r/Showerthoughts • u/ikantolol • 6d ago
Casual Thought We have child geniuses who can do complex math, play instruments beautifully, and play chess at an adult level, but somehow we almost never see children stand-up comedians.
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u/Slyxxer 6d ago
The bulk of stand-up comedy is based on life observations and experience, which children simply don't have yet.
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u/TheoremaEgregium 6d ago
And also often deal with subjects we find inappropriate for children.
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u/paulsoleo 6d ago
“So I have a bottle in my crib, anyone else? Show of hands…anyone else’s mom actively trying to kill them? Like, hold on lady, I thought post-birth abortions were illegal? Annnnyway…oh look, this toddler in the front knows what I’m talking about. Been there, huh? How are you tonight, sir? Has anyone ever told you you look like the Gerber baby? The diaper end, I mean! I kid, I kid. Or should I say ‘I baby?’ Thanks everyone, good nap!”
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u/NeuralAgent 6d ago
And even if we did have those life experiences, it would come from a completely dysfunctional childhood, and can you imagine the backlash when a child comedian would talk about the shit their parents did to them.
I was a performing pianist by age 5, if I were a comedian I’d have spoken about the bearings with electrical cords and my mom coming after me with her slipper if I didn’t practice, and how I learned to run faster than any of the kids, Nor for the joy of running, but because o had to be faster than my goddamn mothers slipper or my fucking father who’d grab me and bend me over his knee and go at it with his hand.
As an adult we can talk about it and get a good laugh. But if we were kids and spoke about it… peeps would lose their minds and in the US CPS would be involved.
I told someone once, who told someone, who told someone, and the bearings happened and then my mom said “even the trees have ears.”
Comedic gold I tell you.
The experiences are there, but are they really funny?
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u/BodaciousBadongadonk 6d ago
I feel like i could guess your race based on this comment lol. Im leanin asian 80% but that last 20% wants to go hispanic lol. I know how it is with psycho parents, i got really really good at coming up with convincing bullshit on the spot. Expert liar growing up haha
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u/Rainy_Leaves 5d ago
I think trauma and mental health has links with coming across more comedic in a way. It works for adults who’ve escaped trauma but still struggle with it. For younger people actively going through the trauma it’s unlikely they’d have comedy on their mind.
I’m not even sure why there’s a link, but I have cptsd and others seem to appreciate my humour for some reason. I don’t know if it comes from a place of low self worth, lots of introspection, gives us practice in trying to make up for parts of ourselves we’re less happy with. I know I probably use humour to make people like being around me because I fear I come across too introspective and trauma brained for most. I guess cptsd is neurodivergence and I’m neurodivergent enough to have some sort of nonsense in my head that others seem to like
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u/chux4w 6d ago
I asked my mum for a cookie last week. You know what she did? Gave me an apple. Right? That's not the same thing. You've misunderstood, mum. An apple. She said it's healthier. I said, mum, if I wanted to keep the doctor away, do you think I'd have eaten all that sand?
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u/law-st_student 6d ago
My 8yo niece thought asking me to spell "ICUP" was peak comedy.
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u/lewisb42 6d ago edited 6d ago
It was a proud day when my son tried that on me.
Of course I immediately reverse-uno'd with the "do not cite the old magic to me, witch" meme
Edit: 'in' -> 'on'
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u/beautheschmo 6d ago
Sounds like she has a great future in comedy then
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u/Iceedemon888 6d ago
That's when you give them the expansion pack. Say have the next person spell icup and then say funny colors afterwards.
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u/Goblingrenadeuser 6d ago
And I'm very sure there are kids that can stand in front of other kids and make them laugh. It is just something that is not important to broadcast to world as other geniuses shouldn't be too, because mostly they should be allowed to be kids.
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u/ProFeces 6d ago
This right here. I actually did perform stand-up as a kid (around 9), only I didn't know it at the time.
I was always making my parents laugh, so my mom tasked me with writing a story about how rough it is being a kid. She then had me perform it. After a lot of "coaching" about how to emphasize certain parts of it, I actually created a set that was extremely funny to adults. In fact It ended up being so funny to adults that they recorded it on tape and sent it to family members. When those family members came to visit they'd ask me to perform it.
So while it is true that most stand-up is about life experiences, it can also be true that a child's perspective on what makes being a child difficult is hilarious in comparison to the reality of adult life.
Lack of experience, if presented in the right light, can be just as funny.
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u/ibullybillionaires 6d ago
I did a fair bit of stand-up comedy in my youth, roughly between the age of 6 and 18.
I'd perform in the same venue for a few years, then got switched to a different one and started performing there for a few years before switching again. I usually performed 5 days a week most of the year, and I always got laughs. The audience was great, even though I pretty much only played in front of 30 or so regulars.I thought I did really well making people laugh, but have to admit I sometimes got into trouble with the teachers and admin.
