Can wit be taught? Or is it a talent one is born with?

Happy new year! I have picked up on a point that some of my readers have talked about in my last point - idiots spouting drivel and crap online. Please allow me to quote my reader Raymond Chia as he explains it really well here.

Oh humour, that elusive talent to make people laugh.

"Yeah if you go to the Straits Times or ChannelnewsAsia pages you will see the same group of people "camping" there to post the same types of comments over and over. Doesn't matter whats their stance, they could be pro-government or anti, but this is such a useless way of life honestly. First off, you talk crap so you are not contributing to the argument at hand. Second, if you spending all that time on comments pages it probably means you are neglecting what really matters in the real world. And thirdly, the worst thing about loudmouth Singaporean netizens is, they expect to be given a platform to comment for free. This is why as I mentioned before, many socio political and alternative sites struggle for funds even though they have significant readership. These people talk big about having an alternative view but will not even contribute a few bucks to keep it going. Kind of goes against the Asian stereotype of not speaking up, that we have so many of such people who take speaking up to such an addictive, yet nonsensical level. I am also seriously at a loss to explain what motivates a person to be a keyboard warrior or troll. I mean, don't these people have some form of awareness and realize just how useless they are, whether online or offline?

I believe its the internet age that brings this to the fore. I mean such people have always existed. The thing is that a lot of people have a victim complex. They imagine slights and insults everywhere, like for instance they think that their poor English or lower education is being looked down upon by others. I had colleagues like that. Most of the time, the rest of us were never going to judge them by these things, we simply valued people who were team players and above all treated others with respect. But sometimes, they either develop a complex, or use the pretense of that complex to hide their other faults. Ironically, in developing and/or using such a complex, they are bound to the very shackles of society they claim to despise, such as judging one's self worth by money or education. And it is not hard to create an email or forum account these days. So after a long time, such people have an avenue to air their views, no? Suddenly, they are somebody. Suddenly, they can project their opinions to the world. And they get hooked on it, using the facade of being "active citizens", and "non-conformists" as an excuse to keep doing it.

But online discourse and the job of persuasion is just as Darwinian as any other world out there. Do it good and you become an influential blogger. Do it bad and you are just a dumb troll. There is a reason why some bloggers achieve a greater following than others. Maybe 1 in 10 non-conformists, maybe more, go on to do something. The rest simply feed themselves the lie, and continue to be nothing more than stupid ranters. They perhaps end up even worse off because they stopped trying to improve or change their situation due to the fact that they think ranting is their thing. And they will rant more than most because deep down, they are insecure. They do little in real life. Maybe they hanker after material wealth but cannot have it. Maybe they have the material wealth but are poor socially and cannot relate to others. They are not even intelligent or wise enough to influence others in their own way. So they turn to the only place where they think they can be somebody: the comments page. Name calling and repetitive posts become their forte, it is the only way they believe they can get any gratification. Of course, this does not apply to all such people but I believe it does for a large number. Doesn't change a thing though whatever their motivations might be. They are still stupid ranters plain and simple."

Okay since Raymond has done a brilliant job in describing the situation, I'm going to focus on a different angle instead: is there anything we can do about the situation? So if you have something to say, how do you learn how to present it in a way that is interesting and witty, that will make people sit up and take notice? Is this simply a gift that people have, such as the way some people are naturally good at sports whilst others are terrible? Or is this one of those 'soft skills' that we can actually learn and pick up, with the right kind of training and help? To explore this, I have sat down with a friend of mine Stuart who is an entertainer - now I have decided to have a conversation with him to discuss this. 

Do you know how to make your peers laugh?

Limpeh: Stuart, can you start by telling us what you do for a living please? 

Stuart: Well, I work in an electronics gadget shop on the high street but in the evenings and weekends, I do stand up comedy and in an ideal world, I would love to perform full time but the harsh reality is that I don't dare to give up my day job as yet as showbiz is very fickle. Sometimes I can get loads of gigs and other times, I can't get work. 

Limpeh: For my readers who are not familiar with comedy clubs in the UK, can you explain how it works please? 

