How to Make Someone Laugh

How to Make Someone Laugh Making Someone Laugh with WordsMaking Someone Laugh with Actions Edited by Justin, Zack, Rob S, Tom Viren and 54 others

Laughter is the best medicine, so they say. Causing laughter in others isn't always as simple as it sounds though. If you want to hone your laughterproducing talents, then try one of these many styles of humor and joking on for size.

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Method1 of 2: MakingSomeoneLaughwith Words

1. 1 Makesomeonelaughby tellinga joke. Jokes make us laugh for several reasons. They may give us psychological support which makes us happy, or offer a bonding experience. 

If a friend makes fun of someone you don’t like, you might laugh because it supports your standpoint on that person.

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Inside jokes - jokes shared between a few people only - are funny because they are relating a common experience amongst a private group. This mutual experience makes you happy, which can produce laughter.

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Jokes don’t always have to be funny, they only have to provoke a response in the listener. To do that, you simply tell a joke that relates to them; one that supports the way they think, makes them feel better about themselves, or reaffirms a friendship or bond. [1]

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2 Makesomeonelaughusingpuns. Puns are a form of wordplay which forces the listener to think twice about the meaning. [2]

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”Did you hear about the camping trip? It was in-tents.”

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”I like wool gathering for the shear joy of it.”

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I tinted my hair this morning. It was the highlight of my day.”[3]

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3 Makesomeonelaughusingwit or sarcasm.Sarcastic remarksare ones that point out the obvious in a situation in a teasing or taunting manner. Be careful with sarcasm though, as it can be offensive if misused. Use sarcasm by giving the opposite response of what is expected.

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“Do you like the dessert I made?” “No! It’s absolutely horrible!” This pokes fun by pointing out an obvious truth. Sarcastic remarks can be made to point out an absurd

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assumption. “Is my car in the driveway?” “No, last I saw it was at the bottom of the lake.”

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Makesomeonelaughusinga one-liner or comeback.A one-liner is just like what it sounds - a joke told in a single sentence. A comeback is a similarly brief joke, told in response to teasing or mocking.

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Makesomeonelaughby beingself-deprecating. Self deprecating jokes are ones that you use to make fun of yourself.[4] Point out your obvious flaws. If it’s clear that you’re incredibly thin,

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make jokes about it so people around you feel more comfortable. Joke about personal disadvantages. If you are in debt because

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you are a shopaholic, make jokes about your inability to stop from purchasing your 200th pair of shoes. Joke about your quirks. If you have a fear of slugs and know it’s

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irrational, joke about it. People laugh at things that seem absurd or ridiculous. [5]

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Use a Freudianslip. This is a type of joke where you accidentally insert an outof-place word from your subconscious into your speech. These can be done intentionally, but are funniest when they are accidental. "For seven and a half years I've worked alongside President

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Reagan. We've had triumphs. Made some mistakes. We've had some sex... uh... setbacks." -A Freudian slip by President George H.W. Bush While watching a commercial advertising a laundry detergent,

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Lenny asks his girlfriend to pass him the phone, but instead, he says, "Babe, can you pass me the soap?"[6]

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Makesomeonelaughwith an understatement.This is when you make a joke by minimizing the seriousness of an action or event. Your friend gets stung by bees and has an allergic reaction that

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causes their face to swell up and turn red. Your response “Nah, it’s not too bad. Just some natural color!” Joke about bad test score to minimize the upset.

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Method2 of 2: MakingSomeoneLaughwith Actions

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Do a funnyimpressionof someone.Doing an impression is when you act like somebody, either a person you know well or someone famous and recognizable. Focus mimicking their voice. Doing impersonations of voices is a

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great way to cause laughter. When possible, copy the way a person moves. This includes their

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body language and the way they walk.

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Makesomeonelaughwith pratfalls. Pratfall is a lovely euphemism for when someone falls on their rear. Rather than actually acting this out, try looking up one of the thousands of hilarious video examples of pratfalls.

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Makesomeonelaughusingparodyor satire. Satire and parody are a type of “acted sarcasm.” They are used alongside irony to mock an absurd real-life situation. For example, you might play a satirical cover of a popular song to make fun of it.[7]

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Makesomeonelaughby playinga practicaljoke. Practical jokes, or pranks, are when you play a trick on someone to cause laughter. They are best done on close friends, as they may incite retaliation. A classic practical joke is sticky-noting or saran-wrapping a car.

