The absolute key to being popular among a large group of people is to have funny voice mail greetings on your cell phone and/or your home answering machine. People ask me almost bi-weekly, “Hey man, can you tell me how I can be really popular like you?” Well, here is what you need to keep in mind: By taking a little time to analyze the impact and strength of your funny voice mail greetings, you can guarantee that you will steadily advance up the popularity pyramid.

It’s easy brah, don’t worry.

What you’ll need:

• Phone with voice mail or answering machine
• Voice
• Brains

WHO WILL BE LISTENING?
That is the first question you need to ask yourself. Does your mother call all the time to check up on you? If so, you probably don’t want to make the greeting vulgar or offensive. If your mom isn’t going to be hearing it, or if that is not a problem for you, then by all means start with something vulgar. You could try recording yourself and someone else making sex noises together while recording the greeting. For extra points, add lots of moans and grunts as you say “Leave a mess …es …YES-message at the beep, etc.”

WHAT DO THE PEOPLE CALLING YOU LAUGH AT?
Do you and your friends watch a lot of the same TV shows or cartoons? Sometimes it can be pretty funny to do impersonations of the characters from these shows, but make sure you’re actually good at the impersonation before you record a greeting so that you can keep from embarrassing yourself. I recommend acting it out in front of the mirror, or testing it out for your step-dad.

TRY SOMETHING RANDOM / BE CREATIVE.
There are lots of random things you can do that will be funny. You could record the greeting when you know someone else is going to be talking to you, so that it sounds like they messed you up while you were making the greeting. Then you can use it to prove to your other friends how much of a jerk that person is. Other background noises can be funny as well. If you find yourself in a place where there are a lot of strange noises floating around, just whip out your cell phone and record a greeting to see how it turns out. There’s nothing wrong with experimenting.

GET A FRIEND TO DO IT!
Another funny idea is to have a friend record a greeting for you in their voice, so that when a caller hears it, they will think that they dialed the wrong number. Then, when they call back and hear the message again, they’ll know that they’ve been duped and you can rip on them later while you’re at swimming practice.

STEAL OTHER PEOPLES VOICE MAIL GREETINGS.
If someone else has a funnier voice mail greeting than you do, just steal it and then tell everyone that you thought the whole thing up. Also, to make sure the same thing doesn’t happen to you, I recommend forking over the 25-50 bucks to get a copyright for your new greeting.

STOP ANSWERING YOUR PHONE.
Whenever you first record a new voice mail greeting, it is important not to answer your phone for at least a week so that everyone you know can get a chance to hear it a couple of times.

SPREAD THE WORD.
When you’re at work or school, have friends call your voice mail on speaker phone so that everyone can hear how funny you are. You can also advertise your phone number on message boards and blogs so that random people from the internet can call in and hear your funny voice mail greetings.

KEEP THEM GUESSING!
Change your greetings as often as possible to keep people entertained

An easy way to do this is by pre-recording all of your funny voice mail greetings onto your computer, and then periodically changing them out by holding your phone up to the speakers and pressing play. You should probably invest in an expensive condenser microphone for your computer so that it doesn’t sound muffled or have static when you are recording it onto your phone.

DEVELOP A SCORING SYSTEM.
Keep a spreadsheet that lists all of your greetings along with a rating of how funny they are. Have a friend or an elderly neighbor listen to all of your funny voice mail greetings, and then help you decide how to rate each one.

REVIEW YOUR PROGRESS.
After a couple of weeks, you should look back and see which voice mail greetings were the funniest, and which ones bombed. That way, you can gauge what kind of humor your friends appreciate the most, and determine how to make your future voice mail greetings skyrocket you into super-stardom!

Warning
Having a funny voice mail greeting absolutely will not skyrocket you into super-stardom. The ideas presented in this article are for entertainment purposes only, and the author can not be held liable for any damages incurred by the actual execution of aforementioned ideas.

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