How to be funny…?

There seems to be a fine line with what people can and can’t say about “how to be funny.” While I have tried to extraordinarily emphasize that my project nowhere near touches on “how to be funny,” the idea that it could be confused as such bugs me a bit. I gave a presentation recently to a design firm and this explanation popped out of my mouth, which is a good analogy (for now):

People teach us the elements and structures of a sentence, but it doesn’t mean we will write prolific sentences. Thus we can learn the structure of humor but it doesn’t necessarily mean we can be funny–It just provides us with a framework and a starting point.

I’m sure there are holes, but at least I’m not the guy from this article. He breaks down humor genres (which is fine) but then concludes by saying, and I quote,

“It’s that simple. If you follow these nine rules (especially the ninth one) you will be funny and people will love you for it. More likely, people will be annoyed by you, resent you, and not want to hang out with you. That’s what happened to me and most other comedians I know. But don’t listen to them. Keep making jokes. Never stop. No matter what is going on or how serious the situation is, joke about it. You’ll quickly find you’re constructing jokes as if it were an innate talent. And that’s nothing to joke about. Oh, wait, it is.”

His joking tone does the avoid/confront paradox with the statement, so it doesn’t seem as committal to really stating how to be funny. But, I guess he’s never done research on the subject…