Uncyclopedia:How To Be Funny And Not Just Stupid

This page is considered an ignorable policy on Uncyclopedia.

It has wide acceptance among editors and is considered a standard that everyone should follow, unless they don't want to, in which case they are free to ignore it, in which case nobody will care. Please make use of the standing on one knee position to propose to this policy.

---

Uncyclopedia gets about 300 new articles a day.

Out of those 300, about 200 of them die before they turn 1 day old.

Don't let this happen to you! Follow the advice below.

Be a Comedian: Advice About Nonsense and Opposites

• The truth is often funnier than flat out nonsense. The funniest pages are those closest to the truth.

• Example: "Erik Estrada is an interstellar Cherzgon warrior who was aborted by his mother during the third week of pregnancy."

Stupid. Pointless drivel.

• Example: "Erik Estrada is an American (possibly Costa Rican) television actor. Known for a succesful career in the California Highway Patrol following his retirement from the television business."

Funnier because it's closer to the truth. "CHiPS" was a real TV show. Blending fact with fiction, or blurring that line makes for better comedy. Now, mind you, this is not a particularly hilarious line, but you get the idea.

Perhaps two-thirds of the articles are random nonsense. Little to nothing distinguishes them. Patent nonsense can be hilarious, it may get a laugh the first time, but it quickly gets dull. If someone types in "Harry Potter", the article should have more to do with Harry Potter than if they typed in "Dinosaur". They want to read a humorous slant on Harry Potter, not an article on a Dutch mink farmer with laser-beam eyes. Nonsense has been done before — over, and over, and over again.

A longer, but still clever, article is better than spamming the index full of thousands of small one liners about giraffes and bathtubs. It forces us to clean up the bad stuff. Please write good stuff.

Keep this all in mind when you write an article, and things will be good.

• If all else fails, follow rule three, unless that also fails. Then you should stop writing and join the politicians.

When Writing Nonsense, be Consistent

• If you can't stay close to the truth, try to be consistent across many articles. A good example is the Oprah conspiracy series. Despite the fact that it is entirely incoherent, it's incoherent across a large span of history. This is Good.

  Be sure your string of barely coherent prose does in fact contain at least one(1) degree of celsius between each serving -- or 1/6 of a "Kevin Bacon."

• Random humour can be funny if it is not seen as being serious. Keep in mind that not everyone will get the joke, and often get upset at those who write random humour. Things like Oscar Wilde dying from having someone cut off his head, and then later it grew back is random, but funny like found in The Most Quotable Smackdown of All Time.

• Be sure to check existing articles. Nothing is worse than writing a brilliantly clever piece only to find that the person or object in question is portrayed completely differently on numerous other pages. Research for a moment before adding. Of course, this inconsistency might stand on its own, but it's good to know that you're not plotzing up any large "sagas".

• However, this is Uncyclopedia, not Wikipedia. We're not writing "the Truth" (or "Neutral Point of View") here, so the important thing is whether a given individual article is entertaining/interesting in its own right, on a stand-alone, individual basis. In fact, it can be great to have, across different articles within a topic area, a different viewpoint in each article. It keeps the creative juices going for the introduction of fresh ideas and a variety of perspectives and approaches. As well, what's entertaining can vary from reader to reader. Maybe a reader who wouldn't find the first viewpoint on a topic area as expressed in Article 1 funny might find the second or subsequent viewpoints on that topic area in Articles 2, 3, etc. funny. Also, if you try to keep to one storyline across articles just for the sake of consistency, there's the possibility that some of the various linking articles in the series may become boring, unfunny articles that aren't interesting on an individual-article basis; instead of the linking articles, consider giving these details within the main article itself.

• Try to avoid writing over or spoiling any particular article that is otherwise a good article. If you're thinking of editing that particular article, try to be consistent in content and style with the existing content in that particular article. Otherwise, the article will begin to look like a messy, random, unfunny hodgepodge (although hodgepodges can be nice, in special cases). Thus, if you have a different viewpoint or different style from that already expressed in that particular article, you should move on and find a compatible article with your viewpoint or style or else start a new article (it's easy to do), rather than writing over or adding inconsistent content.

