Humor a great way to speak truth to power – ‘humor engineer’

SS: All right, so let's deconstruct this whole thing. You’re a self-described ‘humour engineer’ and you write books on how to master humour, make jokes funny, and seeing how we're in this wonderful year of 2020, do you see that the demand for humour is actually rising against a backdrop of the complete mess of everything, or not really? 

AT: No, it absolutely is. And I think part of the reason is, you know, with people being more socially distanced and much more things on virtual, they're realising how much humour that they used to have in their life that they're now missing because you no longer have hallway conversations with your co-workers, you don't have those impromptu meetups with friends, and even with strangers and people are wearing masks, you don't see the smiles and the laughs on their faces. And so, I think now more than ever it’s time to be really intentional about how we use humour, not just for our own kind of amusement, but also to do things like manage stress and build relationships and all the additional benefits that humour can provide us. 

SS: You said in a TED talk that humour has to be positive and inclusive. But here's the thing, isn't humour supposed to be just funny, first and foremost? And is that like the most important thing in humour, and then everything else? 

AT: I would say that. So that's true for comedy. Comedy’s goal is to make people laugh. But humour, we think, is a little bit broader than comedy. It includes things that are funny, but it can also be something that's just a little bit different, or something that's a little bit silly, where the goal is amusement, and our focus, at least, you know, as a humour engineer with my organisation, is in humour, that's just supposed to be funny, we're interested in humour, that is transformational, with humour that is encouraging, humour that is inspiring, humour that is calming in some ways, and ultimately, humour that works. That it's not just about making people laugh, but it's about getting some type of better end result, which the positive, more inclusive forms of humour certainly help with in the workplace, as opposed to more negative forms of humour.  

SS: Okay, but if we focus a little on comedy, and I'm saying, like, stand-up, and you know, all these late-night shows, and even, you know, the comedies that we see coming up. If I have a really good joke, let's say, which is really nasty, at the same time, should I never let it see the light of the day, just because it might not really be positive or inclusive at all? 

AT: Well, you can certainly, if you're a stand-up comedian, then you let it go, you tell that on a comedy stage, and that's the intention to really maybe kind of toe the line a little bit and make people laugh. You could also do it with friends as a way to create a little bit of catharsis or if they share your similar sense of humour, especially in groups like emergency first responders, police officers, firefighters, etc., they sometimes tend to have a little bit of a darker sense of humour, as a way to manage difficulties that they're going through, the tough stuff that they see and deal with every single day, which is understandable. But if you are a leader of an organisation, or if you're in a company, or you want to build positive relationships with people, that where you're going to change the type of humour that you use, and that's where it all ultimately comes down to what's your goal with humour. As you mentioned, I’m humour engineer, so we don't think of humour just as a thing for fun, but how does it help us to solve challenges, either at home or in the workplace, and then depending on the challenge that you want to solve, it might change the type of humour that you want to use. 

SS: An old joke goes, ‘how many feminists does it take to change a light bulb? And the answer is: that's not funny.’ And it's my impression that humour has been having a very hard time lately. Whenever you want to crack a joke you should really think twice. Should I say this? Should I not say this? Am I going to hurt anyone? Is anyone going to be offended by this? Why has everybody become so sensitive? Who or what is to blame? 

AT: It’s a fascinating question. And I think humour is always evolving. The humour that was popular in the 50s and 60s, what we call vaudeville humour is more slapstick, it was more physical-based, that evolved into then more kind of jokes, like clear kind of set jokes of set up and punchline that evolved into more storytelling and authenticity with that storytelling. I think we're just seeing a continued evolution where some of the things that we used to joke about, hopefully we're saying, ‘well, maybe it's not actually okay to joke about that’, maybe what you think of is something like a light-hearted joke, is really difficult for someone who had experienced that for a long period of time. And so, I think it's just a cultural change, it'll continue to change, it'll continue to evolve. And part of being an adept humourist or comedian is adapting to the times and still finding the line and understanding when it's appropriate to cross that line and when it's not. In the workplace, it's typically, usually not appropriate across the line, except for in very specific scenarios. But in a comedy club, that's a little bit you know, different. So again, it goes back to where you're using that humour and what you want to achieve with it.

SS: Well, I've been talking a lot to comedians, especially stand-up comedians, because I'm writing a book about humour in 2020. And I mean, humour, really, if we're honest with each other, especially in stand-up comedy, and with late-night shows, it gets really funny when making fun of something serious, right? Whether it's politics, or sometimes even some kind of deaths or tragedy... How does comedy survive if it's become too dangerous to be dangerous in your jokes? I mean, in a situation where you can't laugh at religion, gender, skin colour, sexual orientation, what is there left to laugh at? 

