Transcript for:
The Power of Psychographics in Comedy

hey comedians today i'm going to be talking about the power of psychographics and why we need to have it in mind when we are riding so we can get the best out of the next time we are performing this one's going to go into deep detail grab a paper and pen get the best from us let's get the video started hello and welcome to another episode of let's talk comedy my name is gary michaels and this channel is dedicated to new comedians each week i upload multiple high quality tutorial videos on all things comedy and performance so if you are starting out in your comedy career then hit that subscribe button never miss a future episode and get performing right on today's video i'm going to be talking about psychographics which is more of a marketing term and it's used to describe your desires and interests not your demographic just such as your job or your age or where you come from but psychographics is a way more deeper than that and the reason i'm using a marketing term is because i want you to get into the mindset when writing your material that you are marketing who you're on stage persona is to the audience at all times so i want you to write down all of the things you strongly agree with or believe or all the things you don't agree with or believe even if it's only as simple as one word per topic that you don't like or do like you can talk about this why do you like it why do you not like it what does it mean to you and of course be as crazy and as silly as you can when you're writing right then all the things that really turn you on or turn you off that have not got to do with your daytime job or where you're from or all those things because those things are going to be spoken about on stage anyway this is the fundamental this is who you are deeper than that what really takes you what are your hopes for the future all of those good things that are going to be the basis of who you are on stage you will notice if you look at your favorite comedians on stage it doesn't matter which dvd or which time you see them live who they are is always going to stay the same they always have the same opinions or maybe they play a character that doesn't have an opinion at all they're going to keep up that basis the same throughout the entire thing because they have created a product that they can market to people and they have figured out how they are can win over an audience they can connect consistently with the majority of any audience and make them laugh they figured out how to find their demographic within any audience at the beginning of your career you are going to figure out first who it is you are what you like what you don't like in order you can have it on the page every single time you go to write material you have who you are on stage and say what if i feel that about life and if these are my desires and these are my goals for the future well now you have a starting point that you can talk about why you hate your job or why you love your job or why you're such a failure because you're not where you need to be that you set goal you set it to yourself five years ago you haven't achieved it or why you're an overachiever and you're better than anyone else figure out what character you want to play on stage and the great thing about being new to performing is you really do have a clean slate it's a blank page that you can paint whatever picture on so you can create the most entertaining version of yourself whatever that means to you you get to create it write as many jokes about each topic of interest to you what are the stereotypes of what you're into can somebody make fun of the things that matter a lot to you and if they can make fun what are they likely to say about it you can create as many stories as you want certainly you should be writing more than you're going to say on stage no matter what happens on stage you will find that the more you write the more you can deal with so if someone throws a topic at you or heckles you with a very specific insult you can go there because you might have covered it in your writing even if they haven't repeated the exact phrase or topic because you know who you are on stage how far you're willing to go all of your beliefs all the things that turn you on all the things that turn you off you now know exactly how to handle this heckle or you know exactly how to do an extra two minutes maybe off to fly because you can just talk about topics from a point of view and the great thing about this is it's already in your head all you have to do is grab a paper and pen sit down and start writing i would start every session with writing out all of the words that are important to us it might be something as simple as nature and why nature is important to you if that's what's important to you or it might be as simple as simple as conversation and debating if that's important to you write down why and then write down a few punch lines or a few quick stories or maybe a paragraph that is absolutely absurd depending on what style of comedy you're doing this is where you can get creative but as a basis in order to open up the floodgates and allow yourself to be as creative as quick as possible in your writing session start by writing down all of the words that are either important to you or not important to you and a little why underneath each one of them and then start getting silly and it will not be long at all before you have five or even more minutes of comedy written out and you haven't even discussed what it is you do for a job where you come from or the commute you had getting to the gig and then if you have all this material and you haven't even actually began to speak about anything only who it is you are well you can start bringing all these stories in to your work conversation or into the commute so it's very easy here to see how quickly we can come up with five minutes material and the reason it's quickly is because what we're writing means something to us we're really diving in deep on who it is we are and that's the great thing about comedy it's a great thing about performance in general we get to go up on stage and really express ourselves deep down who it is we are no matter how absurd or city we get with it it's how we feel about things and we connect with absolute strangers on the same topics that mean a lot to us so i hope this video has given you a little bit of inspiration motivation and a couple of tips next time you go to write some comedy certainly if you're having a little bit of writer's block and those beginning few moments are a little bit tricky to get the pen moving on the page i've been there but by going back to the basics and figuring out more about who we are on stage what our beliefs what our opinions what our desires are for the future for the past for the present well write out this and then we have a basis to work from where we can get as silly as possibly can really really quickly in their writing and the more we do this the more we understand ourselves the funnier we will be on stage because a performer who understands their character 100 is going to be way more effective on stage in the long run than someone who might get on stage not know the character smash it at one gig and not smash it at the next and be wondering why so you can even have this little bit of theory act like a warm-up session for your comedy writing next time even if it only takes three to five minutes start by doing this writing out who it is you are all of the things that are important to you all the things that are not and running out why and being as funny and as creative as you can throughout it means you sat down and immediately started writing and then you can look up your notes and see what you want to add and look on but certainly at the beginning warm up by going back to the fundamentals of who you are the very core of what your character is about of course when you get busy and implement this into your writing i want to know how it worked out for you so let me know in the comment section i will discuss this topic further there also the comment section is the place where you list down any future video you would like me to make and i will get on making that video just for you and everyone else in this community as always a massive thanks for watching this channel if you want to support the channel further information and how to do so you can become a member all that information is in the description box until then click any of the links you see on your screen and get more tutorial videos get performing right and i will see you on the next video right now so another thing for you and your character to do is to come together hit that like button get more eyes on the video me and my character will be internally grateful hit that like button right now