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u/Milton_Stilton 6d ago
"My whole act back then was about taking a shit, because that’s all I had done at 15. That was my life experience, but it sounded like Pryor jokes.
I’d be going, [imitating Richard Pryor] You ever get like sometimes ye get on that toilet and ye shit, that water splash up on yo’ ass? Don’t that make ye mad, right? You know what really make mad is when the shit is halfway out, then go back up in that motherfucka. Why do shit be teasin’ yo’ ass? Just get the fuck out, right? You know what really make me mad is when yo’ ass don’ cooperate whicha then clinch up and break the shit in half? You be mad like a motherfucker too coz you gotta whip yo’ ass for 5 hours. Use 12 roles o’ toilet paper on that motherfucka. You know what really bother me is when you be strainin’ for a long time and one lil’ pebble shit comes out? Y’ want some shit this big right? Stick yo’ head up your ass and say: That all the shit I’m gonn’ get motherfucka? And it’s afterwards right, when you done with shit, you done all the shittin’ you gonna do for the whole day and you flush that toilet and one chunk come back… WHAT DOES THAT CHUNK WANT?"
- Eddy Murphy (Raw)
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u/Loggerdon 6d ago
I saw a child comedian at a competition. And you see them on Americas Got Talent. They’re often annoying as hell.
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u/rabid_houseplant_ 6d ago
Not just having the experiences but teasing out the ironies, contradictions and hypocrisies in them, which requires a certain degree of maturity. Little kids laugh at things like farts and people falling over because that’s blatantly, obviously funny. Most good stand-up comics are more subtle, and subtlety tends to come with age.
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u/poorperspective 6d ago
It’s not even maturity, it’s literally being able to recognize and understand irony in the first place.
I taught all ages at some point (elementary, middle, and high school). I taught music so it’s not hard academically, but I have a pretty dry sense of humor. Kids from 4 to usually 10, though you’ll have some immature 11 and 12 year olds that don’t understand irony. Not in a you don’t define it, but as it doesn’t register as a joke. For most of early development “what is funny” is just “what makes people laugh.” It’s why little kid jokes are terrible. Around 6,7, and 8 you get the concept of the taboo. They think it’s funny to know stuff adults don’t want them to know. Thats one of the first steps of acquiring theory of mind. A child will understand some people might know things, and that not everyone knows what you know yourself. It’s also why they start lying around that age. And one reason kids like taboo is mentioning it creates a moment of irony between peers. 8 year old you and 8 year old Kyle aren’t suppose to say the word “shit” but you both know you both know it, and that’s why your giggling in line. It’s the same reason 6-7 took off. But you see the separation of theory of mind between sexes in development around 11 and 13. Girls will do a silent communication like “telepathy” that confuses boys sometimes. Usually everyone has came to around 16 on the ability recognize irony among peers since their thoughts are closer thoughts, desires, and motivations. But this stays true through most of life. Young people are least likely to get old people humor, the same way old people are the least likely to like teen pop charts.
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u/Leodip 6d ago
That is definitely true: there's very little that would be appropriate for a kid to tell in public even if someone else wrote the jokes for them.
However, another large factor is that stand-up comedy requires a lot of stage presence, and when people have some preconceptions about you, you have to fight twice as hard to command attention. Some examples are some comedians with (visible) disabilities that often address them as the very first joke in their show or women that use very sexual jokes to break the stereotype of the "prim and proper" lady.
I guess the short of it is that child geniuses at playing the piano are only required to be as good as trained adults to be noticeable, but for one to be a stand-up comedian they'd have to find a new genre that they fit in AND be better than most of their trained adult colleagues. Sounds like a huge hurdle to jump.
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u/neelabhkhatri 6d ago
Because they are not yet broken down by our brutal world. Depressed people have the best jokes because the only thing that they can do back at life is laugh back.
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u/Slyxxer 6d ago
"Well the simple truth is you stopped paying attention to the small details in everything. The observation, the moment, the wonder - you become an adult, indoctrinated into the system and bombarded with more "important" distractions. The truth is these things never left... You did."
-vincentgrim
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u/_Yellow_13 6d ago
Not necessarily depressed.
But people who’ve been through hell.
A lot of my army buddies have a twisted and dark sense of humor that has taken years to develop and only by experience.
Not depressed … that much.3
u/mcbain_83 6d ago
What's the deal with homework, Coco melon, bed time, vegetables and potty training?!
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u/FashionKing72 6d ago
It’s similar to when you see child preachers, you can tell they’re just parroting what they’ve learned from watching other preachers. Even if a kid was good at performing jokes, there’s a level of authenticity that would be absent.