Stuart: There are dedicated comedy clubs and there are also pubs who have comedy evenings - the amateurs have to prove themselves to be funny enough. My favourite is the one called 'the gong' whereby you have to stay on stage as long as possible, you're totally at the mercy of the audience - if they like you and laugh, applaud, then you can stay on stage but if you are not funny, then they will boo. If enough people boo, then the MC will strike the gong and you're off the stage. It's pretty darn brutal but what that means is that you have to become good really quickly if you want to make it in this business. A lot of people give up because they just don't have a thick skin. I appreciate that different cultures have different kinds of comedy. Do you have the equivalent of stand up comedy in Chinese culture? 

Limpeh: Well yes and no - we have something called 相声 and that's often translated as "cross talk". It is a piece performed by two comedians or actors and they crack jokes - some cross talk routines have been quite funny and some duos have become famous in Singapore thanks to their very popular cross talk routines. However, I remember having to sit through some boring cross talk routines and the audience will never boo in Chinese culture, people are far more reserved and the thought of interrupting a comedian who is trying his best on stage, well that's just considered too unkind I think. Even if the cross talk routine well and truly sucked, there will still be polite applause at the end of it. It's a cultural thing - comedians tend to work in duos rather than solo on stage, although western-style stand up comedy is slowly beginning to take root in places like Singapore, especially amongst the younger English speaking Singaporeans. There was a Singaporean stand up comedian called Kumar who is just totally awesome.

But if I may get your opinion please; on my blog, we've been talking about how there's a certain cohort of Singaporeans who spend a lot of time online. They are not funny, not interesting but they are keen to make their voices heard. They usually spend a lot of time leaving comments online - from news websites to Youtube to Facebook - social media allows them to tell the world what they think, but just because they post something doesn't mean that anyone will actually read what they say. The problem with such people is that they are inarticulate, they probably want to be funny but they don't know how to be be funny even if they try very hard to be. Most of the time, they don't even know how to present a cogent argument at the best of times, never mind come up with punchlines. 

Stuart: If you were to look at the comments section on some of the British equivalents of these websites, you'll see the same problem. Inarticulate people who want to have a say, posting drivel and stupid crap online. I'm sure you will find the same thing in any country in the world you go to - not everyone can be funny, that's why we like good comedians. 

Limpeh: Indeed, it's not a uniquely Singaporean situation. But here's my question to you: can you actually teach someone to be funny, witty, entertaining? Is there something that these people can do just to make sure that people will actually start listening to what they say and they will suddenly realize, holy shit, people are listening to me now that I am articulate, eloquent and funny? Allow me to share with you the brilliance of Kumar (please see video below). 

Stuart: It's the million dollar question isn't it? The baker would like you to think that you can never bake cakes as delicious as his, so you should just go to his shop and buy his cakes. The financial advisor wants you to think that you will never make the best investment decisions or manage your own wealth, that's why you should pay him for his sound judgement. The tennis coach wants you to think that you can never teach your son how to play tennis, that's why you should pay him for his services. But as a comedian, I don't think you would stop enjoying my shows if you learnt how to be funny yourself, so I am more than happy to tell you that yes there are steps you can take to learn to be more funny. Not everyone will have the nerve to get on stage to do a stand up routine in front of a less-than-friendly crowd, but if it's simply learning to be more funny in front of your friends and family or posting witty remarks online, that's much easier than you think when you're in front of your computer and not an audience. 

Limpeh: I do believe it's such an incredibly valuable skill - in today's competitive world, if you have that extra spark to your personality by being funny, then it will make you stand out from the crowd who are probably very boring. So imagine if I gave you someone who has never ever imagined that he is possibly funny, like he doesn't even try to make any jokes, where do you begin with someone like that, to teach him how to be funny? 

Stuart: I think the first lesson about being funny is to recognize that when you're only funny when someone else finds you funny, not when you find yourself funny. There's nothing more pathetic than someone telling a joke then laughing at his own jokes when no one else is laughing. I have a clear idea about what kind of comedy I like, what kind of jokes makes me laugh but when I get a gig and I get on that stage, I have to put the audience first: what would they find funny? What kind of joke would make them laugh? What might they find rather offensive? What topics are off-limits? I have to put them first or risk failing to make them laugh. I can't base my routine on what I find funny and hope that they find that funny too - no, that's too much of a risk to take. So the first rule is always to connect with your audience. 

