I have two TED Talks that I watched and discussed (PDF link to my thoughts here) for this journal: one being "Inside the mind of a master procrastinator" by Tim Urban, and the other being "Science can answer moral questions" by Sam Harris. Urban talks about procrastination using silly anecdotes and childlike scribbles, but his lightheartedness does not affect the clarity and importance of his message. On the other hand, Harris' thesis concerning objective distinctions in what morality is has a lot of heavy discussion that is balanced out with a couple of jokes here and there for the audience's brains to take a break. These two Talks were the ones I chose to focus on because they - in rhetoric, anyway - address something I have always had issues with coming up with for my speeches: comedy.
It's not to say that I'm unfunny, per se, as much as it is that I cannot for the life of me write funny things. Sure, some snappy texts shot off to a friend can warrant at least an eye roll, but I can't do humor in my speeches. I feel as if it falls flat. Something I see in both of these speeches that I need to learn from is their setup and their punchlines.
Urban, who takes the more comedic route from the jump, sets up his stories with the tension coming from other people's experiences. His opening story about the college thesis (with visual aid) keeps the audience engaged and they can relate to it. This then shifts into hilarity for the sake of easy comprehension (the characters inside the procrastinating name), but his setup stays the same as he comes to the Panic Monster. There's this thing in music that we call "line" - it's the flow of the whole. You need to set up your line and follow it or else you're just playing discrete points. Urban does a great job of this that I could learn from.
Harris' relatability factor comes from the real-world examples he uses to prove his points, but he also uses it in his humor (TED expenses joke for reference). However, his jokes have a completely different line to them; it is a line that isn't as much about getting to the punchline as it is about the setup. His jokes are an afterthought because they're not the star of the show. They're a supplement for the audience to stay engaged.
The reason why I see this as so important is because humor is one of my favorite forms of pathos. When it comes to storytelling, a little joke can go a long way, and that's what my entire project is about: storytelling and human connection. How could I possibly talk about the tool of empathy without utilizing it in the way that these two do? I want to figure out my line first before I write anything solid for this speech, which is the opposite of what I did last year. I tend to throw words on a page and then root through it to find the gems (or at least the better bits), but the thoughtfulness that a line provides me with will help me to be more organized and possibly even get a joke across.