AT: Well, I completely agree. I think especially in the context of comedy, that nothing is off-limits, I don't think you can say ‘this subject you can't joke about’ because then who's to say, who gets to be the decider of that? But I think how you joke about it is changing because you know, the fundamental kind of concept or structure within comedy, specifically within stand-up, is setup and punchline. So, a setup creates an expectation in the listeners’ brain, and then the punchline breaks that expectation in some way. And I think part of the reason for evolution and comedy is that for many years, that kind of clear setup was ‘we're gonna maybe be aggressive towards this particular group’ and then the punchline kind of changes that. But you can see comedians who are doing this very well, like I would say, even Dave Chappelle continues to kind of approach that line, but because of how he does a setup and punchline, who the target of the joke is, when you really parse it and break it down, you're realising that the target has changed, where if he's talking about a certain specific group, a lot of times the target isn't actually that group, it's the society's perspective around it. And so, it becomes how you joke about that particular subject. I completely agree with you that I don't think any subject should be ‘off-limits’. 

SS: And I feel like this whole thing with humour has taken unprecedented scale, because if you look at what happened with Charlie Hebdo, and then just recently, a school teacher was beheaded in France for referring to Charlie Hebdo cartoons, which can get over the top on purpose. I mean, no doubt about that. I grew up in Paris, and you know, their irreverence in humour would annoy me a lot because I'm not used to that. But at this point, like, it's unclear whether it's the cartoonists and satirists, and humour in general, that has to be protected in a situation like this, or do we have to set certain boundaries for humour so that it doesn't provoke outrage that we've seen? And see, my reaction has swapped because last year, it was like over the top. And then this year, when I'm seeing a continuation of this and the beheadings, even though I don't like that humour, I feel like Emmanuel Macron, I feel like we should stand up for humour. Do you know what I mean? So, I'm having cognitive dissonance inside of me... 

AT: I agree with that because you have that balance between the two because, you know, things like this idea of freedom of speech or freedom of expression doesn't mean freedom from consequences. But at the same time, someone making a joke, the end result should not be them losing their life. And so, I think there's probably a balance of both and I would say it's probably more on the scale of people's reaction because, you know, as a communicator, you have to decide if someone is offended by something. That's data for you to kind of take into mind. You may not have meant offence by what you said, but understand, okay, why might this be offensive and ‘is that what I want to do, is that okay with me?’ So, I think the answer is a little bit on both sides, and people being willing to take responsibility and recognize that whatever your individual views are, they might not be the same as someone else's. And where's that kind of common ground that we can meet? Of which a different style of humour can help us get there. So, the other understanding is that there's a difference again between the setup and punchline of a specific thing, and other humour that we might use, and depending on the situation, which one is most appropriate, helping us get to what we want to get to long-term. 

SS: It seems like a more general question, but I always wonder about it lately. What is too much for humour exactly? I mean, who decides the boundaries of what one can joke about and how? 

AT: Yeah, well, it's a very difficult question. The interesting thing about comedy is that it is both very simple and very hard. And the question ‘is something funny?’, the answer is, ‘did it make someone laugh?’. And so, what's funny to one person can be very different than what's funny to another person. And so each individual person is kind of deciding that and then what you're noticing, and this is a particular challenge that I think, ‘Hey, we can all maybe take a step back on this cancel culture’, where some people are then starting to get upset about jokes, or things that they never even actually heard or ever experienced, or aren't even really offended by, but suddenly there becomes this kind of mob mentality where it's like, oh, everyone's kind of jumping on board against this one person, so ‘let's completely ruin everything that they have’. And I think that's too extreme. I think certainly how people respond to it - So you have this in the US where a writer was hired for SNL and it came out that some of his old jokes weren't exactly culturally appropriate. And his reaction wasn't about an apology. It wasn't about like, ‘Hey, you know, I didn't mean to offend’. It was more of like, ‘But I'm a comedian, this is what I'm supposed to do’. And the problem is, you know, sometimes people use a joke as an excuse to just say offensive things and it's not really actually a joke. And so, you know, that's that fine line in balance. I think it's a case-by-case basis, but it is what you as an individual do. I think if we all, like I said, had a little bit more compassion, we probably get a little bit further, but it's those individual decisions that people are making. 

SS: It's a really funny phenomenon when I look at the United States, because I see all these late-night shows’ hosts, which I adore, and they're vibrant, smart, intelligent, really funny, hilarious guys. And for the past year and a half or so I just see how they're stuck because they really can't joke about anything. Because people in America are even more sensitive than anywhere else in the world on the topics like, you know, feminism and Black Lives Matter and all of that that's going on, like the whole new ethics that is our reality today. And so, what they're left with is Trump. If you joke about anything else, you get, you know, either fired or taken off air, but you can joke about Trump because that's okay. And then half the country votes for Trump because he has become so popular because of that. Do you agree? 

