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Hi there, my name is Kristy Callahan.
I'm going to be doing a video on humor.
Is it appropriate to use in a presentation or not?
So when we look at our textbook
we talk a lot about humor.
Is it a good thing to use in a presentation? Yes.
In fact, it's really connective with the audience
so much so that when they're laughing, it kind of take some of that fear factor
away from the speaker,
helps you connect with your audience and
the audience is getting a kick out of what you're talking about. So yea, humor can be
amazingly positive.
So when we think about humor how should we use it?
Most of the time the unplanned humor, those spontaneous moments are the ones that
work the best.
They're those moments that you just say something in your presentation because
you are planned
and prepared
and you have your note cards in front of you you're talking to your audience and you
say something, add another sentence here in there
that just
tickles your audience
and makes them laugh.
Those are the best!
Those are the ones that really connect and show a piece of you
and your audiences responding.
So, I love those moments. Those are the ones that I advocate for and say yes
you want to do those.
The ones that I really want you to be cautious of
are the ones of planned humor and what I mean by planned humor is those ones where you
have this amazing joke that you want to share
and you think its funny as all get out
and you share it your presentation
and it falls flat.
The whole audience is just starting at you
and those moments are so amazingly painful. They're those moments were everybody
is staring at you, all those eyeballs on you
and those butterflies take control and now you've got your fear factor and it's
risen up
ten times more than it would normally be.
So planned humor, we want to be really careful of. So I'm gonna give you an example
of a planned piece of humor, a joke that I found
and it's really bad. I had a hunt for this joke and it's so bad that you'll
never forget it and the reason why I'm totally throwing myself on the sword
and do this really bad joke for you is because you'll never forget it.
You'll remember this joke when you're setting up a presentation going ooo
should I use this joke or not
because it's so bad.
So planned humor, I want you to be cautious of because of this joke. As I share
this joke with you I'm gonna ham it up
and I'm also going to show you that not everything is funny to all people.
Are you ready?
So, there is this scientist and he takes this tarantula and he's gonna
study this tarantula.
So he puts the tarantula down on the desk So he puts the tarantula down on the desk and he's got his little notes here cuz he's gonna take notes
on everything right?
So he's got his tarantula right here and he
hits the table and the tarantula goes up about four inches and he's like awe amazing
and he writes that down. This time, he takes the two front legs of that tarantula
and he tears them off the tarantula
and he hits the desk again. It only goes up three inches
and he goes umm and he writes it down on his paper.
He says I'm gonna see if this works
and he tears off all the legs of the tarantula and he hits the desk
and it doesn't move. It was death. It was a death tarantula. hahaha. It was a death tarantula.
Why isn't everyone laughing with me?
Because it's the worst joke of America right?
What if
you thought that was funny
and you shared that joke at the very beginning of your presentation
and you've got that dead response.
I can honestly tell you that I've been using this joke in my classroom for years
to the point that students give me that uhh face.
Sometimes I get called out.
Student in the back, big huge muscle guy Ms Callihan, that is wrong. That's like animal abuse.
I'm sorry it was a joke.
Then you have to defend I was just showing you an example.
I had a young lady in the front one time, beautiful girl with tears streaming down
her face. I said, honey what's wrong?
She said you hurt that tarantula. I have a tarantula.
So you get anger, confusion, tears. You
have to be amazingly careful about humor.
Sometimes what you find funny is not necessarily what your audience finds funny.
I hope you will never forget that joke.
Think about it before you use humor in a speech.