Vulnerable but not too vulnerable

I was watching a comedian a few weeks ago who did a lot of jokes about being alone, sexually frustrated and overweight and frequently, instead of a laugh, he got responses of 'awww'.  Sympathy instead of laughter.  This often happens with self deprecating humor.  Or if you are expose too much you can make people too uncomfortable to laugh.  There is a thin line between comedy and a tragic monologue as you'd expect to find in an Ibsen play.

This happened to me recently in trying out a joke for my new show.  I recalled a funny situation which occurred dating somebody else who had been through some childhood trauma.

At the point where I say to a woman in the audience 'don't worry, you can laugh', I had seen her covering her mouth and trying to stifle laughter.  She found it funny, but felt guilty for laughing.  It was too honest.  I was exposing too much.  Instead of laughter, I got sympathy.  Which is not to say I have not got laughs talking about childhood trauma, loneliness, self loathing, suicidal thoughts or despair before.  In truth, if I didn't talk about my vulnerabilities, I would not have an act.  It's just a matter of being VULNERABLE BUT NOT TOO VULNERABLE.

Sometimes just altering my performance is enough.  If I talk about something horrible in my past or a deep insecurity with a big smile on my face and a confident veneer, the indicator is, 'I'm totally ok with this, you can laugh'.  This is all very well if I am actually OK with it, but sometimes faking it is necessary.  This can backfire.  If you make a self deprecating joke about something you're still insecure about and the audience laughs because you're acting, you are helping them bully you.  I once told a friend to stop doing a certain joke about her weight, not because she wasn't getting a big laugh, I just saw that it was making her miserable to get that laugh. 

I think the best place to alter the joke is at the conceptual stage.  At times I will do a little factual alteration.  For instance if I tell a painful story about my relationship with my father, but make it an uncle, that distance makes the story feel more fictional.  With the 'minefield' joke above, in draft two I may try looking into triggers in conversation not in the bedroom, or come up with an absurd way to illustrate the point.

Case in point, recently I tried another joke about pain.  This one was more successful because I enveloped it in an absurd idea for a holiday.  

See.  Suicidal thoughts can be a punchline.