Clarification
A lot has been made about my “Sucking Witstream Dick” comment the other day, so let me just clarify it. First and foremost, I don’t have a problem with Witstream. I have numerous friends and acquaintances on the site. Do I think their invites are arbitrary? Of course, and I’ve joked about it in the past… but let’s be realistic here, they have to be. In order to put what they think is the best product out there, they have to choose who they see fit. That’s just common sense. The comment was made because I’ve seen a few people who played the Favstar game for months and months for their own benefit and then kicked all those people they pretended to support to the curb as soon as they thought they were someone. Next thing you know they’re following hardly anyone and their timeline is filled with mostly @’s to other Witstreamers, and FF’s kissing up to the most popular ones. To me, that’s fucked up. It was nothing more than a return-fire cheap shot at someone who was attempting to take cheap shots at me, so everyone can stop blowing it out of proportion now. I take heat for following as many people as I do all the time, but I don’t make a big deal about it because I don’t give a shit. No offense to Favstar or Witstream, but when I get random DMs from people with 50 followers that say things like “My mother is losing her battle with cancer, thank you for being an inspiration since I know you lost someone close to you recently too,” or “I’m going through a really ugly divorce, thanks for the daily laughs and smiles,” that means a whole hell of a lot more to me than how many stars my tweets get, or getting an invite to a comedy website. People can insult that shit all they want, I don’t need their approval.
So can we move on and get back to the comedy now?
DM Conversation
This is a recent conversation with the over 140 character replies merged together for easier reading:
Him: Dude your probably the funniest fucker on here. Love your tweets.
Me: Thanks… I appreciate the positive feedback.
Him: You do stand up too? I didn’t know that.
Me: Once in a while, yeah.
Him: Once in a while? You should be doing that shit all the time dude your funny as fuck.
Me: Ehh, I write and run a business too so my time is limited… but it’s mostly because I also raise my son on my own in upstate New York so traveling frequently really isn’t an option unless I never want to see him. I’m perfectly content with once a month or so.
Him: Oh shit I just noticed your in Syracuse? I’m in (his town, somewhat close.) You should come do a show at (club in his town.)
Me: Yeah, I’ve been there actually. Did a 15 minute set there a couple months ago.
Him: Oh shit I missed the Fornicator? You shoulda tweeted that shit dude. You should tweet where every time you do one. You could be huge.
Me: Nah man, I don’t self promote. That’s for people trying to make a living with it or break into it full time. Like I said, I’m perfectly content with every once in a while.
Him: What about the Thirty Dozen?
Me: The Twirty Dozen? That’s a little different. I put that together to give decent new comedians a chance to open for established guys, and give the established guys a chance to perform in front of a Twitter-based crowd. It was a way to help out the comedians but also get everyone together for a good time tweet-up style. I put it on hold for a bit after my sister passed away though.
Him: Sorry bout that. Thats fucking cool tho dude. You should do one at (the club in his town again.)
Me: Yeah, that’s too small for something like that. I need bigger venues to be able to afford to pay the bigger name comedians. We’ll definitely be doing one in Boston though, and I might even set one up in Syracuse at some point too.
Him: Fuck dude make sure you let me know. You got any videos of you I can check out?
The next day:
Him: Yo dude I said you got any videos I can check out?
20 minutes later:
Him: Why aren’t you answering me dude?
15 minutes later:
Him: Yo Fornicator……….. answer me dude. You got any videos or what?
10 minutes later:
Him: Knock knock anybody home? Why aren’t you answering me dude?
Me: Relax man. I don’t sit on Twitter all day, I get to messages when I can. No, I don’t have any videos posted anywhere. I might post some on my Facebook “fan” page at some point, who knows? I took screen shots of what I consider my worthwhile tweets to make them easier to flip through in picture form, so you can go to that page and check out the albums if you want.
Him: What kind of comedian doesn’t even have videos? Are you even a real comedian? Give me a link to the page.
10 Minutes later:
Him: Yo dude wheres the link?
10 minutes later:
Him: Helloooooo………. Fornicator……. give me the link dude.
5 minutes later:
Him: What the fuck dude answer me.
5 minutes later:
Him: Why you ignoring me dude. You think your Mr. Big Shot or something?
5 minutes later:
Him: Dude your not even a real comedian. Your tweets fucking suck and your not even funny.
2 Minutes later:
Him: I hope you come to (club in his town) again so I can show up with a bunch of friends and heckle you. We’ll bring plenty of tomatos too. Hope your ready for us. Hahahahaha.
2 minutes later:
Him: Fucking wannabe comedian loser. You think your a big shot with all those followers but you don’t even have any videos. Hahahaha. Can’t wait to see you in (his town) again. Fucking loser.
At this point I see his crazy replies and block him… and this folks, is exactly why I don’t use my account to self-promote or avoid attaching “Mr. Fornicator” to any of the shows I do. Too many fucking weirdos out there. I do this shit to have some fun and make people laugh, not to have every moron I’ve ever offended with a tweet or whatever else show up and ruin it.
