To get expert insights on why X (formerly Twitter) is a place where funny people thrive, we reached out to stand-up comedian Shaun Eli, who has been called one of America’s smartest comics.
He believes that there are two main reasons why there’s so much hilarious content on the social media platform. First, he says, “It's a popular medium with a huge user base, so it's a place for comedians to get noticed and have their content shared (or stolen, for that matter).”
Secondly, he suggests, “It's easy enough to type your thoughts so anybody can find an audience for their content, pro comics, or anybody else.”
A fellow stand-up comedian and author of the humor book "You Can't Write City Hall," Jeremy Nunes, agrees with the fact that people can find their audience much easier and faster on X, no matter the kind.
"If you want to be the guy who makes jokes and represents vegetarians, you can be active with those groups and influencers. If you want to do the same for the carnivore crowd, you can be active with those groups and influencers. Likewise, if you want to troll and heckle those groups, you can find them."
He further explains, "As a general user, the algorithm learns what types of content you tend to interact with and feeds you more of that. Instead of the old TV-watching experience of flipping channels to find what you want, Twitter knows what you want and gives it to you. It's like Twitter is the dad that really wants his kid to love him—he's giving that kid everything he could possibly want!"
Eli suggests that spoken and written comedy, like on X, have some things in common, such as putting the actual punch part of the punchline (the surprise) at the very end. This component is very important if you want to make people laugh, whether it’s on X or a stand-up stage.
”Once people get the joke, you're finished, so any extraneous words after that just serve to interrupt. Almost every punchline can be reworded to make sure that it ends with an actual surprise,” says Eli.
Even though there might not be a secret formula that can teach people to create funny tweets, knowing the basic joke structure might help. Usually, there are two parts to it: a setup and a punchline, which Eli has already mentioned.
The former introduces the topic the joke will be about, and the latter, as discussed previously, takes it in an unexpected direction. Playing with words, like using puns, is also one way to achieve comedic effect in written jokes.
