Should speakers swear on stage? I’m pondering this question after having attended a Billie Eilish concert recently.  I was surrounded by fifteen-year-olds, screaming out the words to her songs, along with the singer, indicating a high level of fandom amongst the 20,000 or so people there.  Indeed, it turns out that a Billie Eilish concert is a group participation event to a surprising extent.  She brought her fans in to sing the lyrics for many of the songs, so if you were attending expecting to hear Spotify-like versions of her big numbers, you would have been disappointed.

With the young audience, the mass participation, and the vibe Eilish established of a warm circle of safety and love for all, it was surprising to hear her drop f-bombs and mother-f-bombs from time to time, in a casual way that indicated it was no big deal for her or her fans.

I started thinking about the current state of swearing in public speaking as a result.  When I began in the business, 25 years ago, swearing – any of the famous seven verboten words – was a career-ender.  It wasn’t until Gary Vaynerchuk came along that the floodgates of profanity opened.  Gary was popular enough, and indiscriminate enough with his swearing, that he almost single-handedly changed the rules.

He seemed honest and fresh, frankly, and as a result other speakers began to sound a little tame.  But there was – and is still – a double standard as a result.  There’s Gary, and a few others who have managed to follow (more gently) in his footsteps.  And then there’s everyone else.

To be sure, if you say “sh*t” in passing from the stage, it’s unlikely that you’ll get much blowback today.  Even the occasionally “WTF” can slip past the easily offended and find its way on stage without finishing the career of a speaker.  The times they are a-changing. But most speakers simply can still not get away with the “m*f*ing” this and that coming from the Mouth of Gary with the crime-family-like frequency he maintains.  The times they are a-changing slowly.

Behind the scenes, swearing is still most often a matter of intense negotiation between speaker, meeting planners, speaker bureaus, and the particular occasion.  If you are a speaker, you are well advised to warn the person or committee hiring you if you intend to swear – and be prepared to reign in your language if requested to do so.  Make it part of the questioning you undertake to establish a good connection with your audience in advance.  If you are used to swearing, then it’s a very good idea to check to make sure you won’t offend your audience.  You would never want your message to be overshadowed by a few of your word choices.  You also want to keep working.

In the United States, we make a great deal out of freedom of speech, and we seem to think that the main point is to maintain our Freedom to Offend.  But the First Amendment’s purpose is to defend citizens’ rights to say hard truths to each other about matters of civic import, like race, religion, and (perhaps surprisingly, in this loquacious era) reticence – the right to keep silent.  The First Amendment doesn’t give anyone the right to promote obscene materials or to incite violence.  And it doesn’t offer any protection in real life for a speaker who wants to swear.

Swearing lands somewhere uneasily in the middle of the whole debate, and as a result, we are still uncertain as a society how to deal with it.

What does the research say on the subject?  A study from 2017 finds that we believe people who swear selectively are more honest and more persuasive.  That’s probably because of the perception that swearing indicates a more unbuttoned moment, a moment of frankness.  It’s a signal that we’re about to speak freely and therefore honestly.

That suggests that the strategic use of swearing can be very effective for a speaker – or a pop star – to connect authentically with her audience.  But do check it out with the meeting planners beforehand.  Your only other choice is to become such a big star, like Gary or Billie, that you get to establish the rules to suit yourself.

BTW, Billie is great.  She has a fabulous sense of fun, and great charisma.  And her body language suggested an astonishingly level of comfort with performing from the first moments of her concert.  Count me a fan.

Image credit: Wikipedia – Billie_Eilish_at_Pukkelpop_Festival_-_18_AUGUST_2019_