Why are we paying hundreds to answer ‘what’s your job’?

Aussies have always loved a laugh. A large portion of our identity has been traditionally associated with banter, skylarking, tomfoolery and mateship – among various other larrikin pursuits.

Ever since owning a house became an entire personality, rather than a place to keep your stuff, we don’t laugh as much. Aspiration and humour are not bedfellows. Humour has diminishing returns as you move up the classes. You won’t hear much laughter bouncing around the walls of a mansion.

It is good for business to be funny. It’s why “good sense of humour” is often listed as a prerequisite for a relationship. It’s also why rich men try to crack jokes.

Stand-up comedy is experiencing something of a boom. People want to talk about it. People want to do it (so long as it makes them rich). Mostly, though, people want to go and watch it.

Who you choose to watch is symptomatic.

We all want our life choices validated. It’s why we flock to legacy bands on superannuation tours. When they stagger out, it can be a shock to discover just how long ago it was we were happy.

We do it anyway because we want to be part of something big, and then get to say we were there. That’s how lonely we are.

Stand-up comedy used to be someone telling jokes and other people laughing at them, or not. There was not a lot of choice. There was ribaldry. There were questionable opinions. There were words we wouldn’t say today, although some of these political freedom fighters are striving very hard for their constitutional right to regress. But there were always jokes.

The trendiest form of live comedy right now is crowd work, which used to be the job of an emcee at the beginning of a show, or a method deployed to curry favour with an audience when material was failing. Now you can experience a couple of consecutive hours of it in a basketball arena, with thousands of others wanting to be asked why they chose to wear such a stupid T-shirt.

Ever since comedians installed mirrors where their desks used to be, we’ve had a much better selection of performers who have refined their skill of asking people they’ve just clapped eyes on what their occupation is. This behaviour used to be confined to dinner parties and barbecues.

Now we can all go and watch someone divulging their marital or employment status in a stadium. Peak enchantment is situated in the incredulous reaction of the inquirer – some loudmouth scream-repeating the answer into a microphone, so the three-figure-price-tag cheap-seat occupiers can enjoy the magic of small talk getting beamed up on a big screen.

Best joke of the night? Probably the one where that fat guy got asked his name. Then he hesitated when he had to say how long he’d been married.

The wife he dragged along certainly knew.

Or maybe it was the proctologist! (That’s the one where people turn up at emergency with figurines and the likes wedged in their bottoms.) Surely he was a plant. Or maybe when he said, “Nice shoes, idiot!” to a hapless front-row occupant.

It feels so personal. It’s just like a friend up there chatting with us. In fact, if circumstances were a little different, we’d probably be mates, except for the part where money changes hands. Maybe the add-on meet-and-greet package will do the trick.

We’ve reached a stage where our heroes are required to be exactly like us. That’s how much we love/hate ourselves.

I, for one, would rather never associate with someone who acts like they’re clever. It’s condescending. I think that’s the one where someone thinks they’re better than me, based on absolutely nothing … except being better than me.

Crowd-work comedy has been a godsend for the dense. The rise of the stupid has not received a shot in the arm of this magnitude since we pulped all the encyclopaedias and replaced them with podcasts, convened by groups of neckheads distilling information into bite-sized philosophy.

The simpleton recruitment process has been very effective. Joining their ranks is as easy as stopping reading, resenting anyone who may be smarter than you and then vocalising your mental complacency. The final step in consolidating your mediocrity is paying a week’s wage to watch like-minded mid-wits exchanging icebreakers with a miked-up millionaire salesman.

Luke Heggie will present his show I Won’t Say It Again at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival from April 7 to 19 and the Sydney Comedy Festival from April 29 to May 10.

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