How to Use eHow to Turn Yourself into a Comedic Force to Be Reckoned With

January 6, 2011

Image via CrunchBase

Great news! I’m funny now!

Here’s what happened: I was Googling “How to write a thank you letter for a present that boggles the mind– seriously, what is this thing?”, and my fervent Google prayers were answered by eHow.com. If you’ve never heard of eHow, it’s a website where contributors write articles on how to do things. Often these are very helpful things like “How to Reduce a Heating Bill”. Sometimes they’re surprising things like, “How to Foil a Kidnapping Plot and Keep the Money Yourself”. Sometimes they’re very odd things like, “How to Get Your Cat a Diploma” and “How to Keep Rats and Snakes Out of the Toilet” (which opened up a world of toilet-vermin-related terror for me that I previously did not know existed). In an effort to distract myself from toilet-rats and -gerbils and such, I decided to find out if there’s anything eHow can’t teach you.

There isn’t. I learned How to Look Like Pamela Anderson. I learned How to Greet an Alien Visitor. I even learned How to Put Stickers on My Guitar, and though I haven’t learned How to Buy a Guitar yet, or How to Convince Yourself to Buy a Guitar Even Though You Have No Musical Talent and Hated Piano Lessons When You Were a Kid, I’m sure eHow is just waiting for me to ask. I thought to myself, Self, is there anything you’ve really wanted to do that your innate boringness was preventing you from accomplishing? Surely eHow can help! and that’s when the internet provided an answer in the form of a How-To Guide:  How to Write a Funny Facebook Status Message. Ah-ha! I said to myself. You could be funny! It was quite the breakthrough, and I’ve spent the better part of the day learning how to do it. I’m pretty sure I don’t have to practice after this. Just reading these articles made me a Funny Person. I decided to start small…

Step #1 How to Send Comic Text Messages

This one was helpful because I was previously unsure of my texting abilities. The guide walks you through the step-by-step process of sending a text message, even making sure you double check that you’re sending it to the right person. That’s great news because I once ended a relationship by sending a comic text message to the wrong person. Unfortunately, it kind of glosses over the actual funny part. It directs you to a website with humorous messages, but says a shared joke or experience is better. This is going to be a problem for me, because I can’t decide what’s actually funny or not.

I practiced by sending my brother a text that said, “Hey. Remember that time when I asked you what kind of spatula I should buy? Laughing out loud.” He did not respond, I assume because he was incapacitated by laughter, but also possibly because he was in school. I realized that I needed to define Being Funny.

Step #2 How to Be Really Funny

I picked this one over similar guides because of the “really”. I don’t want to be regular amounts of funny, but I couldn’t find one that said “pee-in-your-pants hilarious”, so I went with it. The first step is to find a sarcastic person who is making people laugh and ask them if they are being sarcastic. If you are not laughing and other people are, don’t worry! They’re not laughing at you, they’re laughing at sarcasm that you’ve failed to recognize. I wish I’d known this in middle school, because I now realize there’s no such thing as bullies. If the person answers in the affirmative, you’re supposed to stalk them and learn their habits. This probably involves a lot of hiding behind menus and trash cans. I was home alone all day and I had no one to follow, so I just skipped a few steps until I found one I liked, which was to make hilarious faces during normal events. In fact, I’m making hilarious faces as I type this!

Me being HILARIOUS!

Step #3 How to Be Sexy and Funny Like Sarah Silverman

Bonus! I am now funny and sexy. I don’t look like Sarah Silverman, but I have accumulated several topics that are taboo, including Mormon underwear, talking about how much I like asbestos, and the board game “Taboo”. Apparently these are my new bread and butter. I’m not sure what to do with them, but maybe just yelling those things at certain times is enough to be funny. On to the sexy part! I need to accumulate T-shirts, which I already have. BLAMMO! Perhaps I was sexy the whole time.

Step #4 How to Tell Funny Stories Like Ron White

This tip is very interesting:

Deliver jokes and funny stories with a very raspy voice. Ron White‘s raspy voice is from smoking too many cigars and drinking too much Johnnie Walker Black Label Whiskey. Be insightful but blunt when delivering material.

If I’m talking to you and my voice starts getting raspier, it’s because I’m being funny. Even if you miss the punch line to the jokes I got from the internet, this should be enough to clue you in when it’s an appropriate time to laugh. I will also be drinking more whiskey and smoking cigars, then gargling razor blades to ensure that my raspiness is genuine. I practiced when my dad came home from work, and he asked me if I had a cold. I asked if he was being sarcastic. He was not.

Step #5 How to Find Funny Stuff to Email

Since I’d mastered funny text messaging, I moved on to email. This is great because I finally have a way to respond when my grandma sends me adorable forwards about kittens. Just you wait, Grandma. The guide recommended collegehumor.com and it looks like it’s right up your alley.

Step #6 How to Develop a Child’s Funny Bone

I didn’t open this one because it kind of scared me when I thought about it. Why would I want a child’s funny bone? Where would I keep it? In a jar on my shelf? Under my bed? How would I explain it to my friends? What if one day I’m framed for a series of terrible murders and the police discover that I have developed a child’s funny bone and am keeping it in a jar on my shelf? Won’t that look bad?

There you have it. I’m no longer a Comedy Padawan. I’m a Humorous Jedi. A Funny Person. I’ll be here til Tuesday.

Written by Listful Thinking Posted in How-To Tagged with comedian, comedy, eHow, Freshly Pressed, Humor, list