This is actually so self evident that the guy who posted this is just like “huh I had half a thought, let me run and post it on the internet!” Like I get that’s the point of the subreddit but if you spent an additional 6 seconds thinking you’d realize this isn’t a worthy consideration (which op prob did but decided to post anyway)
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u/Slyxxer 6d ago
This is actually so self evident that the guy who posted this is just like “huh I had half a thought, let me run and post it on the internet!” Like I get that’s the point of the subreddit but if you spent an additional 6 seconds thinking you’d realize this isn’t a worthy consideration (which op prob did but decided to post anyway)
I'm not sure if you're saying it should be here because that's the point of the sub, or it shouldn't because it's an incomplete thought.
Either way, it's sparked some pretty good discussion about what makes comedy relevant to an audience; and how having experience does not automatically mean someone will be good at comedy.
All good discussion starts with an incomplete thought
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u/Kallax321 6d ago
I always think that Australia and the US are very similar countries and then you hear a sentence like “when you see child preachers”.
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u/InconspicuousD 6d ago
The poor guy just had a thought in the shower and you’re attacking his character!
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u/sanketower 6d ago
"[If you don't live your life,] you're gonna be the worst comedian evah"
- Chris Rock to Trevor Noah
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u/This_Charmless_Man 6d ago
Daniel Sloss got success as a standup about as young as you can in his late teens.
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u/Slyxxer 6d ago
I feel like late teens is old enough to know about adult life, even if it's not a lives experience yet.
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u/This_Charmless_Man 6d ago
Yeah he had a notable joke about how other older comedians would talk about having boring sex but for him he'd come on stage going "I HAD SEX!!! WAHOOO!!"
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u/sygnathid 6d ago
Yeah, I'd describe Bo Burnham as a "kid" (he was a teenager) in his early successes.
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u/jai_kasavin 6d ago
You ever flush the toilet, and one chunk come back? What do that chunk want?
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u/Slyxxer 6d ago
Isn't it amazing that we have the technology where we can take a poop, then press a button and the poop goes away.
And yet the button only works if you poop in the right spot. Do it 18 inches forward and the poop won't get taken away no matter how much you press the button.
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u/mutexsprinkles 6d ago
Thus informed, we must conclude that the poop removal is related to some process inherent to the location relative to the button -- Xenophon
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u/Cacafuego 6d ago
Makes me wonder whether they could entertain rooms full of children their own age for a tight 10. Maybe the only problem is that adults don't relate and there is no way to make money off of it.
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u/Raammson 6d ago
Comedy also carries with it a certain level of bastardy. There’s a reason why people who identify as comedians suck as people.
You basically need to find an evil child that is an extrovert and articulate to find a child comedian. I’d suggest trying the local D-home.
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u/Cyclamate 6d ago
people who identify as comedians
"Comedians" is fine. Or "people of comedy"
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u/Skane-kun 6d ago edited 5d ago
Probably a cultural barrier since they perceive a different reality than we do. There are probably kids with high levels of social observation and comedic timing, but we still won't get their humor. It would probably come across as childish whining to us.
This kind of brings to mind Brennan Lee Mulligan's thoughts on how we treat children.
It's insane how unempathetic parts of the adult world, and particular adults, are to children... This being— is constantly kidnapped... That's what a child's life is. Children have far more grace and patience than adults have.
If someone picked me up and buckled me into a seat I didn't want to go in, I'd fuckin— I'd hurt— I'd kill them, you know? Like, what are you doing?... The fact that kids often have a tantrum and then huff that off? Kudos to them. They're saints. They're absolute saints.
That's my rant about how we don't extend enough grace to children, who are putting up with a tremendous amount of bullshit, constantly.
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u/Luvnecrosis 5d ago
I will also say, as someone who works with kids, they are actually very fucking funny. Its just that being a standup comic is a huge undertaking without nearly as much cultural cache as being a musical savant.
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u/PeeledCrepes 5d ago
You caught it, its the cultural wisdom. Kids don't have the wisdom only given through time that can make jokes that are relevant to the audience. It's why kid streamers dont typically have an audience and if they do they aren't adults.
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u/large-farva 4d ago
I've asked them to put on shoes at least 6 times, with an acknowledgement at least half those times. The kidnapping is not a surprise.
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u/Obtrusive_Thoughts 4d ago
Being told “you are going to be taken against your will” doesn’t lessen that you in fact are acting against their will.
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u/ZebraOk8684 6d ago edited 6d ago
You are comparing skills to a job. You also don't see kids in engineering jobs or orchestras. There are funny kids, and kids that practice comedy, jokes and acting. And some of them are very good at it.
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u/sygnathid 6d ago
Yeah, my kid is super funny, but I'm not about to exploit him on Youtube or stick him in front of a crowd of strangers.
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u/ZebraOk8684 6d ago
Sitcoms often do have kid comedians in them, like The Middle, Two and a Half Men and others.
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u/Microwave1213 6d ago
Yes, stand up comedian is a job. Just like actor, musician, dancer, and a multitude of other entertainment oriented jobs that children regularly have.
