10 Comedy Hackathons: Making Some Sense Of A Strange Thing
I’ve never been to a hackathon. But I’ve run 10 weird ones.
We just eclipsed that number with Comedy Hack Day — our humor-hackathon hybrid. Ten times we’ve put out the call for tech-curious comedians and talented developers hungry for an event that doesn’t take itself seriously. In the process, we’ve discovered an underserved market of genius weirdos.
Personally, I entered this run as a bit of a technology dullard. My dream jobs out of college all specialized in printed paper. So what does somebody like me learn by organizing, hosting, and eventually recovering from 10 comedy hackathons? What do those learnings suggest about the state of the technology and comedy writ large? Are three rhetorical questions enough to properly segue into a glorified listicle?
Let’s find out! Here are some lessons learned from 10 Comedy Hack Days.
Hackathons are technology contests.
Technology and contest are two easily grasped words, whereas hackathons are still a woefully misunderstood concept outside the tech community. Many understand it has to do with hacking, but they aren’t exactly sure what that is; while another set knows them as something their company does or thinks it should be doing. Why? Um, because innovation? I put this lesson first because the whole concept should pique people’s interest more than it does. A hackathon should feel approachable to anyone remotely creative. It is building the framework of a business as a contest — you start with an idea, name it, give it a story, design it, program it’s primary functions, complete a prototype, and ultimately sell it live on a stage. Everyone can contribute to that, and I wish “hackathon” could either evolve to reflect that approachability or die so a more inviting moniker could take its place.
Comedy is a beautiful beast.
It’s a chameleon made of T-1000 goop able to take form anywhere. I got to see evidence of that at The Onion, but CHD has offered me a front row seat to something that feels a bit more uncharted: comedy as functioning technology. In any art form it’s very rare to be graced with a virgin medium. Watching really funny people contribute in the creation of an app, I’ve seen jokes I’m not sure have ever existed before. And that’s a hard thing to lay claim to. Just as one example, our newly crowned winner Equipay used a slider for the gender entry field on their app — acknowledging that gender is a spectrum. It was so simple and ultimately a one-off in the context of their presentation, but it made for such a hilarious beat and all because funny people were actually coding a product instead of mocking up a screen or writing a line of dialogue. I could go on and on about Pizza Blaster, Computer Roommate, or the drone selfie stick, but I now realize this should be its own entire post…
The truth is always most interesting.
There’s an ever-growing market for technology companies that perpetuate lies or some false version of your identity. We’ve had dozens upon dozens of ideas pitched at CHD for lampoonish exaggerations of that false presentation of self, but none of them have ever done well. Something technologists can learn from comedy: the very best material taps into the truth rather than perpetuating the superficial.
The diversity problem is disappointing, and demands real work.
We’ve had a tough task uniting two fields traditionally dominated by white men (comedy + tech) under the banner of an event type that mostly attracts more white men (hackathons). Because hackathons feel largely like an in-group thing, as addressed above, a passive approach to recruitment paired with allowing the in-group participants to establish the tenor of your event is the easiest recipe for an unwelcoming environment. It’s worth stating again that I’ve never attended another hackathon, so I’m not accusing anyone. I’ve just seen the work we’ve had to do on both fronts — recruiting participants and maintaining an open, approachable vibe — and still every CHD winds up mostly white men. When someone tells us our event is “diverse for a hackathon” I hear a condemnation of the landscape more than a compliment of what we’ve done. That shit won’t fix itself.
Technology is strange. And strange is fun.
The self-seriousness of the tech scene has become a trope, but there’s still plenty of air to be let out of the industry. It’s not all important, and that’s okay. On an abstract level, technology today is a marvel. But a trivial thing at the push of a button is still a trivial thing. I wish more startups were allowed to be simple, and distinguish themselves by embracing the strangeness of a world where a company like theirs can even exist. The tech scene often rewards those who bury their heads in the biggest, most disruptive possible future of everything — but there are a whole lot of people turned off by the bullshit and mostly looking to make fun, interesting stuff. Even if it’s small or fleeting. Comedy Hack Day is a space for people not looking to change the world, but just looking to make the one we’ve got more tolerable and fun. I like that.