You may say, oh that's obvious - but is it? Hardly. My sister has a 7 year old daughter and when I was around at her house the other day, her friend said to me, "it's my birthday next Tuesday." And my first instinct was to reply, "Really? What makes you think I give a shit? I don't even now your name, why should I care if it is your birthday?" Children are terrible at this: they just say the first thing that comes to mind, the first thing that is interesting and important to them regardless whom they are talking to. Then eventually, I'd like to think that sometime during our teenage years, we figure out that most people don't give a shit about a lot of things that are important to us, so we are more careful when picking the subject topics in conversation and we make smarter choices about whom we divulge such information to - this leads to more interesting social interactions and more friends, well, hopefully. I know of some adults who are still child like in this aspect and they are the ones with terrible social skills. 

Limpeh: So let me get this right, before we can teach someone to be funny, we have to teach them to be aware of their surroundings, of the people they are interacting with and introduce the concept of empathy. Is that absolutely essential? Can someone we don't like actually make us laugh if they simply have the right kind of funny jokes? 

Stuart: It's not impossible but it makes it so much harder. Pick someone famous whom you really don't like. 

Limpeh: That's easy. President Donald Trump. I sure as hell don't like him at all. And Nigel Farage whilst we're at it. 

Would you laugh if Trump told a good joke?

Stuart: Okay, one will do. Say if a really good comedian writes a funny joke and lets Donald Trump tell the joke, you will still be far less likely to laugh at the joke because in your head, you've already put up a barrier of cynicism, you are subconsciously resisting anything Trump is saying because you really dislike him. There's less of a barrier if you don't hate someone, but you don't have that incentive to be open to whatever they're saying - the same way I couldn't give a shit when some random kid tells me her birthday's coming up. Now name me someone you do like, a personal friend. 

Limpeh: Okay, my friend Max - he's a pretty awesome guy. I have worked with him. 

Stuart: Imagine if your friend Max came up to you and said, "Alex, I've something to tell you," now he already has your attention because he's a friend and you'll listen to him. It's not hard for someone like him to make you laugh because you're open to any message he is going to give you. You are a receptive audience for Max. Think about the comedians you find funny: you like them too. It's virtually impossible to find someone funny if you don't like them. So in the very first instance, before you can even think about being funny, you need to check: do these people even like me in the first place? Because you can like someone who isn't funny, but you can't find someone funny if you dislike them. 

Limpeh: I get it, you can only have a shot at being funny with people who already like you or at least for some reason are receptive to you. What is the next step then? Is it simply a question of memorizing jokes from the internet, so that we can tell funny jokes that make others laugh? Or is that kind of second-hand jokes just not sufficient, that we need to be able to come up with original material? How far do you need to go as a comedian to succeed? 

Stuart: A lot of stand up comedians recycle jokes - well they reuse, repackage, they tweak the joke, maybe change the context to update it and make it relevant to their audience but there's absolutely nothing wrong with recycling a joke. There's of course the delivery of the joke as well - a good stand up comedian is a good story teller who knows how to hold the audience's attention. You can't expect the joke to make the audience laugh, the same way you can't expect good products to sell themselves - that is why you still have salesmen who say the world's top car brands. If you were to look at brands like Lexus, BMW, Mercedes Benz, even Lamborghini, Ferrari and Aston Martin - these cars are so desirable, yet these companies still employ huge sales teams to sell their cars because you can't expect even great products like that to sell themselves. Likewise, you can't expect a joke to tell itself - that's where a confident, charming, skillful comedian comes in to deliver it before you can have a whole group of people laughing so hard at that joke. 

Limpeh: Am I perhaps putting too much emphasis on the ability to use humour to communicate a point? I'm thinking of someone who's really good at public speaking - take Elizabeth Warren for example. She is no comedian but she's brilliant at public speaking and people listen to her, she doesn't need to use jokes to be funny, to get her audience to pay attention to what she has to say. Have you heard some of her speeches? She's awesome.