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u/Vishnej 6d ago edited 6d ago
Crafting and delivering funny jokes is the highest form of language learning. You might be "Fluent" in five of ten years of immersion, but it's going to be two or three times that before you can hold people's attention and draw a spontaneous laugh at a dinner party, if you ever get there. There are volumes of prosody, pacing, intonation, idiom, and culture to learn, and very little of it is documented.
For the audience, this is partially a matter of effective storytelling on dimensions that they couldn't put into words, and partially a matter of the fact that most jokes involve, foundationally, a comedic inconguity which could be easily misunderstood, or an unlikely congruity in almost unrelated concepts; Jumping between the different interpretations in your head and how they could connect is central to the tension that leads to the payoff when the punchline is delivered. Having the different interpretations in your head to start with (to include things like deep cultural references) is a required starting point.
This is closely related to concepts like "sarcasm", which is a way of joking about what you're trying to say. It is basically impossible to spit sarcasm if there is only one possible meaning to your words, if the ambiguity of misunderstanding is impossible.
English is unlike most languages in that it has stolen and hoarded so much vocabulary from so many different places that a quick search can pull up 44 different words for a random concept like locomotion of the feet: "walk", "run", "step", "jog", "canter", "trot", "lope", "skip", "amber", "saunter", "mosey", "stroll", "wander", "ramble", "stride", "march", "pace", "tread", "trek", "hike", "plod", "trudge", "stomp", "hobble", "limp", "tiptoe", "pussyfoot", "stalk", "prowl", "creep", "parade", "strut", "sprint", "bolt", "dash", "zoom", "barrel", "dart", "scamper", "scurry", "scoot", "rush", "charge", "race". These verbs all mean slightly different things, and some have multiple contextual meanings. These make a particularly rich toolset to enable misunderstandings that can produce humor, or to invoke and incorporate concepts subtly. You've taught your five year old the words "Walk" and "Run" and are still trying to get tenses down.
Parents go through whole decades where their kids have a grasp of a modest number of basic word meanings, but few cultural references and insufficient combinatorial depth of knowledge to really make a meaningful punchline the revelation it should be, and no appreciation of drama whatsoever. They resort to simplified puns, "Dad Humor".
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u/udmurrrt 6d ago
English isn't really that much unlike other languages. Borrowing from multiple languages is the norm, not the exception. A quick search yields 38 synonyms for "courir" (to run) in French. Not far from 44.
Not to say the English language isn't very rich, because it is! It's a rich, beautiful language in its own right. But it's not unique in having borrowed many words.
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u/GayRacoon69 6d ago
Yeah a lot of people joke about English being “three languages in a trench coat” when that’s just like… how languages work. That’s not unique to English. And there’s way more than 3 languages in English anyways
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u/ohseetea 6d ago edited 6d ago
Eh. This may be true to depict a high level of language, but the inverse is not true as this is not needed to be a high level of funny.
Humans are all the same, all it takes to be funny is understanding our experience and emotions and how to relate them to some sort of absurd or patterned observation. And you can (if you’re funny) easily achieve that with zero language.
Children, no matter how smart, likely just don’t have the required human experience and emotional intelligence to do that. Many adults don’t.
Now for some wild speculation: I wonder if children are like little AI machines and can reproduce what we train them but aren’t great at creating novelty.
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u/dijon_snow 6d ago
I can't think of a single stand up comedian that doesn't have a pretty good grasp of the English language. Even Larry the cable guy is a character put on by a pretty eloquent dude out of character. You don't need to master a language to be funny in context. Kids can absolutely do hilarious things and have hilarious reactions.
As someone who does stand up, you need to be well spoken to do well. It's public speaking that requires you to not only hold, but play with, the audience's attention and expectations. That takes a decent grasp of language at least.
There's one high school kid that does stand up and is pretty good. His older brother is a stand up as well so that helps. And the kid has a natural command of language. I don't think anyone is really capable of being good at writing and delivering a public speech before their late teens.
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u/BlatheringNonsense 6d ago
Where do you do stand up and so I can come to your show? I live in SoCal.
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u/dijon_snow 6d ago
Seriously? That's really cool. I live in Atlanta and I'm not like traveling to do comedy yet. But I've got some clips up here in between fantasy football data analysis which is also funny.
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u/HarveysBackupAccount 6d ago
No offense but wow, that's all a bit much. Your ...essay... on humor makes it sound like you approach it with a pair of calipers, as if it were something to measure within an inch of its life (that's 2.54 cm, for those who need metric).
I've spent a little time living in another language and lots of time with non-native speakers with varying degrees of English fluency. It doesn't take much fluency to make people laugh.
Sure you won't have a full stand-up routine, but I had at best the fluency of a 1st grader and you can certainly find ways to tell jokes. Language based jokes take more fluency, but that's not everyone's idea of good humor. Plenty of humor is not playing badminton with a thesaurus.
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u/Vishnej 6d ago edited 6d ago
I have also attempted to tell jokes in another language. Some of them even hit.
