Her Particular Brand of Weird: Samantha Irby on How to Be Funny

Four lines. Three links. One toilet. 

Open your browser to Samantha Irby’s website, and this is what you’ll find. On the homepage of the best-selling author and humorist’s site reads—in all lowercase—her name, a brief greeting, the title of her blog​​ (a successful venture which has launched her career to its current height), bitches gotta eat, as well as the contact information for her representation. 

To the uninitiated eye, the outline of a black, clip-art crapper on the computer screen may not present much in terms of visual appeal, but it gives the most perfunctory, perfect illustration of what readers can expect when picking up Irby’s stuff. 

By way of introduction to her tight and simple use of language—as well as vivid imagery—this online addition offers a quick peek into Irby’s “particular brand of weird,” as a culture critic from the New Yorker, Vinson Cunningham, puts it. Brevity works for this humor writer, as demonstrated by the fact that she has “sold a lot of books,” she confirms in a recent podcast episode.

Irby started her blog in 2009 and has since penned five critically-acclaimed essay collections, going on to a successful writing career spanning both the literary world as well as Hollywood. One thing to know: Samantha Irby will talk about poop. And if she’s not talking about it, then she’s wearing it.

Cracking jokes the entire conversation, Samantha Irby exudes hilarity during every moment of The New Yorker Festival, right down to her clothing. For her speaking appearance, she wears a white, spray-painted t-shirt emblazoned with the name of the inflammatory bowel disease—Crohn’s—from which she suffers, delivering another dose of her much-adored toilet humor to her fans in the Manhattan audience, who too find it funny to shit themselves.

Irby sits down with New Yorker staff writers Cunningham, Naomi Fry, and Alexandra Schwartz, in a session titled How to Be Funny to discuss doing just that. 

Whether or not something is able to make Irby laugh remains the litmus test for her own writing, a sentiment she shares in the live podcast taping for the magazine’s new show, Critics at Large. In the podcast series, the critics discuss art and entertainment, society and culture, as well as why these things work (or don’t) in our world. 

Bathroom humor is a certain comedic niche not meant for everyone. Irby knows this from the numerous DMs she has blocked over the years. She shares more about finding your comedic voice later in the talk, in an ode to TikTok and meme accounts. 

Describing the key to success in the modern comedy marketplace, she says to create the “specific things that delight you and [make] them readily available.”

You can’t satisfy everyone, so make yourself laugh first and the rest will follow, Samantha Irby suggests in a depiction of her writing practice. She defines success at a low bar, whatever’s “good enough for [her].” She can’t think about failing, she continues, giving more context to why she favors writing funny essays over performing stand-up comedy. Since her work so much centers her internal world and personal life, she can’t handle hostility from an audience when she’s making jokes; she expresses herself through her sense of humor, a vulnerable pursuit. As someone who gets “easily discouraged,” stand-up is not the right avenue of humor writing for her.

Humor writing can take on many different forms. From scripts and screenplays to books and essay collections, the popular genre evolves with changes in culture, taste, and the zeitgeist. 

Cunningham, a critic on the festival panel, calls Irby “the greatest humor essayist of our time,” and it’s clear that her disarming candor, unabashed body comedy (poop jokes, anyone?), charming relatability, and wild imagination is what got her here. Whether the ability to be funny is innate or something one can cultivate, Irby diplomatically recommends: “Nurture what you naturally have.”

One way of building your sense of humor is to surround yourself with people who make you laugh. Irby’s friend group are “not serious people,” she says of her close circle. Though some of their jobs—such as “doctor”–-are serious, they know how to crack a good joke. A type of humor she attributes to their shared Black heritage, her friends know how to poke fun and take what they’re dishing out in return.

“Dumbasses rock with me,” Irby says, and having this supportive environment in her life—one filled with those who see the world through a comedic lens—is what keeps her spirits high, a necessary intervention amidst the troubling state of the world today.

“We are doomed, everybody,” she comments in this regard, shifting more forward in her seat.

“Let’s just laugh.”

As a queer, Black, fat kid from the Midwest, Irby developed her sense of humor as a way to protect herself against potential threats, but the core motivation for her jokes has always been her own personal amusement.

The group discusses Irby’s screenwriting post on the Sex and the City spin-off, And Just Like That, as well as what she will and won’t include in her essays, plus what kind of media she finds funny. On the internet, she takes respite in meme pages, which she calls “genius,” and in TikTok. According to Irby, these 15-second, front-facing stints provide a blueprint for what the future of humor writing will look like.

Now, comedy is about finding community and a very specific audience. Niche is in, notes Irby.

“Find your lane and stay in it,” she advises. “Trying to appeal to everyone isn’t it anymore. People are too aware of their triggers.”

With this new paradigm in place, having other people in your life who find you funny—who validate your voice and your point of view—is one of the best ways to strengthen your humor writing potential.

As Irby’s words affirm, the quality of your craft depends not only on your talent and skill, but also on the company you keep.