Going up on stage is about the most terrifying thing you can possibly do. I’ve done it, sang in a a garage band that managed to get in front of a crowd of ~300 people. You gotta find a way to deal with it. For me, it was a kind of “fuck it, we ball” mode of thinking where I just went for it as hard as I could and I, at least, was going to have a good time.

For a comedy act, I would think that it’s even more scary because of how much more interaction with the crowd there is. You’re getting constant, direct, and immediate feedback, and often expected to deal with hecklers and such. At least with a band, we’d just get up on stage and blast out trash as hard as we could and the crowd just had to hang on for dear life until it was over. Good on Anon for having the guts to do that, I hope they use this as a learning experience and don’t just give up.

Years ago I party all night and when to a Magic tournament after still kinda drunk and was fighting to be able to be sleep while playing, and after one match my opponent asked me why I was so nervous during the game if I was clearly winning since the begging. He got really sad to know that he was beat by someone who had not sleep in 24hs and was kinda drunk

I saw a video years ago of a stand-up show where they gave different amateur comedians a shot on stage, one guy did exactly this. Didn’t look like he was faking.

Howie Mandel origin story?

“I tried making a self deprecating joke but it just elicited more laughter” what

Open mic nights are great, and horrible.

I will say that if you ever have a chance to do it, and have the ability to come up with even bad jokes, try it.

You’ll suck. Everyone sucks early on, even and especially the really big names. All of them bombed early on, and many have bombed after they had their craft honed.

It’s terrifying, even if you think you’re going to be fine. You’ve got your tight 5 or 15, you nailed all your public speaking classes, you’re the one people invite to parties because you’re that guy that can tell stories and keep a room laughing and having a good time all night.

Then you step up into lights, with whatever crowd is there, watching you, waiting for you to entertain them, waiting to decide if you’re funny or not. Yeah, it’s open mic, you aren’t getting booed off stage unless you’re a dickbag. They’ll clap politely at the end as long as you make an effort. But the crowd isn’t going to fake laughing, and they can’t fake being bored.

And you will fuck up. You’ll stumble over words you practiced a dozen times. You’ll fuck up the punchline. You’ll fuck the timing up. Something is going to go wrong.

But guess what? You’ll fuck off the stage, and you’ll be okay. It ain’t the end of the world. Maybe you’ll even like it all, bombing and all. Maybe you’ll run and never come back to try again. But you did it. You got the fuck up there, you did your bit, and all that fear and belly clenching is a memory you’ll never lose. It’s one of the most unique experiences you can have without being arrested.

If you decide to try again, you’ll have learned from it. You’ll do better, even if it’s only a little. But all those nerves, you know how to handle them. If you still bomb, who the fuck cares, it can’t be as bad as that first time.

Now, me, I fucking tsar bombad my first try. Like, even the polite clapping at the end was scattered and done out of pity, not because I tried. It wasn’t even that the jokes were bad, they get laughs elsewhere still. It’s just the nature of the new. Every speech I’d given, every class I’d taught, it didn’t matter because that stage was an alien world. I fucked every single one up.

But the second time? I got laughs. Didn’t win over everyone, I went with some absurdist stuff and was over the top, which isn’t for everyone. But the ones that did get it, loved it. Standing up and clapping at the end. One dude spilled his beer laughing at my bit about a horny bull fucking a fence post. He was the only one laughing at that part at first, but after he went, it spread.

Never did it again lol. Only reason I did it twice was because of how wrung out I was the first time. Anything that terrifying, that mind fucking, I couldn’t run away from. It’s one of those things where I had to do it again so that I knew I could rather than saying that I just didn’t have fun the first time, and didn’t do well, so it wasn’t worth doing again. I was finding excuses in my to not do it again, even though I had never originally planned to. I can’t leave shit like that in my head unless it’s a physical risk. My first time tumbling down a trail on a bike because the trail wasn’t meant to be a bike trail was enough. No need to risk paralysis or death when it went wrong, you dig?

But if I didn’t plan on a second open mic night, and my brain is whining about why I shouldn’t go again, that’s a sign of something I can’t leave be. So I had to go again.

“Kid’s an incredible actor. It looks like he’s legitimately having a panic attack on stage. I need his agent’s number”

I couldn’t do self-deprecating jokes because I hear audiences don’t like it when comedians punch down.