But it's a fucking puzzle every time, even in a language quite similar to my own, even with a very receptive audience. Even your brief, well-written, mostly earnest comment has a bunch of words, concepts, and idioms that would stop a 1st grader in their tracks, derail the joke. You're bombing, get off the stage. It's hard to come back from that in casual contact or in a performance.
There's so much other stuff that comes out of a spoken comedic performance that isn't in either a thesaurus or a dictionary, it's just sort of absorbed by osmosis when you're embedded with enough speakers of that language.
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u/MulvMulv 6d ago
I think it is also impacted by dialects and culture. I'm Irish and have always found it notably easier to be humorous with other Irish, or even Brits to an extent, than Americans (in general conversation I mean, I am not a comedian).
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u/AggressiveSpatula 6d ago
My students laugh at my jokes even though I barely speak Spanish. Of course I’ll fail them if they don’t, but I like to think of that more as insurance rather than the main thing.
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u/xXxMihawkxXx 6d ago
The English comparison to other languages doesn't matter to the topic. Because there are no child adult(?) stand-up comedians in any language
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u/The-Old-Schooler 6d ago
Comedy starts with the “Ha,” which identifies the situation as comedic. The “Ha” is followed by the “Guffaw.” This creates anticipation. Next, there is the “Aw,” to condition your audience for surprise at the final element, the “Ha-Ha.” Now does it make sense?
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u/MersoNocte 6d ago
Fascinating read. I actually remember the process of becoming funny growing up. It takes practice and observation. I also remember the first time my younger brother said something funny enough to make me laugh. When I have kids, it’ll be very fun to watch their humor develop.
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u/andybrem 6d ago
I have a weird insight here. Many moons ago when
I was around 14/15 my first “job” was as a stand up comic and I then went on to write my university dissertation on offence in standup comedy and there are a few reasons why you don’t see it.
I was a neurodivergent kid who was obsessed with standup comedy, saw comedy as a route to safety and acceptance and treated every interaction with my peers as trying to really nail that tight 5, I honed my routines in classrooms and playgrounds.
As a child you already have your captive audience, why would you move outside of that easy audience? How would you even get there?
I went around a lot of the north of England on public transport using my pocket money and doing small gigs and using any money I got from those gigs to pay for travel home to the next one, secretly, without anyone in my family knowing that’s what I was doing. It was exhausting and I can’t imagine my parents would have been entirely supportive if they had known.
Most initial standup circuits are in bars or 18+ venues. Because of this, I regularly had to have the conversation when ordering a juice at the bar that no, I’m not lost or waiting for my Dad to finish his shift, I am in fact the second act on this evening and I will be delivering a surrealist monologue on pornography for pandas in around 20 minutes time.
I had venues (naturally) turn me away based on my age or not believing I was there to perform, I had to enter and leave some venues through the kitchen and overall it was exhausting just existing in that space as a child without even considering the extreme risk I now realise I was putting myself in.
Plus when you bomb on stage as a child that is not the same kind of bombing as an adult unable to perform successfully. The vibe changes because you as an audience are no longer in the social construct of the performer and audience; where we have certain expectations of a performer.
That construct is somewhat gone when it’s a child. You can’t socially heckle the child or boo them. You are now bullying and potentially traumatising a kid, as a group, if the performance fails.
So it has the potential to create an awkward atmosphere of perceived expectation for the audience which can suck the comedy from the room.
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u/bopeepsheep 6d ago
Have you read Lenny Henry's autobiography? V interesting on 'being underage in 18+ venues'.
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u/Mitochandrea 6d ago
Great point on the last part, I think a lot of disabled comedians unfortunately can have that atmosphere issue as well- are you really going to be the asshole who doesn’t laugh at the person in the wheelchair?
Do you still do comedy?
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u/Prince705 6d ago edited 6d ago
Those others are technical skills that require specific knowledge and repetition. Stand up comedy requires a certain level of awareness and experience in order to connect with an audience. That's much more difficult for someone to do when they have little life experience.
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u/RazeThe2nd 6d ago
Yeah my first thought was it requires an immense level of social awareness and maturity to be a good comedian. Not to forget trauma tends to be common in the making of skilled comedians
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u/BrainIsSickToday 6d ago
Time + Tragedy = Comedy.
Kids don't have enough of the former, and hopefully don't have enough of the latter.
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u/Feudal_Raptor 6d ago
I always joke that my parents gave me just enough childhood trauma to make me funny, but not so much that I require therapy. It's a very narrow line sometimes.
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u/Lemondisco 4d ago
lol I think there are a lot of people over analyzing this question, but you actually nailed it in my opinion, even if it sounds cliche. Part of why we love children is their innocence and newness to the world. That doesn’t exactly equal comedy.
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u/GrookeTF 6d ago
I upvoted because even though the comments show there is a very straightforward explanation, it’s still an interesting shower thought.
