Ezn’s Guide to Riffing
--- By Ezn, R1NGmasterJ5, and Nuke_Equestria ---
So you want to make fun of people’s hard work do you? Well, that makes you a terrible person. Go give yourself forty lashes for thinking such wicked thoughts!
Back yet? Alright, good. So if you’re serious about this riffing business, there are a few things that you need to know. Just keep these rules in mind, and you may actually be funny. No promises, though:
Thanks for reading, and have fun!
Back yet? Alright, good. So if you’re serious about this riffing business, there are a few things that you need to know. Just keep these rules in mind, and you may actually be funny. No promises, though:
- Don’t make obscure references. You know that awesome show you watched on that foreign TV channel late last night? The one that made you laugh with all its in-jokes and references to esoteric knowledge? It was great, wasn’t it? Too bad no-one else in the world has ever seen it.
Now, don’t get me wrong, pop culture references are a staple element of good comedy, and I definitely do not want to discourage you from making them. But the thing is, that “pop” in “pop culture” is short for “popular”. If you reference obscure hipster things, you’re severely limiting the number of people who are going to find your jokes funny, and therefore devaluing yourself as a human being.
For example, when using YouTube references: If the video you’re referencing is years old and has less than a million views, it’s unlikely that many of the readers will know what you’re talking about. “Save a pretzel for the gas jets” is more likely to be known by the readers than a lyric from that new band you just discovered with 100 views in two years.
- Brevity is the soul of wit. The best riffs are only as long as they need to be. Often, the funniest and most memorable ones don’t even span more than one line of text. Don’t write essays in your comments. One funny idea per riff is more than enough.
Here’s what you should avoid:
“John Sparkle wuz Twilight Sparkle’s brother who wreked in an office.”
VerboseMcWordypants: Oh my, look at all those spelling mistakes! It seems this author makes as many spelling mistakes as he makes implausible pony names! And why is Twilight related to John anyway? This is not canon! We have not seen John Sparkle on the show! Oh, but I guess it’s fanfiction, so that’s probably why? Aren’t I silly sometimes(*cough* self deprecation *cough*)! And another thing, do they even have offices in Equestria? Don’t ponies just frolic in fields all day?
- Make jokes, don’t point out faults. Yes, we can see there’s a spelling mistake there. We can see that that sentence is comma spliced to hell and back. We can see that the writer has used “chagrin” one too many times. Any reader who cares about that sort of thing is perfectly able to notice it without you pointing it out.
What can you do with that error to make it funny? That’s what you need to be asking yourself here. We’re not editors; we’re jokers. Try reading the sentence again, and pretend there aren’t any errors. Pretend the author meant exactly what they wrote, and riff off that.
Example:
Twilight able to keep herself standing...
Ezn: This sentence needs a verb. WRONG.
Ezn: Ezn able to point out missing “was”. RIGHT.
- Keep it simple, stupid. This ties into the brevity comment above. The worst thing you can do when telling a joke is explain that joke afterwards. It kills the humour, and will often make you look pretentious and full of yourself (“Oh look at me, I made a joke! Here’s how I did it, aren’t I clever? Please love me!”).
Example of what to avoid:
Ponies, being a hardy, largely pacifistic folk, had slowly become the majority in world population (but only just so).
Ezn: We are the 50.1%. #OccupyEarth That’s what all the ponies updated their Twitter accounts with that day, just before heading off to protest.
Don’t you think that joke works so much better without the red text?
- Keep personal attacks on authors to a minimum. Stay classy with your riffing, guys. The author of a particular piece may be a jerk, sure, and s/he is obviously not the greatest of writers, but there’s a saying: “play the ball, not the man”. If you need to result to insulting the author personally, that just reflects badly on your riffing skills.
That said, it is sometimes appropriate to rag on the author a little, perhaps for an oft repeated grammar mistake, or a slightly disturbing worldview. Try to keep it good-natured.
- Swallow your pride. Sometimes, you’re going to come up with a truly hilarious joke, but for one or more reasons (obscurity of reference, humour preferences of others, the alignment of the stars) other people won’t find it funny, and it’ll get deleted. This happens to all of us. Not every joke can be funny. Not every joker can always have a hit. Be graceful about, and move on.
- It’s not all about you: You aren’t the only one commenting here. There’s other people commenting just as much as you are, so you might want to check if they’ve already made the same joke you have. If they did, and you still want to post the one you thought up, ask yourself, “Is this almost the exact same as that person’s joke? Will it still work if that person’s comment is right before it? Is it different enough to work with the other joke without one overshadowing the other, or vice-versa?” If the answer to any of those is a no, move on.
Thanks for reading, and have fun!