Ate my balls

"Ate my balls" or "I ate my balls" is an expression in the standup comedy community, whereby a comedian goes on stage and attempts to make an audience laugh, and fails miserably, also known as "bombing."

This can be due to either:

The comedian performing the material poorly.

-Or-

An obnoxious, aggressive, or just generally shitty crowd, or rather, that the crowd and the comedian weren't meshing, weren't on the same page comedically.

The expression is used in both cases. The expression seems to be popular with, and may have originated with comedians from the East Coast, particularly Boston; Bill Burr and Jim Norton are examples of comics who frequently use the expression.

"Man this last open mic was brutal, I got up there and ate my balls in front of 20 other angry comics who looked like they were paid to be there."

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