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u/whalemango 6d ago
There was that one kid (who almost certainly had her material written by her dad) that had that one joke:
I tried online dating, but I had terrible luck. Everyone I matched with ended up in jail.
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u/MoreLoquat8911 5d ago
Stand-up is so reliant on experience. It’s also very specific to certain age groups often so I don’t know how many toddlers would listen to a standup show
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u/perhapsflorence 6d ago
That's because they haven't quite been in the throes of adult darkness yet.
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u/TueboEmu315 6d ago
This is not true. My line of work, unfortunately, sees children in the throes of adult darkness way more than you'd think.
.... they just haven't learned to make it funny yet.
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u/Just_a_guy81 6d ago
Yeah that’s sad. I’ve seen a bit of it when i worked on an ambulance, but I dated a gal who was a social worker advocate for abused children. the horrors I’d seen are nothing compared to the emotional distress she went through with those children. I commend you for what you do
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u/Same-Drag-9160 5d ago edited 5d ago
I feel like adults won’t find most kids funny, I have the same sense of humor that I had as a kid, I’ve always been into dead pan comedy and satire yet when I would make those same jokes as a kid or would do bits, adults just assumed I was being genuine or they would laugh and assume they were laughing at me, not with me and not get that I literally came up with the material with the intention of making them laugh. So I think a child comedian wouldn’t pan out very well
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u/Puzzleheaded-Mix6364 5d ago
My kids are the funniest humans I know. They almost have to be though because they are also the biggest pains in my asses. It's a type.of duality that's important to keep afloat. My daughter who is 7 when she wins at Mario party says" like and Subscribe to her name" and does a butchered wink at the end. It's hilarious. My son put spicey chips in the freezer to cook them down because we told them they are to hot to eat. Shit like this is ridiculously funny.
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u/NotTMNT 6d ago
There are absolutely kids that are extremely funny, and may perform a form of standup that appeals to their peers, we just don’t relate as well since we’re adults
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u/symb015X 6d ago
Great example - Bo Burnham’s early videos on YouTube were hilarious to fellow teens living in early 2000’s culture & sensibilities. His comedy and musical style evolved and improved as he got older. By 30 he actually made a song about how his old songs are problematic. Nowadays he took his own advice and almost entirely stays out of the spotlight, which we all hate him for because COME BACK WE LOVE YOU GIVE US MORE CONTENT CONTENT
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u/AnonymousMonk7 6d ago
See the meme of the “I smell like beef” toddler. She had dozens of viral videos and clearly had quite a sense of humor. Part of that must reflect the parents and mimicking ideas or sensibilities from other sources, but I feel like it shows that it absolutely can translate to adults as well.
When I think about my own kids being funny, it’s just like any joke where you start in one place and get an unexpected conclusion. Kids not knowing the right answer to questions sometimes actually helps point out how absurd things are or make surprising connections
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u/SpiralBreeze 6d ago
The best comedians had really rough childhoods. Most people who realize their kid is a genius, foster that and try to do what’s best for them, so if you had a really great childhood, it’s my opinion that you can’t be a great comedian, you have to have major pain from something that you turn into jokes.
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u/washington_breadstix 6d ago
I think your comment drives at a pretty important aspect of stand-up comedy, which is that we expect comedians to write and self-edit all their own material.
The same isn't really true of many of the art forms that have "child prodigies". A 10-year-old virtuoso violinist is probably still playing mostly pieces written by someone else and curated for him by an adult.
Child prodigies are way ahead of the curve in terms of the mechanical side of their craft, but just haven't lived long enough or matured enough to know how to create material that is relatable to other humans. And because we expect stand-up comics to bear 100% of the burden in that respect, it makes sense that there wouldn't be many child prodigy comedians.
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u/speedingpullet 6d ago
Because IQ doesn't equal EQ. Kids are wicked smart, but don't yet have the emotional experience to juxtapose two equal, but different, things together, which is what makes it funny.
Not to say that kids can't be funny - my 14 year old nephew often has me in stitches, especially when we're playing video games together! But he couldn't, and doesn't, practice it nor could he plan a routine - it just comes from the moment.
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u/RoastedRhino 3d ago
Because social interaction is not taught, is learned by experience.
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u/steveislame 3d ago
they can only imitate at that age. comedians usually start getting good late 20's to mid 30's.
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u/bearly_woke 6d ago
Plenty of famous comedians like Dave Chapelle and Eddie Murphy started doing standup in their teens. Amanda Bynes started when she was 10. It usually takes years to get anywhere in comedy so by the time they become famous they’re young adults.
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u/C4CTUSDR4GON 6d ago
Bo Burnham made it big very young. He's a musical comic so maybe doesn't count as standup? Still hilarious though.
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u/courderoycakes 6d ago
I was thinking of Amanda Bynes and Josh Peck! Didn’t they both start early as standup “child prodigies,” before TV stardom?