Stuart: Yes, but she's Elizabeth Warren. When she gets on a stage, people start applauding the moment they see her from afar, before she even says a single word. She has their attention already. How many of us have that luxury? No, think about when ordinary folks stand up in a meeting and try to make a point, you already see that half the people in the room are reaching for their phones to see if a new Pokemon has come into the vicinity. In the shop where I work in, I see some poor young sales assistant trying to talk a customer through the features of the latest iPhone and I can see the customer is so bored and his eyes are already wandering to the nearest display cabinet. This is a situation where the shop assistant is speaking to one customer and she couldn't even hold the customer's attention for like 60 seconds. Poor girl, she didn't have the skills. Needless to say, she didn't make that say.

Limpeh: Okay as the senior expert on the job, how would you have suggested she coped with that situation then?

Stuart: Firstly, she should have asked the customer what he was looking for in terms of new phone, rather than just regurgitate a list of features of the phone. The customer completely took charge of the conversation by firing questions at her, before she could answer one he fired another and she was desperately trying to answer his questions, drowning in one question after another. Total fail. I would have answered a question with another question, like if the customer asks, "how does an iPhone compare to an Android?" I would reply, "what was your last phone - have you been using iPhones or Androids so far?" Then of course, I have memorized a whole load of phone related jokes that I can use with the clients - my colleagues roll their eyes because they've heard me use them a thousand times already. But I have a far greater chance of making a sale if I can make the customer laugh at my jokes, compared to my colleague who thinks she can make a sale by memorizing loads of product features. No, it doesn't work like that.

Limpeh: So Stuart, why are so few people genuinely funny then?

Stuart: Many people refuse to even try to be funny because it is not something they were told they had to learn, that they had to do when they were at school. You could get through years of formal education and get a degree without being funny at all, you can get a phD but still not know how to write an original joke. Oh worse still, there are those who try to be funny on their own terms, like they would say something which they genuinely find funny but to the other person, it may come across all wrong but they don't care. They can't see it from the other person's point of view.

Limpeh: Oh gosh, I can totally relate to that. My sister and I were talking on Skype recently when we were talking about words in the Korean language. Now there's the word 'Yeogi' which means 'here' in Korean and my mother said, "Yogi bear!" and laughed. My sister and I didn't find that funny at all, my sister calmly said, "Yeogi means 'here' in Korean, it has nothing to do with Yogi bear." My mother was then puzzled that we didn't laugh at the mention of Yogi bear, so she repeated, "Yogi bear!" as if we didn't hear her the first time she said it. Now clearly for some reason, my mother thought that it would be funny to hear a Korean person say the word 'Yogi' - but my sister and I totally failed to see why that could or would be funny at all. Where is the punchline, I wonder?  Why is that word funny? I suppose for my mother, she was happy to laugh at something she found funny, but she was probably not even trying to make me laugh as she's not the kind of person to crack jokes. You'll be amazed how many people don't try to crack jokes at all.

Stuart: Right, I suspect it is a cultural thing - do you not have a tradition of telling jokes in your culture?

Limpeh: There is a sense of 'leaving comedy to the comedians' in my culture - I remember when I was in school, the teachers were always very stern, very strict and and if a child tried to be the funny one in class, the teachers would go out of their way to make sure that child was punished. East Asians are obsessed with order and hierarchy in their society, so teachers for example would never crack a joke in class because if they are seen to be relaxed and funny, then they fear they may lose their sense of authority over the class if their students actually start liking them - no, students are meant to fear their teachers, not like their teachers. So teachers usually dish out punishments instead of crack jokes in our culture. If that's the kind of environment you are brought up in, then you soon have any desire for humour quite effectively snuffed out at a young age. You may still laugh when you see a funny scene in a movie or TV programme, but you would not have a clue as to how to be funny, like my mother. Incidentally, she is a retired teacher.

Stuart: Which probably explains a lot about her attitude towards humour. It's a cultural thing. But in the case of your mother, this illustrates a very good point. I call this the baking bread analogy. Many of us eat bread, very few of us actually bother baking our own bread because it's hard work, you need to buy yeast, you need a bread maker and it's hours of effort for what? A loaf of bread that I can buy for so little money at the supermarket? Why bother? The bake I bread is probably never going to be as cheap or tasty as the one I can buy at the local supermarket. That's why people tend not to bother baking bread - that's the same reason why so few people attempt comedy: they think they will not be funny, so why even try? People become passive consumers of comedy, they are quite happy to enjoy a funny TV programme and laugh out loud, but they would never attempt to crack a joke even with their friends and family members. By that token, your mother isn't that unique, loads of people are like her, don't be too harsh on her.