Spend a Little Bit of Time

• If you spent ten seconds writing it, perhaps ten people will like it. If you spent ten minutes, you might have hundreds. Even though we're full of lies and bullshit, the amount of work necessary to write a funny article may be on par with Wikipedia. The quality of our articles varies, but as a parody, it doesn't mean our quality standard should drop, just that our content is different.

• Moreover, simple, unadorned lists are rarely funny. You know the type: "List of people who can't spell" or "List of stupid things." Sometimes simple lists can be useful in launching a broader idea, as in US Presidents, but trying to be funny by listing "people who Oscar Wilde hates" isn't, well, funny. Or useful. If you must make a list, don't make it a quickie; at least spend some time fleshing it out, like in Worst 100 Movies of All Time.

• Research. A good chunk of stuff on here is random, and random can be funny. But the truly great articles require a bit of research. In order to effectively parody or satirize a subject, do some research on the real thing first, and your jokes will be better and actually make sense.

• Delete, delete, delete. More writing is more funny, right? Not necessarily. There's a reason why it's possible to make a living as an editor, a person whose job is mainly to delete prose and throw manuscripts in the trash: most writing is bad. Good writers understand this, and spend as much time mercilessly hacking their work apart as they do creating it in the first place, even throwing away completed novels to start from scratch. The ability to look at your own work, ask, "does this suck?" and answer honestly is one of the major differences between the pros and amateurs. Writing is as much about destruction as creation, so spend at least as much time editing as writing. Another way to think about it: writing is like cooking, it's as much about what you leave out as what you put in. When cooking a soup, you do everything possible not to put crap into it, shouldn't you do the same when you write?

• Revise, revise, revise. Maybe you misspelled a word, perhaps you thought of a clever joke, or a Photoshopped jpg to ice that cake. To create a really polished piece of work, you have to revisit it and smooth off all the imperfections. True, some people can hammer out a perfect first draft, but most people can't. Even Shakespeare devoted time to revising and polishing his plays.

The "@#$%^&*" Rule: Being Crass or Tasteless Doesn't Automatically Make Everything Funny

• There's no reason to swear like a sailor or make tasteless references every other sentence. In many lame formula jokes, crassness and/or profanity are/is the "punchline." It's usually not funny, especially if you're hung over the next day and looking over your article. Only in very few, very rare situations is crassness what makes a funny joke funny. Please don't use it as your primary source of humor. This includes those regurgitated dead baby jokes, as well as jokes about regurgitated, dead babies. Come up with something original, or at least put it in an original manner, rather than rely on shock factor as a fucking crutch.

• Not everyone likes scatological humor. In fact, many people simply find it immature and disgusting, and may not only start avoiding your articles, but Uncyclopedia as a whole. Just because you find the thought of defecation and farting hilarious doesn't mean that others do.

• Gay jokes. As of the time of this writing, there are more hits for the term 'gay' on Uncyclopedia than for the term 'the'. Adding the word 'gay' or a reference to gay parents for every person under the sun doesn't make the article funny - it makes it sound like it was written by a grade schooler. Again, come up with something original.

Avoid Clichés

• Many uninventive definitions follow overused formulas. These include:

• the term ...was invented by...
• the term ...Is a Rock band...
• the term ...was president of...
• Infinite loop pages. We have a category full of these, please, no more.
• Articles consisting solely of "See (article)" (If you need to, put on the page: #REDIRECT:[[Page name here]]).
• Saying the exact opposite of reality.
• This person...did something...a period of time...after his death. Just stupid, not funny.
• Using a film or television quote with little or no context. This especially goes for the "Did you know...?" section.
• Referencing an extra-dimension for no reason. For example: "is traditionally used to slide through the 4th dimension". Just not funny and used all the time.

• Of course there are times when there is a good legitimate reason for using such formulas but are quite often used as a quick lazy definition when you can think up a good one.

• Example: The Mongoose was invented by Oprah in 1378 B.C

Not Funny.

• Example: George W. Bush is a highly liberal communist dedicated to gay rights

Not Funny. Better than above, but still.

• Example: Creationism is the idea that God was so bored out of his mind he spent 6 days creating everything on our planet, and for good measure put in several jokes to fool us into believing it must have taken him much longer.

Funny! Why? It's not a throwaway, plus it gives us a reason to laugh. That crazy God.

