Humor, Objectivity, and Not Taking Yourself to Seriously

They say comedy is a low-status art. There’s nothing funny about being hot or rich or elite. That’s why comedians use self-deprication to make jokes, which is especially important when comedians gain super stardom. 

Flying private isn’t funny. 

However, being self-deprecating about travel is. Kevin Hart has a joke in one of his early specials that reinforces this.

The gist is that as he’s become more famous he started hanging out with celebrity athletes and actors who were in a higher tax bracket than him. So, even with his level of fame at that time he’s choosing to take a low-status angle relative to his peers. 

The joke continues that he’d be out a nightclubs with Lebron James and other super stars who would order expensive bottle service and the group norms were for people in the group to pick up the tab because tens of thousands of dollars wasn’t prohibitive to the people in that status, but for him he wasn’t able to afford the bill. The repeated punchline throughout the bit is him talking in his elite friend’s ear over the loud DJ music:

“So, the way my checking account works,” he’d try to explain. “I gotta transfer from my savings and that…” 

You get the idea. The joke works because it’s low status. I say all this because from a developmental perspective here at DEUCE Gym and in the Leadership Laboratory, we’re often talking about objectivity. Can we make the parts of our experience that are out of our awareness (subjectivity) more objective (or in our awareness)? 

If you think about it, the mechanics of comedy naturally lean towards objectivity. One easy (maybe even fun) way to make sure you have more objectivity about your beliefs, your perspective, and your dogmas is if you can make fun of them. If you can’t you’re likely held captive by them. Not taking yourself too seriously would mean you could see the parts of your lifestyle, religion, or perspective that were once in your blind spot.