🏀 Do you always have to be funny?

Hi pal!

My brain is not great at remembering things. Phone numbers, stuff on my calendar, everyday tasks. It all just disappears into this sludgy fog inside my brain, or maybe it doesn’t get through that fog in the first place. It’s pretty great at remembering useless stuff though, like the names of the 150 original Pokémon. And even worse, it’s very good at remembering anything regrettable, stupid or awkward. These memories tend to glow extra bright through this thick fog when I try to fall asleep.

I’m gonna tell you about one such memory now.

Do you always have to be funny?

I had always been a class-clown.

Every time the teacher asked me a question in high school, I tried to make a little joke or pun out of it. I thought it was my thing.

Then one day she asked me, “Do you always have to try to be funny?”

I tried to think of a funny answer, but I couldn’t. Her words cut too deep. I thought her annoyance must be justified because she was such a nice teacher. My confidence changed that day and it began to form 3 questions in my noggin…

Why did I always try to be funny?

My friends always shared silly songs with each other via mobile phone bluetooth, quoted comedians and imitated ridiculous Youtube videos.

My grandpa had so many fun stories from his life, when they weren’t actually funny, he still managed to add a sprinkle of goof to make it impossible for us to not laugh.

Everyone was a low key comedian. You start to want what the people around you like.

Did anybody find me funny?

One time a gym teacher had the whole class standing in a ring, while he explained the rules of basketball. I stood right across from him, so he decided to pass me the ball to get started. He threw it high into the air towards me, to make for an easy catch. I looked at the ball and thought “wouldn’t it be funny if it just landed on my face?” I started calculating the velocity of the ball and the angle of my face, I knew just how to make it not hurt, it slammed into the lowest part of my forehead, touching just the top part of my nose lightly, it bounced off and I stood firmly. Everyone burst with laughter. I felt proud. The gym teacher felt sorry for what he had done, thinking I had not been ready.

DO I always have to be funny?

If my ball-calculations had been wrong, the impact could have broken my nose. It would have been cruel if I had made the gym teacher actually hurt me. Just because I wanted to be funny.

So I think the answer to her question is no, I don’t have to be funny all the time. Especially not when somebody else is in the middle of their show.

I think everyone has a duty to be funny, if they can and if it makes life easier. So I would tell my teacher “I do have to be funny, but not right now, sorry.”

Recent Finds

💭 Thoughts - Chandler Bing from Friends

There’s a character in Friends called Chandler, he’s constantly making jokes about everything. For him it’s a coping mechanism that formed in his childhood. But the need to be funny is something extremely typical for men in general already. I think almost anyone who’s raised as a boy gets this desire to make people laugh?

I watched a bunch of interviews with the Friends’ cast after I finished the show and any time the actor of Chandler talks it’s like the audience is constantly expecting him to say something hilarious. He does make lots of puns and jokes. They’re rarely funny at all, but the audience is non-stop giggling about everything he says anyway.

I heard him say somewhere that “I realized the reason I always tried to be funny was because I wanted to impress this girl.” Maybe the reason for joking when you’re obsessive about it like this is always to impress. To show that ‘I have the power to turn any situation into something funny.’

🦄 Comic strip - Dreams come true

This is still (probably) the funniest comic I ever made.

🔴 Youtube video - How I designed Fruit Ninja

Lots of people have no idea how games are made, to me as a game maker it’s shocking to hear that some people think Unity is a game developer, just because their logo appears as a splash screen on a lot of crappy mobile games (it’s a game engine).

I had never thought much of it, but in my mind Fruit Ninja was made by some lone guy at home. This story shows pretty well how messy the creation of a game can be. Even for something as simple as FN - it’s not that simple.

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What’s your relationship to humor? Are you a try-hard too?

Thank you for reading! Have a creative week.