Comedy Contest 16 (Blog 118)

Yet another stand up comedy contest I’ve been running on Facebook has finished. However, this time I’m afraid to say I was a little more sneaky in choosing my videos. I messaged a wide variety of people asking them if they wanted to take part, but I guess a lot of my messages got sent to their spam folders because I was often ignored. That was my fault, as I pretty much copied the same paragraph for each person. I thought that editing a few words and punctuation here and there would be enough to ‘trick’ the social media site, but I guess not. Well done, Facebook wins again. But bear in mind that’s just the kind of reason people abandon the site. Well it’s why spammers abandon the site, and everyone hates them so no one care… Oh just God dammit, basically. Anyway, as a consequence of me not being read much, I only entered five people in my competition this month, and for one of those people I just snapped, and used his video without permission. (It’s ok, apparently I don’t need it).

What can I say? Thank God the person I ‘borrowed’ from didn’t win my special thumbs up prize, because how would I explain he was the victor of something he had no clue about? I’m not doing that, the last (and only) time I did so, it was very awkward to say the least. How would you feel if someone wrote about you behind your back and put the article on the internet for everyone to see? Sure I only had good things to say, but that arguably makes it creepier. Not to worry though, my new more time consuming method of contacting people has proved to be very successful and you will see the latest contact-ees waiting to be judged, in my Face page tomorrow. Yes, the Unsubscribe Tribe will certainly keep running into the near future, at least.

So who did win, on this day? A man called Joel Murugiah. One of the reasons he was so successful, was because he had his own unique style. That was partly because he was the only Malaysian performer, however. If I was being honest, I would say a stand up comedian would also get a very high originality score if he was an everyday mute elephant - because that would be new. To be fair, the logistics of getting such a large animal in such a small venue would only push up the effort scores higher. Having said that, trampled audience members would lower the funniness rating, though maybe originality could be boosted once again by the casualties. Dark, but true, technically speaking. Don’t worry though, the man WAS funny and was also perhaps the most confident performer of the month.

In his routine, he says he names himself after the illnesses he has had. For example after getting a cold, he said his name was ‘Jack Cough’. His name isn’t Jack, again, it’s Joel, but both names begin with a J at least, and the audience laughed so it doesn’t really matter. The gag got me thinking: What illness do I hope I get, so I can make a pun on my name? How about mononucleosis? Wouldn’t that be great? I could call myself ‘Simono’. Or Simono… Hmmm… Wiedemannchester… But I don’t come from Manchester… Yes, this whole pun thing IS hard. Time to phone 999 to get some immediate advice/ideas on more funny affliction names. Or could that be considered spamming? I guess I’ll have to test that on Facebook first. Actually it’s illegal, isn’t it? Very illegal.

Alright, that’s all from me. If you’re expecting me to go off topic like I usually do in these contest blogs, sadly I have nothing to go off topic about. Unless you want to hear more about the milkshakes from GBK, I promised not to mention any more? Oh, you’ve twisted my arm, this is a good one: Ok, so you know how I complained that their ice cream based drinks turn a little thin by the time you get them home? It seems the restaurant have come up with a solution. They give you thinner straws! It’s so simple, it’s genius. As they are so thin, it takes much more effort to suck on them, giving the illusion the deserts are much thicker than they are. If you’re like me and you like your beefed up shakes, head on to GBK now and get drinking! Bye!