I committed to writing and sharing 30 jokes in 30 days. Here’s what I learned.

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I committed to writing and sharing 30 jokes in 30 days. Here’s what I learned.<br>The hardest part wasn’t writing the jokes. It was putting myself out there

Pam Moore<br>May 19, 2026

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Photo by Michelle Tresemer on Unsplash<br>Let’s start with this: I hate showing up online on video. Rude thoughts that immediately enter my brain when I watch footage of myself include:<br>Does my voice really sound like that?<br>Is that seriously how my face looks?<br>This is really what you want people to see when they Google you?<br>When did so much of my hair turn white?<br>Have I always looked so much like… my brother?<br>Good God, how did I not realize I am overdue for an upper lip wax?<br>Real Nourished is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

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So naturally, I decided to show up on video 30 times in 30ish days.<br>The idea started germinating before I realized anything was sprouting, kind of like an unintended pregnancy. This was back when I jumped into Alex Baia’s two-week comedy writing challenge. The idea was that everyone in the community would share three new jokes per day and receive feedback from the group on which idea was the funniest.

My first (and second, third, and fourth) thought was I could never. But as the start date inched closer, I noticed something. I couldn’t stop thinking about the challenge.<br>So I joined. And I came up with three new jokes a day. Most weren’t funny. Some were. One even won the standup comedy category. (Other categories were humor writing and sketch). Some days the jokes poured out of me. Most days they dripped out word by painstaking word. But I got them done. And over two weeks I got comfortable sharing unpolished work.<br>When it was over, I wanted to keep the momentum going. Meanwhile, there was another thing I could not stop thinking about: How Ariel Elias posted one joke a day on Instagram for 365 days straight.<br>So I committed to writing and sharing 30 new jokes in 30 days. Maybe they’d be bad, not funny, or unoriginal. Maybe I’d have chapped lips or frizzy hair or bad lighting but more likely, just look like the tired 47-year-old woman I am.

But no matter what, I figured, the more often I did it, the less scary it would be.<br>Here’s what I learned.<br>No one cares

And that is liberating, not depressing. From the get go, I never truly expected to do 30 jokes in a month because I wanted to be able to take one day off over the weekend. (I picked Shabbat, Saturday, despite not being a particularly observant Jew.) But “one joke a day, six days a week, for five weeks” just doesn’t have the same ring as “30 jokes in 30 days.” Not one person noticed or called me on it.<br>It does get easier

It became a habit. Every morning I’d generate at least one joke. Every evening, I’d set up my ring light and record the joke in my office, then post it to Instagram and TikTok. Once in a while, I’d upload a clip or two to YouTube. The lighting wasn’t perfect. I was usually not in the mood. But not having to decide whether, when, and how to do it reduced a lot of the friction.<br>Engagement obsession is real and it sucks

When I set out on this experiment (note I did not say “journey” if I hear that word one more time, I SWEAR TO GOD), I promised myself the only metric for success was whether I completed the task each day.

However, it turned out likes, shares, and comments are the perimenopausal Whole Foods shopper’s crack. Despite my promises not to care about engagement or become obsessed with my phone, I did and I was. At some point during the process I got a Brick. It helped.<br>Haters gonna hate

The first time I got a mean comment (which honestly wasn’t even that mean) my stomach dropped. My hands were shaking. The bad digital vibes went straight to my sometimes wildly insecure, tender heart. The third time I was somewhat hurt but then I blocked the commenter and moved on. By the time one of my reels went viral enough to attract accusations of genocide, baby murder, and sundry other anti-Jewish hate speech in the comments, I was half numb, half grateful for the engagement.<br>30 days isn’t enough to make the habit stick

Or maybe I went out at an unsustainable pace and the dropoff was therefore inevitable. In any case, I’ve barely posted at all since that last one, which to be honest, was the 29th post.<br>Some major life stuff interfered with the 30th post and has taken up a lot of my energy ever since. I’ve still been generative in other ways, but I haven’t returned to this project yet.<br>I feel bad about that, though not in an “I’m a failure” way. More in a “I should probably get back to that” way. But also: this is a season of life I didn’t see coming.<br>It’s better to focus on quantity over quality

If I’d only shared my best jokes or tested jokes or polished jokes, I’d hardly have had anything to post. By sharing stuff before it was...