Shawn Fleek’s Rules of Comedy Fashion
1) There are no rules in comedy. This is my subjective list, and it pertains to the kind of comedy I want to watch and that I think audiences want to watch. Comment furiously if you disagree. This is a long list, and before you comment you should probably read everything so you don’t make a jackass of yourself.
2) What you say is the most important thing. If you don’t have material to read nervously your first time, you’ll never have material to project confidently on your 100th time. Dressed, Funny does not exist to make you a better writer. You’ll have to do that part on your own.
3) How you say what you say is the second most important thing. You’re using a microphone, hopefully (and probably shouldn’t ever try to perform without one) The way your voice sounds on a recording is the way it will sound coming out of an amplifier. You do not have to yell, that’s the point of the microphone and amplifier. You also have to speak into the microphone, at a tone you would use if you were telling jokes at a party to ten people. Why ten? Because if you’re at half the volume you need to be, you’re at a 5. If you’re close but not loud enough, you’re at 8. If you’re too loud, you’re at 30. You want all 10 to hear you, but you want the other 20 people at the party to enjoy their little hotdogs. You want the microphone to hear you so the audience can hear you. If you yell, pull the mic away. If you whisper, get it closer. Mostly, you want your material (the most important thing) to be heard. You use the microphone accordingly. Get familiar with how loud you need to be, and practice being loud enough even if you’re not on a microphone. Many comedians turn into loud-mouthed dickholes who are hard to have conversations with when they’re off-stage, because they get used to projecting their voices. They also tend to be the easiest people to hear in an audience, if they’re talking while you’re on stage. You’ll come to identify comedians by their laughs, as if they were wild birds.
4) How you look and act while you’re on stage is the third most important thing. Dressed, Funny is about fashion, and fashion is about details. Watch comedians who are on television, and they generally have trademarks of professionalism in their appearance and mannerisms. Rules are made to be broken in fashion and in comedy, but someone, somewhere is going to enforce a strict set of rules on you, whether you agree with the rules or not. Your potential success in dealing with casting directors, bookers, agents and promoters could very well hinge on their judgement of your appearance. You have to be funny. If you don’t understand that, then start reading the rules from the top again. You don’t have to be handsome or well-dressed to be a great comic. But if you are funny, and you want a career in comedy, then it would make sense not to handicap yourself. It would make sense to do everything you can to look like you have your shit together. Comedy is a business. Performance is an interview. They laugh, you’re hired. So please, present your material, and be judged on your merits. But if your outfit is distracting, ill-fitting, misplaced (performing for AIPAC while wearing a Hitler costume), stained, tattered, if your hair is a mess, if you appear dirty, if your facial piercings are making noise when you are talking, if your earrings light up or blink or spray glitter, if you have your drink, a personal tape recorder, a filing cabinet and a mouse-pad with you on stage… (assuming those quirks aren’t core components to your humor or stage-presence) your interview is going to be tainted. Dressed, Funny is a website which intends to help comics see fashion for what it is: a tool to be utilized as much as the inflection in your voice in helping your audience appreciate your art.
5) There is no perfect look. Nobody is ever perfectly dressed, or their hair perfectly-trim, nor is anyone perfectly well-behaved. But when a person puts on an outfit which is flattering to their figure, clean, and which gives the person a definitive look, magic can happen. The person makes the clothes, and not the other way around. But clothes can, and do, make a person more confident and thus a better performer, better at confidently projecting that oh-so-crucial material. This blog is in no way intended to enforce unrealistic standards of beauty or classism, which are commonplace in the fashion industry, in advertising, in Hollywood, and on TV. Every person, no matter their compliance with the impossible archetypes of the magazines and movies, can be beautiful. Beauty is about feeling good about yourself, and having the confidence in yourself and faith in your own decision-making to dress like you care about yourself. It’s about being comfortable being yourself. On stage, as well as off, clothes, hair and mannerisms might be the first impression you make on a person. You can embrace your ability to impress people, or you can ignore a valuable tool.
6) Fashion is mostly about your own attitude. Picture Richard Simmons. He is dressed exactly how he should be, at all times. Now picture Johnny Cash. He was always dressed exactly how he should have been. Neither man is well-known specifically for dressing well (arguably Richard Simmons is known for just the opposite), but both men have a signature look that transcends their original fame. Can you picture either one dressing as the other? Never. It would nearly serve to cheapen what either man does.
