Humor can be hazardous to the health of public speakers. Most speakers want to be funny, but you’ve got to do humor well, or it falls flat and that’s worse than no humor at all. Here I provide a guide for avoiding the worst mistakes of traditional one-liners and cheap irony, replacing them instead with ironic and witty humor that works and wins audiences over to your side. And, if you insist on using one-liners, I show you how to ‘sell’ them successfully.
Traditional jokes with punch lines are the hardest to pull off. Instead, try perspective-altering humor like the following:
Have you seen the following sign in a beauty salon: Ears pierced while you wait?
What’s ther alternative? I’ll leave my ears here until 5. I’ve got a couple of errands to run. But I’ll be back to pick them up. What? I couldn’t hear you.
Trickster humor is all about finding those sorts of contradictions and pointing them out. Also about crossing boundaries that are normally left intact. If there were an Olympics in martyrdom, my grandmother would have lost on purpose…
So, if you’re determined to attempt traditional comedy in your speeches, then practice selling the jokes with your body language and voice. You’re got to be 100 percent committed to the joke — body and all. And then you’ve got to have a back up plan for recovery. Study tapes of any of the late night comedians — They are masters of what to do when the first joke goes flat. Often the comebacks and reactions are funnier than the original line.
Beyond that, look for the contradictions. That’s where the humor is, and the punch lines. Traditional humor is all about setting up expectations and then violating them, crossing the boundaries of expectation. And finding connections where no one else sees them.
Irony is the humor of the era
If you don’t want to risk throwing out punch lines, consider irony. At its worst, irony is a cheap, easy way to get a chuckle and avoid making a commitment. At its best, irony is a memorable way for the alienated to comment on the ‘in crowd’, the powerless to bring down the powerful, and the hip to skewer the not-so-hip.
There are 3 rules for making irony memorable rather than cheap.
Rule Number One. Create an overarching story that is different from what you’re apparently talking about. This narrative misdirection enables you to take an ironical (because distant) stance toward your real topic. Most cheap irony lacks the meta-narrative that gives a good story its structure. Cheap irony is usually just a pot shot at something the narrator doesn’t like but can’t do much about.
Rule Number Two. The second rule of great irony is that something important has to be at stake. But what’s at stake can be anything important that the speaker-narrator cares about. Cheap irony has nothing behind it — no alternative that it is proposing. Powerful irony points to a better way.
Rule Number Three. The third rule of irony is that its viewpoint has to run counter to the one held by those currently in power. Irony is always counter-cultural or opposed to the status quo. That’s part of what makes great irony appealing, since it tweaks the nose of the powerful.
Wit is the humor that creates charm and impresses with intelligence
Here are three suggestions for amping up your wit.
First Suggestion: Don’t try too hard. Wit flows from passion for the subject. If you feel strongly about something, you will find wit in the subject and you will share it with your audience. Unless of course you’re a corporate accountant who’s idea of fun is a late night with a multi-celled spreadsheet.
That said, one of the wittier speakers I’ve heard was a lecturer on accounting, who used the Wells Fargo company as his example, back in the day when it had to account for losses of the strong box because of marauding Indians. His passion for the subject of accounting led him to this witty way to explain an otherwise dreary subject.
Second Suggestion: Wit is all about upending expectations. The wit is in the surprise. You’re not quite sure where good wit is going, but it’s witty because it is surprising.
Third Suggestion: To be witty, take the subject, but not yourself, seriously. Wit begins with yourself, with self-deprecation. It’s one reason why the British are so much better at it, culturally speaking, than Americans. The British are expert self-deprecators, probably because they have to put up with more pomposity in the form of 2,000, rather than 200, years of tradition and history. But when pressed, we can do it too. Just take the most serious aspects of culture here right now and skewer them.
