Humor Writing on Blogs

The ability to provide laughter to others is a wonderful ability. It's a joy to see the smiles and hear the guffaws of an appreciative audience after telling a killer joke. But on an Internet blog, seeing the live reactions to my humor ranges from difficult to impossible because they're reading the material from their computer monitors. So it begs the question: how does one use humor in his or her blog? Here are some tips I use for my blog and look for in other humorists' blogs.

What does humor add to a blog?
One of my high school teachers constantly stated that the best way to get his students to remember his lessons was to make them laugh. It's a lot easier to recall something funny than something sad, or worse, bland. So adding humor to blog entries will help readers remember what you said. Since people like to pass around humorous stories or blog entries, a touch of humor helps sweeten the blog's appeal.

For my high school teacher's case, his attempts at adding humor to his lectures were difficult because he area of teaching did not involve the witty word play of English or the physical comedic demonstrations of physics. He was a calculus teacher and the formulas he tried to drill into our heads was drier than burnt toast in Death Valley. He sprinkled humor on his word problems involving happy cheese coming from happy cows that increased their rate of happiness by visiting the marijuana farm. Whenever I encountered a rate problem, I thought of the cows getting high and recalled the formula used to calculate their happiness and gave myself a chuckle in nostalgia.

Where and when is humor appropriate?
Humor is best used when sprinkled around the blog entry like cinnamon on a hot cup of cappuccino. Tack it on humorous topics and personal anecdotes for the best effect. If there is serious material to post in the blog, add humor in the introduction to capture interest of at the end to end on a high note.

Is there such a thing as too much humor or inappropriate humor?
Adding too much humor will reduce the informative value of your blog unless it is a humor-based blog. It's like a comedian suddenly attempting a dramatic role. it may be a good role, but the audience will be too familiar with him as a comedian. So keep to the bartender's code of "less is more" with your humor. Unless your audience consists of bigots, racists, pedophiles, and other potentially offensive or tasteless matters, please do not post such humor on your blog. And if you are a bigot, racist, pedophile, or other potentially offensive or tasteless person, stay away from me.

Keep the humor original.
The Internet is full of humorous anecdotes, stories, jokes, memes, and trends. If you're going to try your hand at contributing to this bottomless supply of humorous material, be original. Do not pawn off other people's material as your own. If readers catch you plagiarizing jokes, the credibility of the informative material of your blog suffers as well.

Your blog is not a comedy club.
Don't devote an entire blog post on jokes and one liners. If you want to practice your humorous material like it's amateur night at a comedy club, it'll be a lot more fun to practice your humorous material on amateur night at a comedy club. After your set, THEN you may just have a meaningful blog entry about your rise through the comedy circuit.

The audience's sense of humor varies.
Just because you think it's funny doesn't mean your audience will. You may inadvertently offend and alienate your audience with the wrong type of humor. The sophisticated readers may not care for juvenile humor and the sophomoric types may not care for highbrow witticisms. If you want to placate your intended audience easily, write humor that fits their level. On the other hand...

Develop your own personal style.
...If you want to stand out as a writer (humor or otherwise), write based on your own style. Some are good at puns. Some are good at anecdotes. Commentary and observational humor is popular as well and works well when reviewing news items for blog posts. Whatever the case, find out what you're best at writing and write it.

Be wary of sarcastic humor.
The average human can pick up on subtle and blatant sarcasm, a wonderful form of humor. Unfortunately, when people read blog entries or read in general, people will interpret the text however they want. Some will find sarcastic comments as sarcastic comments. Most others may take it as literal truth because it's written and not spoken with the usual sarcastic inflections of the voice. And those who take sarcastic comments literally usually take offense, which is the antithesis of the intended humor. So aim for humor without sarcasm unless you can write well enough to not insult the readers.

One visual is worth a thousand words.
Writing humor in blogs is an art. It takes a lot of words to set up a joke and just as many words to make a punchline. If you're not up to writing, creating a humorous image macro is quicker to accomplish. Video blogs are becoming popular thanks to easier access to Internet friendly video cameras. With video blogs, it's easier to speak out piles of humor or film humorous situations.

When is NOT a good time to use humor?
There are some moments to avoid humor due to good taste. When blogging about some sort of personal, local, national, or international tragedy, keep it somber and serious and err on good taste. One exception is if you personally know the affected someone who would be okay with taking his or her tragedy with humor. For example, one of my friends was in the emergency room from a gunshot wound several years ago. When asked by the doctors what he was allergic to, he answered, "Obviously, bullets. That's why I'm here." He was a good-humored guy. When he did die recently, we were able to comment in a bittersweet way that he was also allergic to speeding cars. He would have laughed at that comment.