• In 'Did you know' section, avoid using the words 'I', 'me', or 'my'.

• If a joke immediately pops into your head after three seconds' worth of pondering, assume it will occur to many, many people as well, and a large fraction of them will probably make it in other pages. Result: unfunny repetition.

• In particular: dear god, please lay off the Star Wars jokes, and saying so-and-so is a Sith, and such-and-such did whatever with Chewbacca.

• Extremely large numbers. (like 2193732483249 or 9999999999999) should be generally avoided. Sometimes a smaller, but round number can be funnier.

• Ridiculous dates simply serve to confuse the reader; they don't make your article funny. Remember: you want the reader to actually read your article, not just look at it, decide that it is nonsense or incoherent, and leave. Unless your article is about time travel, you're not going to make someone laugh by choosing ridiculous dates; you'll just make them stop reading.

• Celebrities: Really now, did celebrities do everything? If you feel the need to insert a famous person into an unreleated article, make it one that is applicable to the topic - for example, saying "Eminem was the daughter of Pat Sajak and Mickey Mouse" is pointless drivel; however, "Eminem is the son of Dr. Dre and Queen Latifa" is much better, as while Eminem is obviously not their child, it parodies his adoption of black culture. Always remember to have a specific point for your words; if you don't have a point (except to write randomness), the reader's not going to see one, and they're going to tune your article out.

Don't plagiarise

• Have you recently seen The Most Hilarious Film Parody Ever on the telly? Well, please don't post the exact joke word for word. By all means, add to the joke (You have two cows style) or even joke about the joke if it is well known enough. That said, if you are sure that no-one else could have possibly heard/seen the joke before, then please post it. Sometimes, the few people who understand the reference can build on it suprisingly well. However, this has to be genuinely humorous and not limited to the realm of in-jokes.

Meta-Humor isn't always as funny as you think it is

While we love to poke fun at ourselves and make light of some of the more rampant phenomena on this site, not every event, person, or trend on this site is worth documenting. This extends to creepy articles about users, references to otherwise insignificant and unhumorous events, and attempts to generate "trends" within The Uncyclopedia. There are few times that general phenomena are worth their own article and are limited to large-scale phenomena, such as Making Up Oscar Wilde Quotes. Furthermore, these articles must be well executed, lest they completely destroy its original humor. Think of it this way: Meta-humor is like fine, aged wine, it must not only have be around for a long time, but also has to have intrinsic value in order for it to be any good. Century-old bad wine is one hundred years old, but it's still bad wine.

Use In-Jokes Sparingly

• Just 'cause it's funny to you and three of your friends doesn't make it funny to us. Most in-jokes are "had to be there" moments, or rely on several other situations/experiences to understand exactly what makes it funny. They're hard to explain, and fail to be humorous in a stand-alone situation. This does not apply, however, to Uncyclopedia in-jokes. Since you are writing articles for the Uncyclopedia, it's perfectly acceptable to use Officially Established Uncyclopedia-Originated In-Jokes. It adds personality to the site, and distinguishes it from other wannabe parody wikis.

• Further note: Do not try to establish a foothold for your pre-existing in-joke here. Unless it's a true diaphragm-cramper, it's not worth your time (as it will likely get delefjyd7if7fr7trftiotttg67ofrit5frift7il. He or she is responsible for keeping additions streamlined and in the spirthe Uncyclopedia.

• Not everyone on the planet is male. This may seem like such an obvious point, and yet it is frequently overlooked. There's no better way to make women feel unwelcome at Uncyclopedia than to either pretend they don't fyif7f7fr7frfrufuofuffrfv passing or ignored outright? In an article about civil rights, is the struggle for women's rights forgotten? Little things like that can accumulate.

Outright sarcasm is Not a Replacement for Humor

(This is an adjunct to Bias and Opposites.)

• Clearly stating what is either right or obvious in a sarcastic manner comes off less as funny, and more as politically resentful or bitter. Take, for example

• Example: America had some goodwill in the world. Who would want that? After all, you can’t take goodwill to the bank. (Or can you?)

Bad. Sounds more like someone is annoyed with foreign policy and is letting it out here. It has the subtlety of a amped marching band, and seeks to hammer the point in sarcas