Limpeh: Why are some people like that then, why are they just so devoid of humour?

Stuart: If you do not believe that you need to do something, then you won't. Look at some of the fat people around you - common sense would tell you that they need to lose weight, they need to change their diets, do more exercise, cut down on their alcohol intake, change their lifestyles in order to lose weight but do they? Nope, that's why we have such an obesity epidemic on our hands. There are people who are already funny - you know who they are in your life, they are the kind of friends who will make an effort to make you laugh and if they succeed, that makes them happy.

Limpeh: Sure, I have friends like that. Quite a few do come to mind. But how do these people learn how to be funny in a culture which frowns upon children who try to be funny? Is this a talent that some people are born with?

Stuart: There's an element of monkey see, monkey do. Some children are incredibly perceptive. Like they can watch a comedy programme on TV and they think, I would love to be able to tell jokes like that and make my friends laugh, the same way that guy on TV just make me laugh. Many children do pick up a lot of social skills from their peers, from their community just like that. But of course, that's not an automatic process, my point is that some children are blessed with a talent that goes beyond mimicry: they do not merely memorize jokes. They recognize patterns quickly and they figure out how something works: they can deconstruct the process of a joke in their head, put it back together in a way that suits a different audience and deliver it with maximum impact. So yes, I suppose it is a talent that some people are blessed with - but let's put it this way, not everyone can swim as fast as Michael Phelps, but I'm sure we can get almost everyone can get in the pool and swim a little, just to do some exercise. By that same token, anyone can try to be funny and amuse those around them - what have they got to lose? You don't need to be Russell Howard to tell a joke.

Limpeh: Well in the case of my mother, I think someone like her would hesitate to crack a joke because she would be afraid that it may not work - people may laugh at her instead of failing to deliver a joke properly and she would be embarrassed as a result. Due to her lack of self-confidence, she would not want to take that risk. That's why a lot of people do not even try to tell a joke or be funny even when the opportunity presents itself.

Stuart: You see, they are not aware of the long term vs the short term consequences. The short term consequence of not telling a joke when the opportunity presents itself is that you have spared yourself a potentially embarrassing situation if the delivery of the joke just totally fails and you look kinda stupid. Fair enough, but the long term consequences of years, even decades of constantly making that same decision is that you come across as an extremely boring person devoid of humour. Now I would rather take a few short term risks with some questionable jokes, in the knowledge that my friends and family will forgive me if I tell a bad joke every now and then, than to spend my life being known as a humourless person with as much personality as a piece of maths exams.

Limpeh: The best comedians are not afraid to take risks and laugh at themselves. They accept that not everyone will find that joke funny but they go for it anyway, knowing that at least some people will laugh and there is never a perfect joke that will appeal to everyone you tell. I've got a great example, Margaret Cho's persimmon diet routine - oh that's a priceless example of how a comedian can make fun of herself for ten minutes about shitting herself in her car and keep the audience laughing non-stop for ten minutes about it. For some reason Blogger won't let me embed the video, but you can see it on Youtube by clicking on the link here. If you laugh at yourself, then others will laugh with you - they won't laugh at you. There's something incredibly refreshing about the way comedians like Cho do not hesitate to make fun of themselves, if you are brave enough to indulge in a healthy dose of self-deprecation then you're telling the world, even if you wanna make fun of me, so what? I'm making fun of myself already - I've got a head start on you.

Stuart: Yes, self-deprecation has a great tradition in comedy and unfortunately, people with low self-esteem are so insecure about what people say about them, they will never ever do any self-deprecation and that's sad. Learning to laugh at yourself is such an important lesson in life because you can never expect everything to go right, you have to accept that in life you will make some mistakes and sometimes of course, you can learn lessons from those mistakes but other times, you need to learn to simply laugh at yourself rather than just get upset over what happened.

Limpeh: You'll be amazed how many people online don't even have enough self-confidence to go anywhere near self-deprecation. On my blog, I often get hate mail from very angry Singaporeans because I criticize aspects of Singaporean politics and culture. Get that, because I dare to be critical about certain aspects of their country, these people attack me. Imagine if I actually met them in person, got personal and criticized them, woah. How low are their self-esteems, to make them react like that even to the slightest bit of criticism relating to even their country?

