Humor

Humorists I Studied

I chose to study Bo Burnham and Daniel Sloss, two stand-up comedians. I chose them because of their ability to integrate humor and sadness in their routines. Bo uses songs to talk about things like depression and musicians exploiting their young audience for money. Daniel doesn’t use songs he instead uses just a bunch of swearing. But his explanation of how life is a jigsaw puzzle sent me into a week long existential crisis and has caused nearly 100,000 breakups and 200 divorces.

Comedic Narrative

I chose to do a comedic narrative because I didn’t know what a commencement speech was.

Comedic Influences

Since quarantine started, many YouTubers have started making “Quarantine Daily Routines”, lies about how they spend their days in isolation. And they’re all the same thing: they’re all super productive people who get all their work done, have time to exercise, eat only healthy food and just all around live better lives than every one of their videos. I hate these videos. Not because they’re all rich people bragging about how much better their lives are, but because they’re all lying. They are putting this false idea of themselves onto the internet to make themselves feel better, while simultaneously making their viewers feel bad about themselves.

I chose to make one of these types of videos.

Script

What’s up guys! I hope you’re all doing well. I started self-isolating back on March 14th when school was cancelled. So I’m currently on day 50, not that I’m counting or anything. But, after my 50 days of barely communicating with the outside world, I’ve developed sort of a routine. And this routine has really helped me get through this trying time, so I thought I should share it with all of you.

At 5am everyday, I complete a full triathlon. It’s a great way to clear your mind of all those negative vibes, but it’s also a light workout.


I finish my triathlon at around 6:30am everyday. I get home and I plan the day ahead.

At 7am, I make breakfast. It’s a balanced meal, one piece of toast, one egg, one half of an apple, exactly seven cashews, and a glass of fresh squeezed orange juice from my orange tree. Music is an essential. I only listen to classical music, Vivaldi, Tchaikovsky, etc. it really helps me get in tune with my thoughts. During this time, I really enjoy just thinking, thinking about anything. The weather, what projects I want to start. How we’re all just insignificant specks on the universe. Nothing we do is permanent. The earth will be swallowed by our sun’s death. Our own destruction, staring down on us, mocking us. We can’t even stare directly at it to confront it.

I finish my breakfast at 8, and then I begin my work. Typically, all my work will take me around 2 hours to complete. So after that is when I have my coffee break. Now, the way you prepare your coffee is very important. If you want your coffee to taste fresh, you need to grind the beans fresh. The boiling point of water is 212 degrees fahrenheit, but I find that to be too hot for the beans because you risk scorching them. And no one likes the taste of burnt coffee. Use water that’s exactly 190 degrees fahrenheit and you’ll get the perfect cup. I prefer drinking my coffee outside, it’s great to breathe some fresh air after you’ve been inside working for a while. But the sun stares down on me, reminding me of the end. Like how I boiled water for my coffee, it will boil all the oceans, leaving nothing but salt behind. It mocks me, laughs at me. I go back inside.

From 10:30-11:30, I clean my house. Keeping a clean house helps me concentrate. I don’t feel like I’m slowly going mad as long as the floors are clean, and my bed is made.

11:30-1:30 is my lunch break. Lunch is a very contemplative time as well. I reflect on my work, the day ahe-THE SUN. I can practically see it beginning to supernova. In billions of years, our entire planet will cease to exist. And although all life on earth will end millions of years before the sun explodes, it’s all the memories and buildings we’ve built, everything, turned to dust and set afloat in the vast expanse of space. Everything is made from space dust, and to space dust we will return.
ANIMAL CROSSING! It’s a great game. It’s calming, serene, and fills the hole in my life where social interaction once was. Who needs friends when you have villagers?! I spend anywhere from one to five hours playing this game.

So now, it’s 6:30. And the day is beginning to come to an end. The sun is setting, the moon is rising, and it’s time to start thinking about dinner. My parents cook dinner, and we all gather around the table to eat.
After dinner, I do the dishes, and maybe watch a tv show or a movie. I try to go to bed around 10:30 every night, so I can be absolutely sure I’m getting my recommended hours of sleep every night

3am: Lie awake. I know how the world will end. In about one billion years, the solar luminosity will be 10% higher than at present. This will cause the atmosphere to become a “greenhouse”, resulting in the complete evaporation of the oceans. Because of this, plate tectonics will come to an end, and with them the entire carbon cycle. After this, in about 2–3 billion years, the planet’s magnetic dynamo may cease, causing the magnetosphere to decay and leading to an accelerated loss of volatiles from the outer atmosphere. Four billion years from now, the increase in the Earth’s surface temperature will cause a runaway greenhouse effect, heating the surface enough to melt it. By that point, all life on the Earth will be extinct. The most probable fate of the planet is absorption by the Sun in about 7.5 billion years, after the star has entered the red giant phase and expanded beyond the planet’s current orbit.

5am: Repeat.

AND that about wraps up my daily routine! I hope you all enjoyed and maybe learned a thing or two during it. Make sure you like this video and subscribe. Bye!