Earlier I wrote about how standup comedy fulfils a social need for stress relief. In this way, comics often have more than a little in common with sex workers. 

Interestingly, former porn star turned comedienne Alia Janine has said as much in an insightful article for Laughspin. In it she lists five aspects that make the two professions similar, one of them being that they both attract people with "issues". 

Then there’s the personal demons that stem from our childhood experiences like alcohol and drug abuse, depression, overactive sex drives, abusive tendencies, and on and on. We all have issues, and we all have skeletons in our closet. How we deal with those issues is part of what makes us who we are. Comics and pornstars tend to have very similar childhoods, but comics choose to use comedy to express themselves and pornstars choose sex. Neither is the right or wrong way; it’s just how that person is wired. And then there’s also many comics and pornstars that have had “normal” childhoods, but still chose their professions. The two groups just tend to click; they get each other.

I think there's a lot of truth to these observations ... She also makes the valid point that both genres are low on the entertainment food chain. It's almost guaranteed that you're never going to become movie star rich in either of them. 

Related to this aspect is how they are perceived by people generally. They are seen as second rate genres in their respective spheres. Comedy, by definition, isn't to be taken seriously -- unlike drama. So a brilliant standup comic will never achieve much respect as an artist unless he branches out into acting and delivers an emotionally deep and complex performance in a well known film or theatre production. 

Needless to say, porn actors are laughed at and looked down on. They are seen as the gold standard for excruciating incompetence in this craft.

There's one other similarity that comes to mind. That is that they are both one dimensional genres compared to other forms of entertainment. Standup is all about getting laughs. Everything is subordinate to that goal. And with porn it's about pretty much nothing other than giving the viewer an orgasm. 

As I get older, I look back on my years of performing comedy and see them from an increasingly detached perspective. Now that I'm over fifty, and a lot less gung ho than I used to be, it's clearer than ever to me that aspiring to be a professional funny person is a very unusual thing to want to do. There's hardly any money in it, apart from anything else. So more and more these days I keep looking at comedy and thinking, what's the purpose of all this? 

Well, it does have purpose -- dare I say it, a serious one. Making people laugh is a worthwhile thing to do, even if it does look frivolous. Imagine if no one was allowed to laugh about stuff. What a miserable life it would be.

Laughter is a release mechanism. It relaxes people. It makes them feel that things aren't so bad. Laughing along with scores of other people at, say, a standup comedy venue, can also give people a powerful sense of belonging. So it has a valuable social cohesion function.  

It can also bolster a collective sense of morality. Much in the same way that we like to know that the bad guy gets thrown in jail, we also like to laugh when the mighty fall. Take the Donald Sterling case. Everyone was laughing at that when it was in the headlines ... 

I've been thinking about other services that people provide to compare with comedy. And one that seems to have some notable similarities is sex work (no, I'm not joking). 

A laugh is like a little orgasm, after all. It's a pleasure hit for the audience member. And a bigger one for the comic. Plus he or she gets paid -- well, hopefully! In both comedy and sex work, the performers are often not rewarded financially. 

And I do think there's more exploitation that occurs in comedy venues than in any red light district. This is because a lot of funny buggers really need the laughs. They'll perform for free so they can get them! And a lot of them have contradictory confidence issues. They can be bold enough to get up in front of an audience and bare their souls for yucks. But they're often too timid to ask for a raise, or even payment in the first place. Odd. 

Obviously, if you're performing for laughs you're not selling your body, or even selling your soul. But you are doing something that's quite scary and stressful. You're certainly "out there" and crossing a lot of boundaries. And while you may not be physically naked and exposed, in an emotional sense you are! 

There's also a kind of intimacy that comics develop with their audience. This might not be the case so much with political or satirical comics or commentators. But it is often the case with stand up comedians who do self-deprecating stuff, particularly about their own lives. And there are a lot of those.

Clearly the audience appreciates it -- as long as it doesn't get desperate and creepy of course. Fans do kind of fall in love with comics -- not just in spite of their faults and frailties but because of them.

And a lot of comics do crave this weird kind of love. So, it's no surprise that psychological issues are common in the profession. Many of them are degrading themselves publicly in search of affection. That can't be healthy. And there's no denying that a lot of hookers are drawn to that world because they are damaged souls in search of love and intimacy. 

It's a well established fact that many stand up and character comedians are addicted to drugs and booze. And the list of famous comics who died from overdoses is very long. Sure, they're by no means the only people who struggle with addiction, but they do seem to be over-represented as a group. And while many of them do actually die as a result of these struggles, a lot of them seem to keep on keeping on quite happily with some chemical assistance! 