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While a friend is absent or otherwise busy, completely cover their car in saranwrap or post-it notes. This is rather safe, and will cause laughter on all sides. Unscrew the nozzle on a faucet and insert a dye-pill. When you

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put the nozzle back on and the water is turned on, it will begin to dissolve the pill, causing the water to run in colors. Again, this joke isn’t likely to cause much alarm and is less dangerous for you to attempt.[8]

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Tips Don't worry about trying very hard to cause laughter. A lot of humor

comes naturally in situations. •

Keep a neutral face until the audience laughs, when they do laugh laugh with them. However, don't start cracking up at your own jokes. Just give a little chuckle.

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Don't repeat the same joke over and over again. It gets annoying to the audience and loses its humor over time.

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Have courage to perform in front of people.

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Say the joke when you feel everyone stopped talking. Try not to say the joke when it's noisy.

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Warnings

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Be sure that you are being respectful with your joking, as not all audiences will appreciate all types of humor.

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Don't make fun of other people to make someone laugh. This is bullying, and shouldn't be encouraged. • •

9 Tips for Being Funny June 23, 2010 3:45 PM by Maura Kelly

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After yesterday's post — in which I suggested that if you have trouble being funny, and you want to laugh with your boyfriend or partner, you should do things like watching comedies or reading The Onion — it occurred to me that my friend Teddy Wayne, who is not only a novelist but also a very accomplished humor writer, might have some better ideas. So this morning, after I did a little begging (and hog-tied him to the porch, threatening to force-feed him sea kelp and saltwater taffy if he didn't give in), he agreed to share his secrets with me. I think it's safe to say these rules will go a long way in helping you crack people up. I know I will be referring back to them myself in the weeks to come. 1. Play on the juxtaposition between what a listener thinks will happen and what actually happens in the story you tell. Freud talks about this in his Wit and Its Relation to the Unconscious. To give you an example, let me tell you more about that hike I went on over the weekend — the one I had to be rescued from? Yeah. When I called 911, I was crying, exhausted, and completely disoriented, worried I wouldn't make it to the clearing where the fire department had parked to begin their search for me. The 911 operator kept me on the phone, and said, "We have a good sense of where you might be from the GPS monitor but we're worried you may not be very close to the access road. Continue walking till you see any kind of landmark and then tell us what it is." About 60 seconds later, I was saying: "Oh! I see something in the distance. It's ... it's red ... and ... it's a truck! And on the side it says ... Oh! Oh. It says, um, Fire Department?" 2. Use the rule of three. Give two standard or fairly serious examples, and an absurd third one. For example: "The men I like best are the ones who are tall, dark, and not living in their mother's basement." 3. End on a funny word or phrase. Do this when the funniest part of a joke or quip is a single word or phrase. As Woody Allen once said, "I don't feel comfortable changing in front of a man of my own gender." 4. Build up the tension. Many conventional jokes begin with long stories that include many irrelevant or unnecessary elaborations or details because the more involved a person becomes in the story — and the more distracted she becomes by the story — the more likely she is to care about (and to be surprised by)

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the ending. It's a bit like he's holding his breath while you tell the story, and the longer he has to hold it, the bigger the burst will be when he finally lets it out. 5. Take something someone said earlier and play on it. For instance, a while back, Teddy was with a friend of ours when she bought a new purse. Two different salespeople said to her, "Oh, what a fun bag." Later in the day, when I met up with Teddy and her, I said, "That's such a great bag!" And Teddy said, "No, no, not great. Fun." 6. Have a running joke. In this blog, my baby fireman fetish is one of our running jokes. My penchant for jailbait is another. Part of what's appealing about a running joke is simply feeling like you're in on it; another appeal arises when you work the running joke in at an unexpected moment or in a surprising way. (Sort of the way I did when I talked about having to be rescued by the Lebanon Fire Department and then said, "Yep — I'll do anything to meet a firefighter, won't I?") 7. Discern between self-deprecation and self-pity. Everyone loves selfdeprecating humor — but you should be careful to make sure you're poking lighthearted fun at your foibles in a way that makes it clear you recognize your shortcomings but have basic confidence or self-respect. (Conan O'Brien is a master of this, Teddy says.) One way to make sure this is happening is to do it with a figurative twinkle in your eye — or a literal smile. By signaling that you're joking — with a raise of your eyebrows and a grin, for instance — people will understand that you're not complaining. 8. Look for opportunities to be ironic. Make a statement that contradicts something that has just been said. For instance, if someone tells you you're a good listener, you might say "What was that?" (Teddy loves that one.) 9. If you're teasing someone, do it with affection. Don't come off as nasty or judgmental. Tease someone with the idea that you're doing it in a way that shows your affection for the person in question — shortcomings and all. One thing Teddy loves to nudge me about is the way I always say — both in person and on my blog — "What do YOU think?" But, um ... What do YOU think? Folks, if you have more tips to add, please speak up. And if you use any of these to make a good joke, let us know what you did!

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