You Were Funnier Online

The internet is a funny place.

And it’s a good place to be funny.

I’ve noticed recently that I have some friends who are hilarious online.  Their Twitter feeds and Facebook posts crack me up consistently.  I don’t know where they come up with these clever, off the wall, or insane ideas, but whatever they are doing they need to keep doing it because it’s working.  They are genuinely funny.

Many of these people I don’t have the pleasure of hanging out with on a daily basis anymore.  And as I was rolling on the floor laughing out loud at a post the other day, I though “he was never this funny in real life.”  I started to wonder when these people all got so funny.  All of the people who made me laugh so hard online seemed much funnier now than when we actually interacted face to face.

I realized that the beauty of social media is that I can be very specific with what I say.  I can take the time to develop, edit, expand, boil down, and perfect each joke, post, status, or tweet.  These people didn’t get any funnier, they just have a chance to only put the really funny stuff online.  In real life they might make a good joke one out of every ten tries, but on the internet they can hit a home run every time because they can swing at less pitches.

I said all that to say this: swing at less pitches.  Let some balls go by so that when you do swing you can hit a home run (or at least make it to base).  That means do fewer things well rather than try to be everything to everyone.  In my life, career, family, etc. I’ve tried to swing at everything that came at me, but this only leads to burning out or shutting down.  Life is full of pitches, but just like my friends that are funnier online, each of us has a chance to do a few things well or a lot of things with mediocrity.