Wit is the verbal construction of humor, and it tends to produce jokes that can be written out and still retain some of their quality. Consider the late Mitch Hedberg: “One time, I saw this wino eating grapes. I said, ‘Dude, you have to wait!’ ” It is often easier to explain why a witty joke is funny, because the content of wit matters more than how or when it is delivered. Compare that with quickness, or the ability to make the right remark at the right time, which is often funny not for its content so much as for its circumstances. Decades ago, my friend Aaron overheard a classmate introduce herself as “vice-chair, college Republicans,” and interposed his own hand to declare himself “chair, college Republicans!” This joke was memorable not for its sophistication so much as for his readiness to furnish it.

This readiness reflected the particular cast of Aaron’s mind, which brings us to category No. 3: charm, when a person is very much themselves. Sitcoms trade on this dimension of comedy: “Seinfeld” ’s George Costanza tells his girlfriend that God will never let him be successful or happy, and when his girlfriend objects that he doesn’t believe in God, he says, “I do for the bad things.” That’s so George! It is worth noting that comedic charm does not have to be charming in the conventional sense of the word; Don Rickles became one of the most beloved standup comics of all time by relentlessly complaining and insulting people, finding ways to be disappointed in everyone from David Letterman to audience members at his own shows.

Physicality is kind of its own thing and has not been a major force in American comedy since nineteen-seventies Steve Martin, or possibly Chris Farley. In the twenty-first century, the English have been better at it, as evidenced by the two-thousands film comedies of Edgar Wright (“Shaun of the Dead,” “Hot Fuzz,” “Scott Pilgrim vs. The World”), which were strikingly visual and kinetic compared with the stand-around-bantering comedies that American directors made during the same period. (Here, recognition is also owed to Rowan Atkinson’s character Mr. Bean, an undeniable commercial and artistic achievement that, personally, makes me want to open the exit door mid-flight.) Maybe the comedy cycle will get back to physicality soon—perhaps through A.I. slop, which is aimed at a global audience and therefore rewards content that transcends language. I have also heard dark tidings of a return to clowning.

The last category is tone, a kind of light and whimsical atmosphere that operates independently of any single joke. In his 1895 essay “How to Tell a Story,” Mark Twain identified tone as the main difference between comedy and humor: the comic story comes to a point, whereas humor “bubbles gently along.” Perhaps the distinguishing feature of modern standup comedy has been the shift away from discrete jokes with identifiable setups and punch lines to a generally humorous tone; Bill Cosby’s 1982 routine about feeding his children chocolate cake for breakfast was a watershed, even though it is difficult to identify any one gag that is especially witty. It just kind of bubbles along.

The aspects of comedy most important to podcasting are tone and charm. Physicality presents technical challenges to audio recording, and wit—primarily achievable by coming up with lots of ideas in advance—quickly becomes alienating in a casual setting. The injection of prepared material into conversation, a classic social misstep of the young and clever, is also death on a podcast, a form that thrives on the parasocial illusion that you, the listener, are part of a conversation in which you happen not to speak.

With a chat podcast, in which familiar hosts talk for potentially hours each week, the source of humor tends to be the hosts’ ability to be casually yet consistently themselves—i.e., comedic charm—while maintaining a humorous tone. Although these hosts should probably not be totally witless, they should also not be so witty that the conversations become one-sided: compare the not particularly clever but very charming Theo Von, whose podcast has become so successful that he interviewed the President, with the genius Norm Macdonald, whose insistence on saying funny things to his guests sometimes drove his podcast into prank-show territory. If audiences wanted to hear a series of very funny jokes, standup albums would get more streams than podcasts. The numbers suggest that, at least for now, listeners prefer conversation.