Whip Out Your Longman Series: Say Something Funny (That Guy Model)

As a person with quick wit and the ability to make people laugh, there's always the rare occurance upon a party that instantly freezes all kinds of creativity and readyness.

I believe it goes like this:

"Hey Gary! Say something funny!"

No matter how humorous, witty, or communicative a funny person is, that statement freezes anyone in their tracks. It elicits a "deer-in-highlights" feeling of unprepared, caught off guard speeches of filler words and nervous eye contact. Basically put, the say something funny phrase is a guaranteed killer for anyone that's a comedian.

How does one combat this phrase? The good people at Total Mayhem University, headed by Dr. Yurah Dushbaag and Russian communications specialist Drapinyay Numbrtu, as well as a myriad of faculty members in addition to former Carmen Sandiego henchmen and women, recently published a 410 page journal on the skills and art of humor, comedy, and communication in social events. With the permission of lead writer, Professor James A. Monkeypants we have published the entire journal here for you to see. Actually 409 pages of the journal were collections of Chucky Cheese tickets, bibs from local wing nights, and oodles of doodles of poodles eating noodles.

Dr. Seuss co-wrote that section. So now, onto the article.

(insert boring historical significance, blah blah blah, yada friggin yada) "Ok, now let's analyze the Hey, Say Something Funny phrase. (editor's note: to spice up some scholastical jargon, the Say Something Funny line will be referred to as the That Guy Model, TGM for short.) The keyword in this icer is 'funny', the desired outcome of the request. The fallacy of this statement is that funny is not a description, rather it is an evaluation. Do you laugh before a joke? If you did, then late night TV would be really strange ass. The communication of sender-receiver for a joke is much like a communications process. The statement is delivered, feedback, and all that sequential crap college students sleep through while hungover. The Cliffnotes of this are that the message is successful if it achieves the desired feedback, through the delivery and actions of the sender and the past experiences, cultural surroundings, and connections of the message to the receiver. If the statement or action is not funny, then one of those keypoints are missing. In the TGM model, the sender has already issued the feedback demanded to be desired, creating an increased amount of pressure on the receiver to deliver the targeted feedback. Often time this leads to unsatisfactory results, due to the on-the-spot creativity poised at the receiver of the TGM.

Furthermore, jokes are dereived from a narrative, sometimes anecdotal sense of fiction or non-fiction. When you think of late show monologues a lot of the material is based from actual news articles or events; for stand up comedians, often times it's interesting notes on daily life or personal experience. In the TGM, there is no base of material to start from, thus the receiver quickly has to find a base to start from. In this shortened case of time, however, the wrong base can easily be picked and delivered.

Cliffnotes to this point: the TGM asks for funny as a description, not an evaluation like it is supposed to be. No base material to form a joke is present in the TGM.

So how does one go about combating the TGM? One can simply avoid the sender as much as possible, however given the characteristics of the sender it could possibly cause more badgering. Delivering 'something funny' is generally not recommended, because it submits to the more dominant sender and often times does not result in 'something funny.' Comedian Gary Ashley gave this idea in an instant message conference:

'I think it's rude when someone uses the TGM in a social event. Say you have some coolguy at a party that's wearing a loud hawaiian shirt, which everyone at the party has already tried to avoid, pulls the TGM on you. Let me just say that you should never use the TGM under any circumstances. Not even to your enemies. By delivering the TGM to someone it completely throws out of order the communications process, putting the evalutation right at the front. It would be like saying you love a piece of steak when you have not viewed, smelled, or tasted it. I feel that the TGM is insulting to the receiver; Thus, you should throw the insult right back at him/her. An example of this defensive measure would start with the obvious TGM. However, instead of the nervous filler words and shifting eye contact, it is best to just dryly and bluntly insult the sender with whatever you feel is insulting about them. As an example, I would tell the loud hawaiian shirted TGM sender that he 'Smelled like baby vomit and should return that shirt to the top of the volcano so the island god doesn't get mad.' (crowd laughs) Now obviously you can use more creative, spur-the-moment insults like that depending on the sender, but the main idea is to go with the blunt insult. That way the hapless requester has no way to combat what you just said, and any party goers overhearing the conversation get a laugh at the TGM sender's expense. Thus, you save face, make a joke, and win at the same time.'

Of course Mr. Ashley's methods should only be used for people that really, REALLY deserve it. Otherwise, we prefer a lesser insulting approach, or in fact a brief conversation on the That Guy Model to prevent anymore occurances of 'Hey, Say Something Funny'."

Dr. James A. Monkeypants, B.S.
Yura Dushbaag, Ph.D
Drapinyay Numbrtu, B.S. #2
Dr. Soose (to prevent infringment)
TM University

source:

Ashley, Gary. 2005. "The That Guy Model and How to Avoid It". Online chat conducted August 4th, 2005, using Yahoo Messenger. Retrieved August 5th, 2005, from a scrap a paper and doodles of poodles eating strudles on a Burger King takeout bag. Partial source credit from Dr. Seuss (Soose).