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u/Logictrauma 6d ago
“You ever notice that first graders walk on the playground like this? <proceeds to perform nervous walk with brief quick runs> but 3rd graders are all <walks while casually pantomiming bouncing a ball>
What’s that shit about?”
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u/ConjectureProof 5d ago
That actually isn’t true at all. There are lots of comedians who started when they were 13 - 15 years old. The biggest barrier is that talent, recognition, fame all take time to build and so, by the time any of these kids have all 3, they’re now adults
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u/vonsnape 5d ago
plus comedians tour relentlessly in nightclubs and bars. not the best environments for kids.
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u/CubicalWombatPoops 6d ago
It should be abundantly clear that intellect is not a requisite skill for stand up.
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u/cndynn96 6d ago
Idk I just searched “Child standup comedian” on YouTube and bunch of them came up
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u/Lazy-Interests 6d ago
Not actually stand up, but in the UK we had a sketch comedy show called School of Comedy, and everyone in it was a school kid. It was actually really good, Will Poulter’s first big break believe it or not.
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u/sovereign666 6d ago
I would struggle to name two skill sets that require more polar opposite utilization of the brain and life experience as math/chess and stand up comedy.
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u/barbzilla1 6d ago
Well there is one aspect in which they both equally progress. Experience is what truly defines a master in either situation. Otherwise, yeah those are two incredibly different things
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u/sovereign666 6d ago
I was more referring to the difference in left/right brain thinking and social experience.
A person can get really good at math or chess in a vacuum. Child prodigies at these pursuits live min/maxed lives at the expense of social development. Not always, but often enough. Whereas a good comedian might be someone that drove a taxi for 15 years and is twice divorced. Yes, both require tons of experience and there are no children outplaying magnus, often the kids we do see playing chess well just have really strong memorization skills. But the reason we don't see any kids doing comedy is because you cant teach life experience, it just comes with living and time passing.
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u/Axeman1E 6d ago
I had a conversation about this before, a kid prodigy is like AI in a sense. They can play the most difficult piano songs flawless or recite to you the entire periodic table in any order, but it's just memorization and doesn't have understanding behind it. If a kid says the word cat and people laugh, the kid now thinks people will laugh anytime he says cat. Comedy requires a high level of understanding (of something).
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u/bigmalakili 6d ago
Kids aren’t funny enough to do a full set.
They can toss out a zinger, a quick one-line response, but comedy comes from life experience…of which they have very little. That nuance that only time can afford is also part of understanding timing & delivery.
So you wind up with that awkward/cringy/try-hard type of comedy that’s just painful to watch.
It’s like watching Gary Coleman when he was a kid doing Diff’rent Strokes in the mid-80’s vs Eddie Murphy at the same time.
“WhatchuTalkinAbout, Willis?” is funny in that split second, but trying to pull that off into a 30 minute show just won’t cut it.
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u/Nesayas1234 6d ago
Because children being funny tends to be unintentional. I've yet to hear anyone in middle school or younger tell a really good and thought out joke, but I've heard plenty of kids accidentally say the funniest shit ever.
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u/TenTonFluff 6d ago
Standup is mostly about relativity, since they haven't observed nor experienced as much as an adult has. it makes sense that that sort of comedy isn't something biological or whatever you wanna call it.
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u/Slyxxer 6d ago
Yet kids can make other kids laugh because they have shared experiences. They just can't do this with an adult audience.
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u/Eyekyu13 6d ago
"Relatability" maybe? I think child genius would make light work of relativity, Special OR General.
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u/curmudgeon_andy 6d ago
Standup comedy tends to be vicious. They tend to skewer certain social models. We barely tolerate that in adults, and we would not tolerate that in children.
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u/PuzzleSwordfish 5d ago
Comedy requires some life experience as the character canvas to authentically paint narratives of different shades.
A child making adult jokes would not seem authentic or funny and a child's context is not easy to be adapted for adult entertainment.
The talent is there but context matters.
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u/skoda101 6d ago
If you want to watch adults get drunk and heckle children...that's what youth sports is for...
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u/Ranier_Wolfnight 6d ago
Kids life “experiences” at that point are a speck of sand and their young minds just aren’t equipped for that type of stuff yet.
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u/Berlin_Blues 6d ago
It seems every stand-up comedian complaines about his/her shitty childhood, so that might be a factor. They have yet to finish suffering through childhood.
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u/hammertime2009 6d ago
Standup comedy that will appeal to the masses (and more adults than kids) requires creativity that can only be developed with life experience. Experience that is much more difficult to read in a book. It also takes practice and confidence and developing those both take time.
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u/SnugglyCoderGuy 6d ago
Being comedic requires life experience. Children don't have much of it. There are probably some, but very rare I imagine.
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u/Robotic_space_camel 6d ago
That’s interesting, though I would much more put comedy into the “social” category of the brain that connects to other people, not the technical side. You definitely do have child technical geniuses, but I don’t know if I’ve ever heard of social geniuses before—children who are renowned as prodigies in poetry, politics, or other fields whose main skill gate is connecting with others rather than technical skill.