Stuart: That's because they choose to take it personally. If you criticize their government, they think it reflects badly on them if someone like you chooses to talk about something associated with them in a negative way. A more well adjusted person would be able to participate in such a conversation in a calm and constructive way, even if he felt that your criticism was unjustified or biased, he would then be able to use reason to take you on and have a discussion about the subject without ever taking it personally. But with people like that, it's hard to engage them - even with humour because you never know when they'll take something the wrong way, take it personally and take offence.

I never take myself seriously and always laugh at myself. 

Limpeh: Let's talk about responding to a situation with humour - is this something we can train ourselves to do? Let me give you an example: when Donald Trump was running for president, immediately the internet was full of President Trump jokes. There are just too many to name but you can click on this link for some. It is the art of responding to something that it happening right in front of you with humour. Is this something that you can do Stuart? Do you do a google search for the freshest jokes before you show or do you literally invent them on the spot?

Stuart: Well, I do try to write original material based on my personal experiences, I want to share something personal with my audiences through my comedy. To be able to come up with jokes on the fly, just like that, is an art. But there's so many levels to that, you have to find something funny, craft it into a punchline and deliver it with perfect timing to your audience in a format that is ideal for them. I can't even claim credit for this one: once I saw a stand up comedian on stage walk up to this guy who was quite near the front row and this guy in the crowd was looking at his phone during this comedian's routine. So the comedian asked this audience member what he was doing on his phone and not watching the show - the guy in the crowd actually said, "Sorry mate, I'm on Tinder." So the comedian pulls this guy on stage and he was nothing special, not ugly, I would say early to mid-30s, pretty average looking guy.

So the comedian says, "okay mate, we have room full of beautiful ladies here and you wanna use an app to meet women? Let me help you out mate, okay? People, let's do Tinder live. What's your name mate? Jake, nice to meet you. Ladies, this is Jake and in Tinder live, when you wanna swipe right, you say oooooh as if you've seen the man of your dreams. And if you wanna swipe left, you say, eeeugh as if you've just stepped in some chewing gum. Okay ladies, are you ready? This is Jake, for those of you who wanna swipe ripe let me hear you say oooooh? Oh okay, yes I think I heard someone back there, but I think that was definitely a man's voice. We'll be playing Grindr live later, wait your turn mate. And okay, for those of you who wanna swipe left let me hear you say..." And before you knew it, the whole club went eeeugh so loud, like even the guys went eeeugh and it was like the whole room had swiped left all at the same time. Like you could have heard that eeeugh from the train station halfway the road. Oh dear, poor guy.

Tinder: finding love online

Of course it was humiliating for this guy Jake who had to stand there on stage with that comedian to be subjected to that. But the comedian didn't care - that was his revenge because that guy wasn't paying attention to his show earlier. And of course, it was a calculated risk that he was prepared to take, in a more culturally repressed... a more conservative society, the audience may have been too shy to even take part in a routine like that. But this comedian knew the crowd at this club well enough to know with a great degree of certainly exactly how this was going to go down and at the end of that he just said, "Jake, mate I'm sure there's someone for you out there, but she's not here tonight. So put that phone away and enjoy the great comedy we have lined up for you tonight. Ladies and gentleman, please give Jake a big round of applause!" I later asked if that comedian had planned that Tinder live routine and he said no, how could he have planned that in advance? It was completely improvised. And I know this stand up comedian, he's famous for improvising on stage, no two shows are the same and he loves involving members of the audience.

Limpeh: As a gay man, we have this culture of gays being extremely bitchy and caustic. And this is especially apparent in the gay comedy circuit where the gay stand up comedians can be really quite vicious with their words. We're talking about a combination of wit and malice, in equal portion, to hurt the opponent. These are not innocent jokes, oh no - these are funny jokes with every intent to cause damage to the party you're making fun of. In any case, I can't just hit someone when they upset me - that's assault, that's a crime but I can say something very insulting and upsetting and inflict damage all the same and actually, I really enjoy doing that. Guess that makes me an evil gay?

