Sarcasm. It is a clever way of using irony in order to make fun of something. It is also how sophomore stand-up comedian John Michael Cronin describes his style.
“I take things that we don’t think about and think how ridiculous those things are and just bring out the ridiculousness of it,” Cronin said.
Cronin began doing stand-up during summer 2010.
“I was always a big fan of comedy, and I saw things in everyday life in a joking way and I thought that I could do [comedy] too,” Cronin said.
Cronin has performed at the University of Florida’s open mic events and at bars and comedy clubs around Jacksonville, Fla.
He said he does not get paid for his performances, but he once won $50 for best act of the night.
In order to come up with his acts, Cronin takes notes when he notices something that has the potential to be funny.
“I write things down throughout the day, just put notes on my phone,” Cronin said. “Then after I have the ideas., the jokes come easy to me.”
Many of Cronin’s most entertaining experiences from performances are because of the audience members, he said.
“Occasionally you get people [in the audience] who want to be part of your act and just give their two cents,” Cronin said. “You get to battle it out with them. They yell out stupid things and think they are being funny and helping out your act.”
Opposed to many popular stand-up comedy acts, Cronin believes the best humor is clean humor.
“Clean humor is the best,because if you can [make people laugh] without swearing and making dirty jokes, it’s funnier anyway,” Cronin said.
Cronin has not performed at Harding yet, but he said he would like to get a group of people together to perform stand-up in a venue such as Midnight Oil.
“It’s just a matter of if I can find other stand-up comedians who are interested here,” Cronin said.
Cronin is also interested in performing in different venues in places such as Little Rock.
