Two roads diverged by a STEM
For as long as I can remember, I wanted to be a scientist. As a kid, I loved watching Bill Nye and the Discovery Channel and my pockets were always full of rocks. I sounded like a giant tic-tac container. So when I went off to college and started working in labs, even the simple act of pipetting felt magical.
But after a particularly discouraging experience during a summer internship at a lab, I decided to try stand-up comedy and face even more discouragement. For the next two years, I spent all my free time not studying or doing homework or being invited out to dance clubs (you can’t prove this didn’t happen) but instead attempting stand-up comedy at various dingy basements and backrooms across NYC. By the time I was ready to graduate, I hadn’t cultivated many comedy skills, but I was absolutely in love. And I had to make a choice between getting a PhD and spending the next 5-7 years working 60+ hours a week in a lab or pursuing a passion that would be equally grueling with the added bonus of public humiliation. So obviously, I chose comedy (and getting a real job).
Experimenting with Science Comedy
The first 5 years of doing stand-up, I didn’t talk about my science background at all. I assumed that I would come off as pretentious or unrelatable, that audiences would boo me off the stage. What ultimately changed my mind was a pandemic-lockdown-inspired epiphany that one of the best parts of stand-up comedy is that comedians get to talk about their experiences and what makes them unique and that I should face my fears and try to write jokes about the thing I’m afraid to talk about. And luckily, during lockdown, there were no audiences or stages, so I couldn’t get booed off stage.
I made a science comedy web-series that nobody watched, so filled with confidence and support, I decided to turn that into a live show that I took to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 2022 and was lucky enough to sell out all 24 shows. After returning from the fringe, I randomly stumbled upon the fact that Hawai’i Volcanoes National Park has an artist-in-residence program and that it was open to all forms of art. I thought that it would be absurd to apply as a stand-up comedian, but they took me very seriously and in 2023, I got to spend the entire month of February on the Big Island of Hawai’i.
I was lucky enough to have the opportunity to see the national park, learn from volcanologists, entomologists, archeologists and local Hawaiians about the science, culture and history of Hawai’i. And Kīlauea was active the entire month, so I witnessed a burning lava lake almost every night. And I took my experiences during my residency and turned it into my second touring show, all about volcanoes.
Between my old science comedy show and my new volcano show (out now on YouTube!), I’ve been able to tour 120+ cities internationally in the past 3 years, taking my science comedy shows to comedy clubs, theaters, science museums etc. (I know, how did he book etc., a huge accomplishment).
My Joke Formula
But Ben, who cares about your journey, what value can you provide me?
Okay, so here’s my joke-writing process, and hopefully this can help you out in whatever form of science communication you do (feel free to watch my volcano comedy special just to make sure that I’m funny/worth listening to):
I love going down internet rabbit holes and chasing the threads of my curiosity through multiple scientific papers. Sometimes something will immediately make me laugh. That’s the easy part: they’ve already done my job for me. But regardless of whether something is funny right away, I always make note of what I find interesting, weird or surprising. If you don’t care about it, then how will you possibly get your audience to care about it?
When I approach a topic, I’m always looking at what I absolutely need to explain about this thing so that the audience will understand and what’s weird or exciting. If you can pare down a subject to the minimum amount of information, the shortest setup without losing the science, then you can get to the surprising or interesting part sooner. Or if the subject requires a long setup, how do you make that setup more exciting so it doesn’t feel like you’re reading a textbook?
I’m lucky enough to get to test out my jokes (read: science communication) in front of grizzled open mic comedians and at shows for general audiences in NYC. These are people that only care about one thing: are you funny and can you make me laugh right now? These crowds are honest and make you work to get a response. This forces me to make everything as easy to digest and punchy as possible. Not saying that you have to sacrifice complexity or avoid getting into the weeds, but you have to make sure people are engaged at every step of the process.
Maybe your goal isn’t to make people laugh, so an open mic might not be your ideal audience, but if you can, you should try to find a tough crowd and see if you can win them over with your science communication and use them to sharpen your material. And keep experimenting and iterating, even if it’s uncomfortable, even if it sucks, even if you need to put it down for 2 years and then come back when you’re ready for it. You will get better.
And don’t be afraid to combine your skills and passions! I once saw a show where these dancers assigned a different dance move to the numbers 0-9 and then danced the first 1,000 digits of pi. For me, it was adding science into my comedy and putting in silly visual jokes on top of written material. Find what you like talking about, think about what makes you unique and then share it with the world!
