NOT BEING FUNNY

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if something amusing happened to you every day? And then you could share that amusement with others both as your 140 character golden nugget of amuse or perhaps in a slightly longer philosophical esoteric amusement essay. Then everybody who follows your life on twitter with keen interest can sit back and say, ‘Ha ha, he’s a funny fellow. His life is one laughing tableau followed by another, I wish I were that chap.’ Which, in a rather obscure way, reminds me, do people still say to other people in business circles that they have followed your career closely? This has to be one of the most disappointing, fatuous and essentially insulting comments to make to someone. I don’t want you to follow my career I want you to change it you moron! What good is it to me if you just watch me, like some occupational pervert? Making notes in your ‘What has Simon done career-wise today jotter’ – I feel I have gone off subject a little. Back to making sure the world feels included in your daily joy and hilarious experiences.

What happens when you just don’t have those funny times quite so regularly? As an average person, am I judged in the same way a comedian is judged? ‘Well he just isn’t funny anymore (I am not saying that I was/am btw), he hasn’t had a decent tweet since the great tweet of 3 September, 2011. You know, where he accused David Cameron of being a wig wearing naked tin of spam with less of a grip on reality than the Pope on acid. Now all he tweets about is teaching children to ride bikes.’

In real life, when our friends stop being entertaining, we just invite them round, feed them food that predisposes the consumer to flatulence, get them drunk and hope they break wind during a serious discussion on the state of the world. Try this, I will guarantee at least one person is crying with laughter by the end of the evening. But the point is, we don't expect a constant stream of humour, they are who they are, there is no pressure, they are our friend come rain, come shine, come funny, come boring.

Back on planet digital however, your lack of humour is greeted by silence. You are ostracized, you may even loose a few people, and a cruel person may say to you, ‘you just are not funny any more.’ This brings out the irrational need to up your funny stakes; a slight desperation begins to rise in your tweets like damp. You find yourself scouring the horizon for humour, it becomes obsessive, thinking to yourself ‘I must see something funny today, a pratfall, a sign spelt incorrectly or even an animal in human clothing – anything, please God something, I don’t want to be the unfunny person on twitter!’

Your tweets start to show your sate of mind, as you become the party guest who laughs too loudly at others or makes jokes that only you laugh at. You may as well just tweet this ever hour. ‘Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha *mad staring eyes* ha ha ha!’

But if you stop and read what else is happening in the digital world it will dawn on you that you are not alone. Normal people don’t blog everyday, and sometimes (with the exception of some people who are far too good for their own good – you know who you are) their blogs are just a nice read, and sometimes they hit a sweet spot and sometimes (like this one) they are just plain dull. And then there is tweeting. People do tweet boring rubbish, those are the tweets that generally go un-responded, or people sometimes just don’t tweet for bit, and sometimes people are just funny. You have to deal with it.

Being funny on twitter or in a blog isn’t about saving lives, and besides, my kids will always laugh AT me, so what have I lost (other than a bit of dignity by posting this in the first place)? Well perhaps a few more followers who have misinterpreted a nonsense melancholic blog entry for narcissistic conceit. But that is life, isn't it?