Stuart: That's the stereotype we get from shows like RuPaul's Drag Race and Hurricane Bianca. I am sure there are plenty of gay people who are not like that at all, being gay doesn't automatically equip you with that kind of wit.

Limpeh: But having been a part of the gay community here in London since 1997 when I first moved here, I have consumed a lot of kind of media popular with the gay community and I did pretty much pick up this bitchy trait from that in a 'monkey see monkey do' manner. Nobody sat me down and explained what it meant to be bitchy or what it took to become the caustic bitch I am today, nobody even tried to explain what sarcasm or irony was to me - yet I just somehow picked it up and made it a part of whom I am today because I thought, ooh wouldn't it be nice to be able to use my superior intellect to insult people who upset me, what a useful skill that would be.

Stuart: There's nothing wrong with combining wit and malice - because at least it is just words at that stage. When you're dealing with someone doing something like that, there is some restraint because the person is trying to be funny at the same time, whilst insulting someone. When there's malice without the wit, that's when it gets downright ugly and dangerous, that's when I think "we're just one step away from someone throwing a punch". People who use angry words with a lot of malice and not wit and probably prone to violence, whereas those who can combine wit and malice know that they can inflict enough damage with just words. If you feel you can make your point with your words, then you can use words to make your point. It's only the barely literate, inarticulate idiots who get into fights because words totally fail them when they are angry, that's why they throw a punch. These morons can barely string a coherent sentence together at the best of times, never mind when they are angry. I'd rather people use words than their fists.

Limpeh: I'm glad we have touched upon this issue because I would like to ask you about how this applies online please. A lot of angry people take to social media and when they can't convince the other party to see their point of view, it then quickly descends into a lot of angry swearing. We see that a lot on social media I'm afraid. Can we teach young people (or anyone indeed) that there is a better alternative, you use this combination of wit and malice to deal with people you really don't like online? Is this actually something we can help young people learn?

Stuart: The luxury about online interactions is time - you only have a certain window period when facing someone in person before you can come up with a witty response, like during an interview on TV or on stage during a stand up comedy routine. Once that window period has passed, you've missed your opportunity. But when you are dealing with someone online, on social media, you can afford to wait a bit - if you are angry, walk away from the computer and calm down before you feel the need to post a response. You can take the time to craft a really good response or decide not to say anything if you feel that you don't really have anything that important to add to the conversation. One needs to know when to say nothing when one doesn't have anything of value to add to the conversation.

Limpeh: Oh this reminds me of a sales assistant in Singapore who felt the need to follow me around the shop when I was browsing - did her manager actually tell her she needed to do that with every customer? I picked up a blue shirt that looked nice and she said, "that one is blue colour." I looked at her in disbelief, like I couldn't believe she just said that. She's the kind of person who feels the need to say something even if she doesn't have anything of value to add to that situation. You're a sales person, you're meant to say something that will persuade me to buy that shirt which I obviously liked, otherwise I would not have picked it up in the first place to take a closer look at it. I was just astounded by her sheer stupidity, but I guess if this woman was any more intelligent, she wouldn't be doing that kind of job.

Stuart: So what would you have said in that situation if you were her then?

Limpeh: I'll make something up - you know how Korean culture is so incredibly popular in Asia? I'll claim that some famous K-pop boy band often wears shirts like that and to buy the original shirt that the K-pop boy band wears would cost a lot more money, but this is an excellent imitation of the original design so I'm getting the most popular Korean design at a fraction of the cost: what a bargain! They were blasting K-pop songs in that shop anyway - many shops in Singapore and Malaysia do that because of the immense popularity of K-pop there. It would have been easy to weave some kind of K-pop story into that cheap, made in China shirt to convince the customer to part with a few dollars for that shirt, anything to engage the customer, just to establish some rapport. But what was her motivation? Was she on commission for every shirt she sold? I doubt it, so she couldn't be asked to come up with anything more witty than pointing out the obvious. We have this saying in Chinese, 你不说话, 没有人说你哑 - if you don't speak, nobody is going to think you're mute, that means you should shut the hell up if you don't have anything of value to say.