AT: Well, I certainly agree from a news perspective as well as just the sheer amount of coverage of Trump has kind of run the discourse of what people talk about. It's something that constantly. At least growing up for me in the US, I didn't think about the president of our country that often, it would certainly come up but, you know, over the last four years it's probably been pretty much every single day, Trump has come up in some shape or form, whether that's a news story or a comedian saying a certain thing or that kind of perspective. And so, it is interesting that it's creating a lot more awareness and you know, just that person being the buzz. And I think that's partly why comedians are talking about it is because what everyone else is talking about it. So it's kind of a chicken and the egg challenge. I think you're seeing interesting, creative evolutions of comedy both because of subject matter, because of things like politics and because of technology, like a big part of Sarah Cooper’s rise was because she'd took something and did things a little bit differently, right? We hadn't seen kind of that lip-synching thing. And that's what's interesting: when things become more extreme than what you used to? When this is like breaking norms, not necessarily in a good way, it becomes hard to create satire because the fictional satire that you write isn't as extreme as what the reality is. And so, Sarah Cooper adapted that by just saying, ‘I'm not going to change any word, I'm not going to pretend like this person is saying something else, I'm just going to take it word for word, but add a different kind of performance to it’. And so, you are seeing kind of unique taste. And that's a surprise, right? That's creating a different setup, a different expectation, and then breaking that expectation. And I think that's the evolution that we're seeing. But I completely agree that there is tremendous value in saying, ‘Okay, let's talk about something else’. We as comedians or commentators or entertainers, etc. can help to shape what people are focusing on. And I think, finding those people and then allowing them, kind of giving them that platform could be very helpful. 

SS: I want to elaborate a bit about what I've just said. I was talking recently to Frederick Beigbeder, the French novelist, and his last novel is actually about the end of humour. And he told me that the importance of comedy these days can be explained by the fact that politicians cannot really handle the situation well enough, often looking like clowns themselves. And it's the comedians who are becoming the voice of public opinion, who’re influencing this opinion just as well. Do you agree? 

AT: I agree. I mean, there's certainly even for the past 20 years or so people have considered comedians as the philosophers of our time. They are the people who are spending an inordinate amount of time thinking about a subject and finding ‘what's the way to communicate it so that people actually listen?’ And I think that's true. And you see this and other places around the world, but humour can be a great way to ‘speak truth to power’, where you can take a little bit of the edge off of something that's actually true that you want to say by adding a little bit of a humour component to it. And a lot of truth is said in jest, where it's like you can say a little bit of joke, but people are like, ‘Oh, actually, why is that that way? Why is that that culture?’ But what I think you're also seeing is… So, you're seeing that in by a couple of individuals, but you're also seeing kind of almost this public use of humour that I don't think that we've always seen through things like meme culture. Meme now is arising. And it's both been used by, you know, people on the left and the right, etc. going back to politics, it was used by Bloomberg’s campaign in the United States, it didn't necessarily work, but it was like ‘we're gonna hire a bunch of like young 20 somethings to create a bunch of means to try to create and get this message out there’. And so, you are seeing this change in terms of how some of that humour is executed. But in general, comedians, yes, I think are they're great philosophers. You're seeing it, like you said, in the news programs, a lot of people aren't getting the news, necessarily, at least younger people aren't getting their news from CNN. They're getting it from Trevor Noah and the Daily Show, or they're getting it from these comedians who are doing more comedic shows and bringing that additional fun and perspective to it. 

SS: You know, continuing about my conversation with Beigbeder - He also compared the current situation and the role comedians play in our life today with the orchestra of Titanic, which continues to play while the ship is sinking. Is our ship going down as well? And since the comedians cannot really stop it from going under, is laughing about it the only way to accept the inevitable? 

AT: Oh, well, I think that laughing about something is a great way to make it so that it doesn't have control over you. And this is actually one of the disadvantages to strictly comedy and even humour in some sense, is that humour relieves tension. And so that can be a great thing when you're very stressed out. But it can also lead to a lack of emotion, when not kept in check. And if you think about it, if you think back to the traditional days of king monarchy, they intentionally installed a jester, a court jester, because that was someone who could poke fun at the king, make everyone laugh, relieve some of that tension so that they didn't revolt. You see the same thing the initial reason for carnival in some countries was to say, ‘Okay, hey, we're going to be tough and crack down on people for 11 months of the year, but we're going to give you this one month of celebration so you get out all of that tension and anxiety and everything like that in that moment, so that you don't rise to power’. And so, I think that's the disadvantage and so you have to understand that, again, it goes back to being a little bit clearer about the purpose of our humour, not just allowing it to be comedians going down with the ship and like, ‘Hey, we're gonna laugh at all this doom’, but how do we then hit that next step. And that's why we focus on humour is that it doesn't stop at, ‘Hey, we've made you laugh’, but ‘now that you're laughing, you are listening, and what do we do with your attention?’ Is it enough to just say, ‘Hey, we made you laugh, goodbye’? Or can we implant kind of the idea or a seed of maybe we can all be a little bit better, maybe we can all be a little bit more compassionate about each other. Or you see this also with, say, The Last Week Tonight and John Oliver is that every episode ends with some type of small call to action. It's, you know, go to this URL, donate to this thing or whatever. So, you're starting to see this evolution where people are saying, ‘Okay, what do I do with this attention that I've got? Let me try to transfer that to some type of change’. 

