One of the most fun things you can do on Twitter is engage in the Hashtag Wars. This is a great concept from the Comedy Central show @midnight.

Sometimes the hashtags chosen don't have wide appeal. But occasionally they go completely berserk, such as with the recent hashtag #ShartCelebs. When searching for it I was amazed at just how many people were coming up with funny contributions. I even cranked out a few myself, when usually I just retweet them.

Made me contemplate why this one was so popular ... 

Scatology

I think it's because of the universality of the components. Scatological humor works pretty well everywhere, any time because everyone has to go to the toilet, let's face it. And we're all a bit embarrassed about this basic bodily function. So the tension it produces can easily be milked for laughs. 

Puerility

Making jokes about bodily functions allows us to relive the intoxicating joy of being a potty-mouthed kid again. Absolutely no one is immune to this temptation. 

Celebrity

Then there's the celebrity element. In this media drenched age, we can all rattle off the names of numerous world famous actors, singers, TV hosts, and various other entertainers without much trouble. So it's very easy to come up with ideas for tweets. 

Disdain

Then there's the motivation: While many of these famous folk are well loved by fans, they also provoke an equal amount of loathing. We could all name several household names that immediately provoke in us a feeling of utter disdain. And what better way to express this than by associating their names with the act of defecation? Better still, we can get many others to read these bon mots and express their enjoyment of them through retweets, etc. 

Basically, the #ShartCelebs hashtag was an excellent way to tell the world these egocentric idiots annoy the crap out of us. It was a perfect shartstorm of democratic derision!

UPDATE: Not sure if this was planned or not, but they've had another shart-themed hashtag war. This time it was #ShartBooks. Again, a huge response. 

Not surprisingly there were quite a lot of identical creations. For example, I came up with The Da Vinci Load. Most pleased with myself, I searched to see if anyone else had thought of this. Sure enough, dozens had. 

I checked for another one I'd thought of: Crapillon. I thought this would be entirely original. Sadly, not to be. At least one other tweep had pipped me to the post. 

Just goes to show there's nothing new under the pun, eh!

In the last six months or so I have been been thinking about getting back into standup comedy again. But for various reasons I'm not as emotionally and physically robust as I used to be (and I was always pretty highly strung back then, too!). 

Also, I've just turned fifty. This wouldn't be a problem if I didn't have a long hiatus from live performance. But it looms large when you're "not in training" so to speak. I'm starting to think that I might just be a bit old for this. After all, comedy is a pretty intense experience. You need to be a bit reckless. And I'm not sure if I've got enough of that spirit left in the tank. Well, I'll see how things pan out ...

Contradictory qualities required

In any case this desire to recapture the thrill of making people laugh has got me thinking about what kind of a person is actually attracted to doing standup. The medium demands an odd combination of psychological qualities, that's for sure.

It requires equal parts maturity, and immaturity. You have to know enough about human nature to be able to psychologically manipulate people en masse in order to make them laugh. Yet at the same time you have to be brazen, silly, and basically immature enough to actually want to do this. (And even just wanting to is not even enough. You have to need to do it!)

A big dollop of cynicism doesn't go astray either. I think that even if a standup is not overtly cynical, comedy routines almost always contain mockery of people and/or institutions. I know some comics do try to be overwhelmingly positive, joyous and life affirming. But they're usually the least funny ones!

It's a fine line

That said, you can't only be disdainful and derisive. You have to emanate some love of humanity. This will make the audience warm to you. And you can't be too much of a loner, either. Live comedy is a communal experience if ever there was one. So you have to convey the sense that you identify with your audience; that "we're all in this together".

The medium of standup is quite a tightrope act when you think about it -- even more so if you are literally walking a tightrope at the same time, which I'm sure some comics have tried ...