This tendency has fascinated me since I started doing comedy back in Melbourne in the early 1990s. Being a total square who only drank a bit of red wine occasionally and didn't indulge in any other drugs, I was certainly in a very small minority.

Culture plays a part

It astonished me how much drug use there was amongst my peers. Dope in particular was a big part of the whole scene. Harder drugs were used on occasion. From time to time you'd hear about how some bloke or other had become hooked on smack, or, hearteningly, had actually managed to kick that particular habit.

I think part of the reason so many are into drugs in comedy is to do with culture. To make jokes about society, you have to be on the outside looking in. Thumbing your nose at normality becomes a running state. You get much material from staying off the straight and narrow. It's easy to see how drugs can easily become part of that process.

This abnormal, or rather anti-normal lifestyle, becomes a kind of norm in itself. Sharing a joint with your fellow comedians is much like having knock off drinks at the local pub, a common ritual for many who work nine to five.

Psychological issues 

Then there's the fact that comedians, like other creative artists, are flawed people with more issues than most. They are often deeply angry and depressed. These dark inner processes are what fuels their humor. Being so sensitive they find it hard to stay on an even keel and end up self-medicating.

The thrill of performance

And I think there's one element that often gets missed. That's the addictive nature of performing comedy itself. It really is an exhilarating experience. Daring to get up in front of a whole bunch of people and win them over with your presence, delivery and material is an extremely risky thing to attempt. When it works it's a real high, no doubt about it. Each laugh you get gives you a jolt of endorphins. And if you have an exceptionally good gig, well, you're walking on air for hours ... 

The kind of person who is drawn to it is often a special kind of adrenaline junkie. He gets hooked on getting laughs! But he can't be doing it every night. So he has to press those buttons in the brain in some other way when he can't get his performance "fix". Hence the use of chemical replacements.

What do you think? Any other reasons so many comics have drug and alcohol issues? 

I pretty much stopped doing live comedy over ten years ago for various reasons. One of these was because I discovered the internet, specifically blogging, as a great way to express myself. 

The blogosphere

I actually preferred it to doing standup because as I got older I really wanted to express opinions; I wanted to be taken seriously, Goddamnit!

Well, not all the time, of course. I still wanted to amuse people occasionally. But I didn't want to be restricted by the relentless requirement that I get a laugh every ten seconds or so for twenty minutes or more. Also, blogging was a lot less nerve-racking than performing live. In any case I figured I could amass heaps of material in written posts that I could eventually put into stand up routines if and when I got back into it. 

Twitter

Aside from a couple of one-offs in the mid noughties I did zero live comedy. As a result of blogging in about 2010 I got into Twitter. I loved using it because it was so focused. It's just fantastic for following a specific interest and connecting with people who share it. 

Still maintaining a keen interest in comedy, with a long term view to performing again, I built this site and started a Twitter account for it. What I discovered was that the social network was just teeming with comedians. 

Sure, no matter what your interest or profession is, you'll find countless tweeps who are into it. But it does seem that comics are over-represented as profession.

Performing for laughs is a rare thing to do, after all. It's certainly more unusual than being being a dentist. The world is full of decaying teeth, so there'll always be plenty of dentists to fulfil that need. But how many of them are there on Twitter? Quite a few without a doubt but I'm willing to bet there are more comics -- or at least proportionally more.

Twitter's appeal

Clearly there are aspects of Twitter that make it very attractive to people who get paid to make people laugh, or aspire to. 

The length of tweets is a big factor. Some people find this frustratingly short. But those 140 characters are perfect for one liners. And you can judge which of those you've sent are deemed funniest by your followers by counting the number of LOLs and LMAOs in mentions as well as retweets and favorites. You can also do this by posting videos of your routines. 

YouTube

Speaking of videos, YouTube is also chockas with funny buggers. In fact I think a lot of them just perform for the camera as opposed to live audiences, and build substantial followings that way.

Actually, it's like a whole new medium for comedic performance. I doubt it will ever usurp the traditional one, however. Standing before scores of people in a venue and making them laugh out loud is a huge thrill, and hard to beat. It's also more fun for the audience. Laughing is pleasurable of course, but there's also the sense of togetherness that live comedy fans experience.

Tumblr 

The sense of belonging you get from social media can be substantial, however. Not only do users seek that with others who share their interests and passions, they also like to be amongst people who are similar demographically. That's one of the reasons comedians -- who tend to be youngish inner city types -- are also heavily into Tumblr.

Still, it seems that Twitter is the preferred option for comics. As well as the benefits mentioned above, it's also a hub for booking agents and venue owners. And they're so easy to find. If you build a decent following and some buzz on the site, you can get noticed by these gatekeepers and score live gigs, thereby lifting your profile on the circuit more quickly than you would have otherwise.