialect of the universal vernacular, comedy. From bantering with residents at a retirement home and planning promposals to emceeing jokes at a cultural event and designing math team shirts, I discovered that comedy gave me the confidence to reach out to others. This was a noticeable shift from my early high school days, when I would sit nearly silent in a classroom, only speaking to ask or answer a question.

How did the simple addition of puns, often viewed as the most cringe-worthy form of humor, suddenly present such an opportunity? According to Bitterly and Brooks of the Harvard Business Review, humor, when used intentionally, can contribute to sentiments of warmth, trust, and collaboration between parties. Jokes help to elevate reputation and individual perception; when successful, a good joke can cause an individual to appear more intelligent, able, confident, and approachable, traits of effective leaders. While humor didn’t make me a star overnight, the fact that I spoke (something moderately funny), did a great deal in terms of the perception others had of me. No longer was I that kid with my nose buried in a book, but a more approachable individual who was willing to be vulnerable and make fun of myself. In turn, classmates were more likely to be relaxed and willing to be themselves, creating a positive feedback loop of acceptance, trust, and interpersonal connection.

But why does the act of something as simple as telling a joke allow humans to connect more deeply with one another? How did watching Trevor Noah’s set or Mark Normand’s comedy special leave me feeling as though I made a new friend? The answer, aside from encouraging feelings of acceptance and ease, includes a scientific explanation. Studies by both Stanford and Anderson University’s Neuroscience Departments investigated the brain’s neurological response to comedy in order to better understand how the brain processes humor. Viewing cartoons and watching comedic videos were found to trigger the brain’s reward circuit, including structures such as the putamen and amygdala, parts of the brain involved in dopamine regulation and release (Mobbs et al., 1043; Franklin et al., 509).

Moreover, comedy was found to activate similar pathways and neurological responses in the brain’s reward circuit to those of consuming cocaine and amphetamine (Mobbs et al., 1045). The addictive nature of comedy speaks to the social value of humor. Through  watching stand up comedy, audiences experience feelings of pleasure – the result of a dopamine release created by someone we likely have never met. We form a bond with that individual not because we have met them, but because we have gotten to know them, their hopes, fears, and insecurities, all through a couple of jokes. At its most basic level, comedy provides relatability – a window into the human experience, with all its trials and tribulations. For the audience, humor’s addictive nature arises in part from the dopamine rush of processing a joke, and perhaps from a comedian’s conscious decision to broadcast their vulnerabilities to total strangers. But why would an individual choose to do this, to cast aside the potential mockery and judgment of humankind in favor of providing entertainment?

When I first began to speak my mind in the cheesy language of puns, it was liberating. I was tired of marshalling my thoughts into the orderliness of the status quo. The first time I led a debate team meeting at school, it was unbelievably awkward. But three puns later, we began to warm up to one another, breaking the ice. While it seems simple, humor can be used as a powerful social tool – a mechanism by which to effectively communicate ideas with others while maintaining a collaborative and easygoing environment. In a way, comedy freed me from the constraints of my mind. Most situations, no matter how miserable, had the potential to become funny. Writing and saying jokes was cathartic; people were actually listening and paying attention to the things I had to say, even if they were as trivial as the fact of getting school canceled for a snow day (“wouldn’t want to get hit by a snowflake”). From puns to irony-filled anecdotes, they were listening to my grievances and quirky observations, in effect, validating my experience.

***

Pun Intended

By junior year of high school, puns were my forte. They were my go-to quip, comment, and conversation starter among my friend group. However, outside of the mathlete squad and robotics team, I was still the quiet kid in the back of the room. I had defied the expectation within settings of people like me, but why not take it a step further? I wanted to show my classmates a bit of who I truly was, and decided to audition for my school’s annual talent show. Yes, I had a jokebook, but how much of it was actually funny enough to perform in front of hundreds of hormonal teenagers? How did I write something that was funny to a general audience, not just me?

At a fundamental level, humor arises from the establishment of an expectation followed by the violation of this expectation, known as the incongruity theory (McGraw and Warner, 2014). In a search for what makes a remark or situation funny, author Peter McGraw discusses the formation of the benign-violation theory (a subset of the incongruity theory), which proposes that humor emerges when a harmless situation occurs simultaneously with an act violating the harmless situation or expectation (McGraw and Warner, 2014). The simple pun of “How much does the average male polar bear weigh? Enough to break the ice” sets up a benign situation questioning the weight of a polar bear. This expectation is violated when the response to this question is not regarding a quantity of weight, but rather a result of ice breaking, first in a physical sense, followed by an interpretation in a metaphorical sense.

Puns in particular utilize semantic ambiguity, or when a word has multiple interpretations (Giorgadze). This intentionally blurs the lines between the expectation and violation of that expectation in order to create incongruity and ultimately humor. Intentionally creating incongruity, or an imbalance between two ideas, starkly contrasted with my obsessions with pattern-finding and order. Yet, this semantic incongruity of puns arises precisely from finding similarities and relationships between words. In essence, comedians complain about the hardships of life –  topics that are universally relevant – in a way that the audience may not have considered before. As humans, we often expect the world to have some form of chaotic order – the untamed force of life molded into civilization. Perhaps by emphasizing the patterns apparent in the English language, and thus violating the unpredictable nature of humanity, especially in unexpected scenarios, I could create comedy.

Thus, my approach towards writing for the talent show was that my content should somehow be true and unique to my experience yet invoke a sentiment shared by many – while being funny, of course. It is with these two ingredients: honesty and incongruity, that I concocted my set. I ended up writing jokes that established and exaggerated my stage persona, which included the quality character traits of being nerdy, punny, and an older sibling.

 

So, how did I become comedic, and daresay, a comedian? How did I go from being a shy kid to someone broadcasting incompetent dating abilities to her school? It comes down to this: I wanted to be myself – not only inside my head, but also in reality. And that is the reason I find myself standing on this stage: consciously putting myself in situations outside of my comfort zone to transform into the person I want to become – a fearless individual.

Now, it is the first day of twelfth grade. And as the inevitable question approaches, I know my answer: “My name is Anusha, and even though I’m lactose-intolerant, I love making cheesy puns, so you can call me Punusha.”

 

 

 

Works Cited

Bitterly, Brad and Allison Wood Brooks. “Sarcasm, Self-Deprecation, and Inside Jokes: A User’s Guide to Humor at Work.” Harvard Business Review (2020): 96-103.

Franklin, Robert G. and Reginald B. Adams. “The reward of a good joke: neural correlates of viewing dynamic displays of stand-up comedy.” Cognitive, Affective, & Behavioral Neuroscience (2011): 508-515.

Giorgadze, Meri. “Linguistic Features of Pun, Its Typology and Classification.” European Scientific Journal, vol. 2, Nov. 2014, pp. 271–275.

McGraw, Peter and Joe Warner. The humor code: a global search for what makes things funny. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2014. Print.

Mobbs, Dean, et al. “Humor Modulates the Mesolimbic Reward Centers.” Neuron, vol. 40, 4 Dec. 2003, pp. 1041–1049.

Ruby, Matt. “What I’ve Learned From 10 Years of Doing Standup Comedy.” Medium, 2 Feb. 2018, medium.com/sandpapersuit/10-years-1-hour-594afc510141.

 

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