1399: The Hardest Job in the World

[myq]

Originally Posted by skeetshart69

OK. So Myq basically rocked the question...

Aww.
That's nice.
In exchange for saying a nice thing, here is slightly more (or at least rephrased) rocking...

I believe that the best standup comics, whatever measure one can make of that, will by and large have the most experience under their belts.

I believe that prodigies can exist in any art form, standup included, but that in standup especially, being a prodigy is even rarer than in most other performing arts, if not only because the sense of humor generally doesn't develop until post-single digit ages, at least (whereas Mozart was demonstrating genius at 4 or 5, I hear, and there are many examples of dancers, musicians, singers, and such being naturals at that age as well).

Studies have shown that most kids don't even really fully understand sarcasm until their brains are more developed, that some of the mechanisms necessary for comedy just aren't there yet.

I'm not saying there couldn't be a hilarious 4-year-old, but I think a 4-year-old genius is less likely to be a genius at standup than any of those other arts. (This is on topic, right? Jesse is mad at people who do standup when they're 4?)

That said, if someone is a natural at being funny, but they've never done standup specifically, it's certainly possible for them to be better out of the gate than someone who's less of a natural (unnaturally funny? that sounds even better). And depending HOW natural they are, and what kind of upbringing they had (lots of kids, needed to be hilarious to stand out to parents? listened to lots of standup comedy? did improv or sketch or some other kind of comedy? was a writer of comedy of some kind?), that could certainly inform how good they are off the bat.

But even with all that, that person would not be as good as they could be with 20+ years of experience under their belt (most likely/in general/who knows).

For the most part, doing it makes you better at doing it.
(Not that there aren't people who have been doing it for a long time that aren't as good as some other people who have just started... time and work put in certainly isn't the ONLY thing necessary to become great. But it is one of the things generally necessary to become the greatest.)

[Bucho]

Myq is an hilarious, useful, brilliant, intriguing and intelligent gentleman.

An hilariouseful, brilliantriguing intelligentleman.

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!!!

[myq]

Originally Posted by Bucho

Myq is an hilarious, useful, brilliant, intriguing and intelligent gentleman.

An hilariouseful, brilliantriguing intelligentleman.

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!!!

At first, I didn't see the "M" at the end there, and thought that you were giving yourself an extremely thorough (and undeserved) booing. (I especially like "intelligentleman.")

Grappreciatituded!