photo from flickr by niclindh
Listen. Hey Listen. You over there! You should be reading this faster. I just gave you feedback on how you should be reading. How did I know you were reading slow? I’m a f’n magician of websiteitry that’s how. But some feedback isn’t as useful as mine is (sorry rest of the universe).
On this week’s podcast we look at comedy feedback. When should you listen to feedback? When should you tell people to shove it up their butt holes? How can you be more constructive with your feedback?
Musical goddess Shayna Ferm stops by to help us sort it out and celebrate our 52nd episode. That makes us one years old. Stick around to the end of the podcast to check out a special surprise by Shayna and stick around to the middle to hear her song ‘Walk of Shame” and after check out the video (starring the always hilarious Katherine “Chuck” Bryant Flaherty).
So many thanks to Shayna Ferm and also to Andres Subercaseaux for reasons that will make sense after you listen to the episode. Also, because Shayna asked me to, this is Emo Philips’ site. Also many thanks to you listeners for listening to the podcast. And since we did a whole episode on feedback we would love to hear from you guys about what you’ve liked over the first year. What would you like to see more of? Which one of us do you think is cuter? (spoiler alert: It’s Dustin)
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{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
New theme song, yay! It’s mostly just a hot girl laughing at nerds, i love it. Upgrade!
Congrats on the new theme song. And the year. I dig.
I give a lot of unsolicited feedback. I try to make it specific so that people don’t hate me, but some probably do. I also try to give them a positive comment to go with the negative one, since I usually wouldn’t bother giving feedback to anyone whose material I don’t like at all anyway.
When it comes to producing any art, my view is that ego is the first thing that has to go out the window for progress to take place. This doesn’t mean that you take just anyone’s advice, but it means that you have to at least be willing to lower your defenses enough to listen to what they have to say and attempt to evaluate it honestly, regardless of whether you like the person or not or think they should be giving you advice or not. Now sure at the end of the day it makes sense to give more weight to the advice you get from people you respect and/or like, but sometimes people can surprise you, and if you can take advantage of the information itself regardless of the source I believe you will improve more quickly.
I’m not saying I’m a total paragon of virtue when it comes to doing this myself, but I try to be open to constructive criticism from anywhere. When it comes to comedy anyway, I’m much worse at applying this lesson in everyday life.
Of course, that doesn’t mean that when someone finds out I’m a comic and says “Tell me a joke!” that I’m going to. That’s a different issue and has to do with people trying to assert dominance over you in a social interaction by getting you to give them the chance to judge you. Fuck that.