ST. MAARTEN/CHICAGO – Award-winning Caribbean comedian, Onicia Muller, celebrates the third anniversary of her weekly humor column, ‘Just Being Funny’ this month.
‘Just Being Funny’ (JBF), which is best described as chicken soup for the naive skeptic’s soul debuted on February 11, 2017, in The Daily Herald’s WEEKender. Each entry is a wild ride with hilarious quotables and pop culture references.
This is Muller’s second long-running column for the newspaper. She says she is determined to keep JBF fresh and in circulation for at least five years. “If the people continue to love it, I’ll tap into my inner Tyler Perry and make Black history by running it for a really long time.”
According to Suzette Martinez Standring, a past president of The National Society of Newspaper Columnists (NSNC), 34% of columns run for less than five years. The average column lifespan is seven years.
“I was about six months into JBF when I realized I could run out of high-action adventures. So, I decided to switch gears by highlighting my observations and silly thoughts.” Muller’s comedy speaks to politically-active Millennials and Gen-Xers who identify as both righteous and ratchet.
Should her humor column run for seven years, Muller has to write 364 entries.“I’m not afraid of running out of ideas now that my storytelling and comedy skills are more fine-tuned. It’s easy to write 500 words on everyday misadventures like waxing my upper lip, hugging hobos, or fighting a Jamaican school girl for a library book.”