Phone Call
Her: Hi Jamie… this is Martha from the student loan collections office. I’m showing that you have a balance of $35,467.32… would you like to pay that in full today?
Me: Hold on, let me get my wallet out. (Short pause) Oh… shit… what a coincidence, I just happen to have that EXACT amount on me right now. Should I just start feeding the bills directly into the phone?
To the people who think I knowingly ripped off The Sulk… there’s a HUGE difference between random coincidence and repeatedly stealing from the same person over and over again. Spins on the 99 problems joke have been done a million times… just like the life handing you lemons joke. How many words rhyme with Jay-Z? Having a similar joke or thought process on occasion happens to everyone. He’s overlapped me in reverse a couple times too, as you can see by the picture. Neither one of us are thieves… it just happens. When it happens 10 or 15 times with the same person over and over though, it’s no longer a coincidence and it’s obviously intentional. Comparing a thieving clown who has repeatedly jacked my tweets to isolated coincidental incidents between The Sulk and I is just absurd.
How to be funny on Twitter…
One way to do it is to be clever and original. However, it can be extremely difficult to do that consistently on a daily basis. With that in mind, this is a step by step guide on how to reword other people’s jokes to gain that popularity and funny man label you covet so badly.
The first thing you need to do is find someone whose jokes you really like. Once you’ve done that, you can take a joke like this:
http://favstar.fm/users/MrFornicator/status/189789782753288193
And reword it into something like this:
http://favstar.fm/users/Burgee66/status/192238301334339584
Never stop at just one though. The only way to get really good at it is to do it numerous times. Practice makes perfect people, so don’t be lazy. Try turning something like this:
http://favstar.fm/users/MrFornicator/status/178289850015944704
Into something like this:
http://favstar.fm/users/Burgee66/status/204389712058781697
Or maybe something like this:
http://favstar.fm/users/MrFornicator/status/121991714138374144
Into something like this:
http://favstar.fm/users/Burgee66/status/201717527120850944
You also don’t need to steal the entire joke, you can just steal a portion of it, like shortening this:
http://favstar.fm/users/MrFornicator/status/176168697994551297
To this:
http://favstar.fm/users/Burgee66/status/196406689120002048
However, as you can see… you’ll be much more successful if you completely reword the entire joke, like taking this:
http://favstar.fm/users/MrFornicator/status/24623111652
And turning it into this:
http://favstar.fm/users/Burgee66/status/138456955185405952
Or maybe something like this:
http://favstar.fm/users/MrFornicator/status/24704613597
Into this:
http://favstar.fm/users/Burgee66/status/180104083355602944
But don’t just limit yourself to one person. Make sure you search around and bite off of others as well, like taking this:
http://favstar.fm/users/YUCKYBOT/status/16195523870
And making it yours with this:
http://favstar.fm/users/Burgee66/status/183035716450779136
Also… you can use Google to find really old jokes on status update websites, and use those as well… like taking this:
And turning it into this:
http://favstar.fm/users/Burgee66/status/204706318840377346
Or maybe something like this:
And making it this:
http://favstar.fm/users/Burgee66/status/203474750842994689
But don’t stop there either. You have to be aggressive. Find jokes from all sorts of sources, like late night television, where you can take jokes like this from 2010:
And recycle them in 2012 like this:
http://favstar.fm/users/Burgee66/status/154700088827056128
Or… another good tactic is to watch television, and reword jokes from popular sitcoms… like taking this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DLhq0i64lkA
And turn it into this:
http://favstar.fm/users/Burgee66/status/175637589729099776
And lastly… branch out. If you search the internet hard enough, you can find really old jokes that people might have forgotten about and reword them into your own. Get really creative though, like taking this:
And making it this:
http://favstar.fm/users/Burgee66/status/198913659584516096
So you see… Twitter popularity isn’t that hard at all. It just takes a little initiative and creativity. Remember though, you can’t stop at just the jokes. You also have to RT everyone a lot, star the shit out of every tweet you come across whether you’ve read it or not, and also @ reply people constantly to kiss their asses and tell them how wonderful they are for giving your stolen and reworded jokes a trophy.
Regarding Twitter Followers
People are always hell bent on getting more followers, but in my opinion, it’s not all it’s cracked up to be. I have 33 thousand now, but I honestly enjoyed Twitter a LOT more when I had less than 5,000. Sure, I’ve met a good handful of decent people beyond the 5K mark, and continue to… but when I had 5K or less I was able to keep track of people a lot easier and not every single facetious joke I told was scrutinized, taken seriously, or somehow offensive to someone. In general, people are also a lot more supportive when your count is lower. As if they suddenly feel like you don’t need their support or laughs if you have a high count. Unless of course they think you’re “somebody,” and then they kiss your ever loving ass. (But that’s an entirely different issue all together.) I’ve actually considered scrapping my account and coming back incognito numerous times. So take this post for what it’s worth… but if you’re dying for a higher follower count, you might just find out it’s not as glamorous as you hoped it would be. Follower count doesn’t mean shit.