Stuart: I actually believe that the people who spout crap online mostly do it as a knee-jerk response, just like the "this shirt is blue" lady in the shop. If you gave them a few moments to think it through, they would probably realize how dumb their first responses are. The other key factor is to take a moment and think about what you're responding to: is your first response something that echoes the general public opinion? Are you merely agreeing with the majority or do you have something new, a different perspective to add to the matter? Take a moment to read what else has been said about the issue, do you have anything new to add to the discussion? Do you have anything unique to say?

Do you have anything important to say?

Limpeh: There's also a matter of what you're used to - you see, when I was in school and in university, if you put your hand up during a discussion, the teacher would turn to you and say, "what do you think about the topic?" If you said something insightful and interesting, then both the teacher and the other students would praise you. If you said something vapid or ignorant, then the other students would be the first to tell you so. I remember once a girl put her hand up and said something really stupid in my class and the teacher just turned to the rest of us and asked, "so how would the rest of you respond to what she has said?" And of course, everyone jumped in at that invitation to condemn her for being so bloody stupid - the teacher didn't even need to say anything, mob justice too over because in such an environment where you're surrounded by very intelligent people, you're not going to get away with something like that.

Stuart: But in these online forums, is there a stern teacher to shoot you down if you say something ignorant? What if the 'classmates' are equally stupid or even more stupid than the person who spouts such bullshit online?

Limpeh: Exactly. That's why these people just keep going online because they are in the company of idiots. There isn't any kind of self-regulating mechanism to warn these people that they are saying something stupid, that they are not funny. And certainly when I see someone like that spout something stupid and ignorant, I simply choose to walk away and ignore them. You can't make it your personal mission to try to cure the world of stupidity one person at a time!

Stuart: The fact if I can give you a whole lecture about how these people can learn to express themselves in a far better way, we can give them intensive English lessons to help them learn how to construct cogent arguments and use wit and humour to give it that extra sparkle - but the bottom line is that we're casting pearls at swines. Remember that golden rule: you cannot help someone who doesn't want to be helped.

Limpeh: Is this just a matter of having a good command of the English language then? If someone isn't particularly well educated, does that mean that they are totally unable to be funny and use wit?

Stuart: Well yes. I hate to say that comedy is the preserve of the middle classes, the graduates who have read English literature at university, who can understand Shakespeare and Chaucer. But I talked to someone about the same topic and this person was painfully working class, he said, "yeah but that really funny bloke Lee Nelson is as working class as they come, innit?" I had to explain to him that Lee Nelson is a character that is created by comedian Dr Simon Brodkin - he isn't a real person. The character Lee Nelson encompasses all the worst traits of the working class 'chav', Brodkin was actually brought up in the affluent suburb of Hampstead in north London and read medicine at university - he even worked as a doctor in Manchester for a while before pursuing comedy full time. Thus Dr Brodkin couldn't be more different than the character Lee Nelson whom he created and that it was a rather unflattering portrayal of the working class idiot, not unlike Matt Lucas' character Vicky Pollard or Catherine Tate's Lauren Cooper. There's really nothing new about affluent, middle class, well educated British comedians mocking the inarticulate working class.

Limpeh: I'm sure you've heard this joke before: when you are dead, you don't know that you are dead. It is difficult only for the others. It is the same when you are stupid. Political correctness aside, is there a correlation between wit and intelligence then? Or in other words, if I may be blunt, is it impossible for stupid people to be funny?

Stuart: Yes and no. It depends on what you find funny. Who are you trying to amuse with your jokes? I'm sure you're familiar with the Benny Hill show. It is the kind of comedy that really appealed to the working classes but it relied heavily on slapstick comedy, such as a lady losing her clothes in public. A working class person may know exactly what makes another working class person laugh, but would he be able to make an audience at the Oxford University Union debating society laugh? I doubt it. Humour is so much about understanding what makes your audience laugh and professional comedians spend ages doing their research, so they do know what to put into a very successful show.

Limpeh: I think it is a shame that a lot of people who are indeed well educated do not make that extra effort to learn more about how to express themselves with wit and humour, more people would make the effort if they realized just useful it can be in real life. I like funny people who embrace comedy and have a sense of humour.

Stuart: Well look at it this way, if everyone made the effort, then comedians like me would be out of a job.

Limpeh: Many thanks for taking the time to talk to me Stuart.

Stuart: Cheers!