It's Okay if Stand-Up Comedy is Only a Hobby

Andy’s Comedy Tip #6

I recently caught up with a friend that I met doing open mics. For a few years she had pursued stand-up comedy consistently, but then she got a new job, life got busy, and she stopped.

Recently, she has been considering doing it again but she’s apprehensive. She admitted that she missed stand-up, but only wanted to do it as a hobby. She was worried how that would be perceived by the open mic community. 

Most of the advice you read about stand-up comedy assumes you want to be a professional stand-up comedian, which is an incredibly difficult journey that requires a tremendous amount of sacrifice and dedication. But it is also okay to do stand-up as a hobby. Stand-up is fun. You can go to an open mic once a week, once a month, or even once a year if you want and just enjoy getting on stage and trying to make people laugh. There is nothing wrong with that at all.

Lots of people play tennis or golf once or twice a year. Maybe they even take a class or a lesson every once in a while, because it’s fun. And when they do, they enjoy themselves. They’re not trying to get into Wimbledon or the U.S. Open. They are doing something casually that they enjoy without any illusions.

If you enjoy stand-up or want to try it, but have no aspirations to become a professional comedian, do it! And yes, you will likely run into the driven, ambitious comic determined to do as many open mics as possible until they are discovered and become famous. And they might resent you for treating it like a hobby and shun you at the local open mic. But that’s on them, not you. That’s their insecurity. The reality is every comic should welcome you at open mics because you are a great audience member for them to test new material on.

The most annoying open mic comic is the comic who fronts like they are working hard and wants to do comedy professionally but treats it like a hobby. They show up a lot, but do the same half-baked, tired jokes, get drunk before, during, and after the mic, and confidently give advice to new open mic comics like they’re Jerry Seinfeld. But, if you treat it like a hobby, it’s a hobby. And it’s fine if it’s a hobby as long as you’re honest with yourself about what you’re doing.

To be a professional comic you need to write every day, get on stage every day, edit, revise, test, try, experiment, watch and listen and analyze your tapes, watch and analyze other comics, hang out with comics, find a writing group, produce a bar show, support shows, and more. It’s a lot. It takes a lot of time and energy and needs to be your number one focus the same way a professional athlete approaches their craft.

But if you like going to an open mic, socializing, maybe having a drink, getting on stage and trying a few things you thought of over the past few weeks or months, do it! If you want to take a comedy class to meet some people, improve your public speaking and help get your feet under you so you can do a little better at open mics, do it! And have fun! Any aspiring professional comic with half a brain should welcome you with open arms.