Drew Beekler doesn't want you to laugh at him; he wants you to laugh with yourself.

"I think the key to being funny is to talk about something weird in the world or odd," said Beekler. "There's a place for everyone, and if you've thought that, you're probably not alone. You can present things in a funny way, but you can also point out absurd things. Humor tends to come from a place of frustration. It can be super dark, or I just don't like the back of a guy's head. Everyone has thousands and thousands of thoughts a day. You can talk about them, and people can relate to them."

A 2006 graduate of Manheim Township High School, Beekler is funny by nature; humor is one of his talents. But he is a budding standup comedian because he has fine-tuned and honed those skills.

"At the end of the day, I think we should just be having fun and laughing at the things we do," said Beekler. "You might think you're alone with things, but you're really not. Shared experiences, in general, are very important. When people laugh, it's an acknowledgment of that shared experience."

Beekler, who currently resides in Brooklyn, N.Y., has been doing standup comedy for about seven years now, performing as many as seven to 10 times a week, mostly at comedy clubs or bars in Brooklyn and Greenwich Village and on Broadway, but he's also taken his act on the road outside of New York City. His humor shticks, which consist of astute observations and relatable human reflections, are generally between 20 and 45 minutes in length.

"It's awesome. It's dope. It's rad," said Beekler of the feelings he gets from making people chuckle. "It's someone relating to you in some capacity. Every time I go to a show, I think, 'I'm doing this for someone who paid to see me.' I was in special (education) when I was in school, and I talk about it. I talk about it in a way that I'm comfortable with it."

For now, performing as a standup comedian is Beekler's side hustle. By day, he works as a visual effects compositor, for which he won an Emmy award for his special visual effects work on the Netflix series "Ridley."

"I don't do (standup comedy) for the money right now, but I'd love to do it for a living," said Beekler, 37. "I'd love it to be something I pay all my bills with, but I don't worry about the money part of it. I've done real gigs and lost money just for the experience. I take a lot of spots in the city (New York) that are unpaid."

A graduate of the Art Institute of York - Pennsylvania and the Art Institute of Philadelphia, Beekler was exposed to humor and comedy at a young age. He just kind of grew into being funny.

"I think I learned to have fun," said Beekler. "At home, we just tried to make it as lighthearted as much as we could. It was like always trying to have fun and not being serious all the time."