Comedy

How can I tell if my joke is original?

Some of you may already know this about me, but for those of who don’t, a while back I gave stand-up-comedy a shot. It was an intense experience! Standing in front of a crowd, with only five minutes to win them over, it was one hell of a ride. In the end though, it turned out that stand-up-comedy wasn’t for me. It was a fun experiment, and I got to make some fun videos and meet some interesting people, but it turned out that I enjoyed writing jokes more than I did performing them.

In the writing of jokes though, there’s something that’s bothered me for years. Sometimes a joke pops into my head. It’s brilliant. It’s genius. The funniest thing I ever came up with. But is it really my joke? Did I come up with it? Or am I just remembering, or paraphrasing, a joke I heard a few weeks ago, or even months ago?

I know I’m not the only one with this problem, but over the year’s whenever I’ve consulted Dr. Google to find out if my joke is original or not, I’ve gotten little help in being able to discover if it is indeed an original joke.

Has anyone else had this problem? Any ideas on ways to figure it out?