SS: You know, since it is much easier to laugh about your president or environment and kind of shrug it off behind a good joke than actually to get up and do something about it, can humour and joking about everything actually lead to complacency, fatalism? 

AT: Exactly. And a component of complacency is a great way to put it. If we relieve too much of that tension and that's where the purpose of that humour is, it needs to go that additional next step. If you want to actually create change, and you've seen that in some different groups. So there's a group, I believe, the story comes from Serbia, but it's a situation where there's a group called ‘Otpor’ and they intentionally use humour not as a way to kind of just say, ‘Let's release some tension’, but as a recruiting rule for getting people to come in to this ideology of standing up to a dictator and they use humour to kind of poke fun at the dictator, but they made it fun so that more people would be wanting to get involved, because they had that thought, where it's like, ‘Okay, yes, if you're going to protest against something, people are going to be bored if they're just kind of out there standing. But instead, if you add a humour component to it, if you say, ‘Hey, we know this is tough’, it's not to say that the situation isn't serious but with a little bit of fun, we can make this actually more meaningful, more impactful, because we'll get more people involved because there's an entertainment piece to it’. 

SS: You know, it's like we're going through the worst crisis many of us might experience during our lifetime. Seeing how this pandemic is transforming actually everything, from the way we communicate, work, learn, our values, do you feel like it's transforming humour as well? I mean, will it be different from what it was before 2020? And if yes, how?

AT: I think that it will. I mean, humour is just like so many things, is always evolving. And I think culturally, it's evolving. And I think the silver lining - I'm an optimist, I think my grandmother is like the most optimistic person that I've ever met. And I think that kind of like holds true for me. So, I'm always kind of thinking about what is the silver lining in this. And I think part of it is the elevation of the status of humour. I think, like I said earlier, because we're not having the same forms of release that we used to have, if you think about, you know, we've got more stress than ever, people are working harder than they probably used to, or they're unemployed. But they're doing it in a virtual space. A lot of times, if they're working from home, they don't have that work-life kind of separation, it feels more like work-life survival, and, you know, you're constantly working, barely ever turning it off, etc. So, you have this increase in stress, not to mention everything with the pandemic and everything else going on. But the normal modes of relieving that stress are gone. And you know, you can't go to sporting events, at least like you used to, even going out to get a drink with friends is now either a lot more stressful or actually impossible to do. Everything that you used to do is harder, even if you want to go hiking now there's thousands of people out on the hiking trails, because it's the one thing that you can do. And so, people are recognising, ‘oh, the thing that I am missing’. I don't think that they're quite there yet. But I think the long-term impact will be that people see, ‘oh, I need more humour in my life, I need more levity and how do I use it individually?’ I think you'll continue to see this kind of democratisation of individuals using humour, where it'll be less of a focus of - And there's still going to be entertainers and comedians, but I think more people will ignore what they used to say, like, ‘Oh, I could never do that’ or ‘I'm not funny’. My hope, my goal is that more and more people recognise that, ‘Oh, no, this is a skill, it's a skill that I can and should learn, and here's how I'm going to bring my own personal style, not that I'm not going to necessarily be a stand-up comedian, but maybe I'm going to share more stories, maybe I'm going to do some cartoons, maybe I'm going to do some things just specifically for myself so that I am able to deal with the challenge that we have every single day’. 

SS: Andrew, thank you so much for this wonderful insight about how humour 2020 is transforming. It's been really interesting talking to you. I wish you good luck with everything. 

AT: Thanks, it was fantastic talking with you, I loved that you've clearly done your research and have a lot of insight of where it is going. I will say that, you know, for me again, our focus is how do we as individuals, take ownership of our own situation and use humour to help improve it. But I also loved this conversation of the macro view of comedy and where it's going. So I appreciate the chance to have the conversation. 

SS: Thank you so much, Andrew, stay safe.  

AT: Thank you.  

SS: Bye.