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Back to #2571 - Jimmy Carr, with Jimmy Carr.

Why Don't Joke Books Match a Comedy Show?

Jimmy Carr says there are no books of jokes that match a show, because comedy is two-way communication and it lives in the room, in the space between the comic and the crowd. Reading the routines is not just as good as watching them.

At a comedy show, people agree to a journey of line crossing. They allow someone to say something they probably do not really mean, because it is funny and the laugh is good for everybody. Social media does the polar opposite. It takes someone's words out of context, paints them in the least charitable light possible, and with jokes fixates on the verbiage as if the line were a statement or testimony in court about an event. The joke was never that kind of claim.

A Joe Rogan joke book of routines over the years would still fail the same test. The laugh needs the people in the room. Even specials keep only 60 to 70 percent of what it is like to be there.

Grokipedia·Jimmy Carr·Joe Rogan

Transcript

#2571 - Jimmy Carr ·

The Joe Rogan Experience

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