I like to imagine that every day I am getting dressed to get my picture taken, and I want whoever sees the picture to know something about me, or intuit it. After all, when I’m famous, paparazzi will hound me daily, and I’d prefer to keep my look consistent, or at least presentable, between on-stage and off-stage than to be photographed looking like a schmuck on stage, and then in a tuxedo elsewhere. TMZ would post something along the lines of “Oh, so Shawn Fleek cleans up for his sister’s wedding, but not for this Children’s Cancer Center benefit he did? What an unprofessional tool.” If you spend time every day keeping your appearance in check, and avoiding heinous activities which might prove embarrassing (picturing Jim Belushi or Lindsay Lohan), this is called “image management.” Of course comics may appear as characters in ridiculous clothes. But when a comic is being a comic on stage, does he or she still look ridiculous?
7) You can do whatever you want. This is different from the first rule. The first rule says all these rules are bullshit. But this rule says “you’re free to do anything.” You can have your hair how you like, your clothes how you like, your body how you like, your mannerisms how you like. Willpower is an amazing human trait. With determination, you can write amazing material, perform it spectacularly, and look fantastic doing it. A triple threat to anyone who might want to take you seriously and pay you for your art. Dwell on this thought: you are in total control of how you are perceived. Everything you say, everything you do, everything the audience sees from you is under your control. You are beautiful no matter what you do, so long as you are confident, comfortable and in control.
8) You don’t need to go broke on clothes to feel good about them. The best way to buy yourself clothes is to know what you’re looking for, and then find it for as cheap as you’re comfortable with. Everyone has their own preferences as far as expense, and some people are happy with $5 shirts, others with $500. In my experience most $500 shirts can be avoided for $100 knock-offs, with similar results for either one. It can be hard to find modern-looking clothes at thrift-store prices, but there’s always Ross. You determine your own price range. It helps to budget for your wardrobe. After all, clothes can be a serious investment (see: $500 shirts) and if you take care of them and don’t experience many fluctuations in weight / height (18 year old comics, I’m looking at you) then you can have these things for a long time. As a general rule, you should spend as much money on clothes every season as you spend on dining out in a month. Pick up things you don’t have for the next season early so you can get a better price, or late if you’re confident you’ll still look good in it next year. Get rid of clothes you don’t wear when they’re in season. You’re not a hoarder, you’re a comic. You can sometimes sell your old clothes to fund new purchases. Expect wear and tear to ruin some of your things. Don’t spill beer all over your new pants when you’re getting drunk after the show. Act like the professional you are.
9) On nervousness or stage-fright: Comedy is not that important. If you feel like people have high expectations of you, imagine how it must feel to be the President of the United States, or the head of a Fortune 500 company. You do not have that important or demanding of a job. Remind yourself of this. Comedy is nothing. You tell people jokes and stories, you make them love you, then hate you, then respect you, you get to display the way your brain works. You work for a maximum of an hour and a half at a time. You get to smoke pot on the job sometimes, or at least have a drink between shows. Nobody expects you to actually save the world or make a difference. They just want you to say what you have to say, how you want to say it. I’m sure being in front of crowds is intimidating to some people, but it’s nothing compared to showing up at work and pretending you care about whatever it is you do for work. Keeping a straight face during a 9-5 is harder for most comedians than performing for an audience.
10) On body-image issues: I reiterate that anyone can be beautiful who shows confidence in their fashion (which I intend to mean clothes, hair, and manner, as a group.) If you think you’re over-or-underweight, you can take action to control that. Your body is your temple, and it is up to you to decide to trim the hedges or let them grow. You are the only person with that control. It does not belong to your animal brain, it belongs to your human brain. You are smarter than your animal brain, and in control of your body. Do what you want with it, not what anyone says you should. Do not let your animal brain convince you that eating (or not eating) is your only impulse. You are human, not animal.
11) On ego: All comedians have egos. It takes one to think you’re worth listening to. Filling a room with your presence is an important part of performance, which can lead to an inflated sense of self-worth. It is important to remember that people’s desire to be in the room with a huge ego decreases exponentially the further that ego is from a stage. If you intend to do professional comedic work, or collaborate with other comedians, it is best to leave your ego on the stage, where it belongs, and bring your humor, wit, and ability to critique with you. “Save it for the stage, Plebius.”
12) On promoting yourself: The internet is not the real world. You should conduct as much business as possible over the phone or in person. The internet is rife with trolls, liars, and people who want to con you into looking at pornography or reading informative news articles. Facebook is not an open mic. There is no technological replacement for, and no better means of promotion than, standing behind a microphone and performing your material.
13) These are not all the rules, and more will descend from comedy fashion heaven and make you feel better later.
What did I miss? Where am I wrong?