Mitch Hedberg’s jokes lack personality and story, but they have a quality that’s far harder to achieve: They’re funny no matter who says them or which medium they’re in.
“I used to do drugs. I still do, but I used to too.”
“Rice is great when you’re hungry and want 2000 of something.”
“This jacket is dry clean only. Which means it’s dirty.”
These are different to most other comedians. Most standup has an element of personality: Bill Burr’s tirades work because he grew up getting bullied in working-class Boston. Anyone else repeating his jokes wouldn’t be nearly as funny.
Hedberg’s jokes work when you repeat them around a dinner table. Hedberg’s jokes don’t require him to be there. Hedberg’s jokes continue to work after he overdosed and died at 37.
=
Like many comedians, Hedberg had his fair share of issues. Other comedians have stage presence: They act out bits, gesticulate wildly and move around the stage to address different parts of the audience. Hedberg clutched the microphone with shaking hands as he took the stage in sunglasses. He wore those sunglasses to hide that he closed his eyes to perform because of the terrible anxiety he battled all of his life.
It’s no secret that addiction is self-medication. The addict faces a reality so tormenting they’ll do anything for relief—including Heroin. Hedberg was a heroin addict, which ultimately killed him.
Mitch rarely smiled. When he delivered jokes with shaking hands and closed eyes, he looked frightened—and smiled only when his jokes worked.
In interviews, he seemed distant, detached and less funny. Hedberg was media-trained by a deep sense of shame.
It’s sad to see someone with such genius so deeply ashamed of himself. Sad to see someone with so much inherent creativity only flash a brief smile when others adored him—something he himself seemed incapable of.
This resonates because I tend to outsource my self-esteem. To define myself by someone else’s estimation of my accomplishments, utility or funniness because I myself have no opinion about my worth.
And when those indicators go down, I conclude it’s better to stop being me. I minimize myself, squeeze my personality out of my work and my life. I grasp to external standards of how to work or what to do because clearly what I myself would come up with couldn’t be good.
You can create great work that way. Hedberg is a great example: His jokes have no Mitch in them. You learn nothing about him by watching his comedy. By removing his personality from his jokes, he created timeless classics.
But he also reinforced his shame. I wonder if Mitch wrote his comedy with the assumption that people would hate him if they glimpsed his personality. His sunglasses and closed eyes clearly speak to this. Had he opened his eyes, he’d have seen crowds of people who paid money because they knew seeing him would be the highlight of their week.
He probably believed he had no way to do that if he was himself.—a clear sign of shame. I experience this as “the incorrectness of being me”.
It’s a sense that not only, do I not want to be me, nobody even thinks I should, because being me is not necessary.
And when you feel that, you chase validation. You make yourself useful, make yourself funny. And you flash a smile when they laugh.