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u/Theletterkay 6d ago
Well done stand up is based on experiences that others can relate too. Often mature themed ones like jokes about parenting or in-law pains, work struggles. If you had a comedian only telling jokes about stuff from before they were 10 you would be exceptionally weirded out or extremely bored.
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u/Chalupachamp 6d ago
A lot of comedians get material from their dating lives, which is hard for children to do because most of the time when they match with someone on a dating app that person goes to prison.
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u/Gullyvuhr 6d ago
because comedy is based on relatability. if you can't relate to the joke it usually doesn't land. a genius, by nature, is someone the majority of folks can't relate to the experiences of and a child is someone without experiences, or the context by which people associate to them. that comes with age.
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u/dctrhu 6d ago edited 6d ago
The closest I can think is a British comedian called Jack Carroll, who rose to fame here in the UK as a stand-up at the age of 14
He placed second in Britain's Got Talent, and his act was a pretty cut-and-dry classic stand-up routine, and presumably he'd been doing it for at least a year or so before the appearance
However I think 13/14 is juuuust old enough that it wouldn't really be classed as a fully-fledged child for the purposes of this specific conjecture
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u/washington_breadstix 6d ago
Have you heard the type of shit that young kids consider funny? You can't really make an entire stand-up routine out of toilet humor and being "random" (well, unless you're Nick Swardson).
Even really smart kids have to gain quite a bit of real-world experience before they can come up with jokes that would draw an adult audience.
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u/roosterjack77 6d ago
Children need to have a broken childhood in order to become stand-up comedians
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u/seabass_goes_rawr 6d ago
You also don’t see children with adult level social awareness. A wonder if there’s a correlation /s
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u/Jinomoja 6d ago
I wonder how Saffron Herndon is doing these days.
She popped up a couple of years back as a 10 year old stand-up comedian.
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u/Due-Base9449 6d ago
There's a lot of funny children. Their stand up is in the classroom making the students laugh and the teacher angry.
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u/addledwino 6d ago
Wasn't Bill Hicks like 14 or 15 when he started doing stand up with his friend?
Update: correction, he was 13. That's pretty damn young for a comic.
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u/TooLazyToBeClever 6d ago
I think comedy has to come from a place of relatability. It's why a lot of big comedians lose their appeal (Seinfeld, Foxworthy, Louie etc). And it's hard to be relatable if you have no life experience.
While a lot of comedians do turn out to be very smart, I don't think intelligence is necessary. There's a lot of very dumb, very funny people.
TLDR: it's not how much juice is in the cup, it's how long you've been pouring it.
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u/Pizza_Guy8084 5d ago
As others have said, life experiences are the source of good stories. horrible experiences, unfortunately, make the best stories. If a child is a good comedian, they probably have a… storied childhood
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u/mathnerdm 4d ago
Imagine the set. Just literal observations or awkward silences because they don't get subtext yet. 'Why do adults buy shoes?' lol.
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u/MouthAnusJellyfish 4d ago
I actually was one! I started just before I turned 17, got myself kicked out of a lot of clubs and bars for being too young at the time. Now, nearly a decade later, I live in NYC and perform around the city!
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u/unexistingpromise 3d ago
Also, adults feel guilty laughing at a kid's self-deprecating jokes. We don't do that with peers.
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u/gerowen 4d ago edited 4d ago
The best comedians tell real stories about their life and the world. You have to have some life experience and self awareness. Sure, kids can repeat a joke, but can they sit down and come up with a decent set that'll last 30 minutes and land with audiences? Probably not.
Understanding things like math is easy for child prodigies. Understanding humans on the other hand, not so much.
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u/MysteriousB 6d ago
It would be like this:
School cafeteria food amirite?
6-7 gesture followed by fart noises
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u/TheSerpentLord 6d ago
Like other people already said, real comedy comes from life experiences and relatability. Something those kids inherently lack and will lack for many years to come.
Not to mention, the abusive parents that push them into talent shows are banking on math and poetry recitation being more "respectable" and thus giving them a bigger chance to win competitions. If they'd simply force the kids to memorize jokes, no jury would take them seriously.
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u/curmudgeon_andy 6d ago
Kids have plenty of real life experience. And most of them have had experiences that are pretty relatable.
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u/PaddywackShaq 6d ago
Stand up comedy comes from mental illness, chronic depression and life experience. Most children don't have those yet
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u/seapeple 6d ago
What the hell are you talking about? In my school we had quite a few elite-level class clowns (myself included). It’s just that their humor was appropriate for that age, and it wouldn’t be funny to adults.
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u/jzemeocala 6d ago
Idk....i used to break my teachers poker face all the time right before I was sent to detention
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u/HaggisPope 6d ago
Kids can be funny but it’s definitely more of an improvisational quality. Standup is a particular routine
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