This is part 2 of a 4-part series on Public Speaking lessons observed from Hasan Minhaj's Homecoming King Netflix Special, a skill set millennials must master in the era of AI.
[Warning: Spoiler Alert]
As a refresher, the first 3 lessons:
1) Tell stories
2) Use the rule of 3
3) Infuse Figurative Language
4) Pepper in Self-deprecating Humor to Disarm the Audience
If you plan on hitting the audience with serums of truth, you better be willing to share their pain.
Jerry Seinfeld said that comedians get judged every 10 seconds. If you're speaking to a classroom or people in your office, they'll do it less frequently, but you will be judged, and the audience will have their guards up. To remind the audience you’re human, too, one of the most effective ways speakers (and leaders) garner empathy is through self-deprecating humor.
Dissing yourself is an effective way to tell jokes. It softens harsh crowds, and it shows self-confidence. Audiences can feel easily violated or sniped, if they feel you’re talking about them in sensitive topics, so in order to distance them from it, you can make yourself the scapegoat. In doing so, you can address sensitive or taboo topics head on.
Minhaj calls himself out a number of times throughout the show to acknowledge remorse or mistakes, sharing lessons he learned himself with the audience.
As with any element of public speaking, overdoing self-deprecation will backfire, so use this technique moderately. (Remember on The Office, when Michael Scott used it, and then took it too far during the Koi Pond episode?)
Examples in the Homecoming King:
- “Why are you hunting people down from your past, like a psychopath?”
- “That’s the last time we ever spoke. And you know, time has passed, and I don’t really think about that day. I mean, I did write a show about it, but…”
- "Do you ever see your parents, and you see the mortality in them? I’m looking at my dad and I see all five-seven of him. And that’s when I realize I’m a darapok. I’m a scaredy-cat. We can speak two languages. We can speak at home and outside. I should have said something. I didn’t."
He unapologetically addresses white privilege, brown parenting, and “bigotry that happens every day.” By exemplifying himself and his own family in these situations as the offenders and victims, he enables the rest of us to safely relate and criticize ourselves in similar situations.
Humor has the power to invite us into taboo topics and to think about them, talk about them, and challenge the status quo because, in Minhaj’s own words, “isn’t it out job to push the needle forward little by little?”
5) Use Callbacks & Repetition
Log kya kahenge, or, what will people think?
As the show goes on, specifically after the first 10 minutes, the audience’s attention starts to drain like a battery. To keep it charged, the speaker should keep fueling them wiht new jokes, but also reference jokes or key ideas delivered earlier, aka, callbacks.
You don’t have to necessarily repeat jokes, but you could bring a new story back to reinforce it. The audience, still in a connection-making state of mind, is ready to pounce on a reinforcement, just as they’re ready to pounce on puns and figures of speech. Callbacks are like inside jokes the audience shares with a speaker.
Some callbacks used by the Homecoming King:
- “Log Kya Kahenge?”
- “Immigrant parents love secrets”
- “He wanted to be the bigger person again.”
The rule of thumb for the number times you should use a single callback is 3, according to David Nihill in his book “Do You Talk Funny? 7 Comedy Habits to Become a Better (and Funnier) Public Speaker.”
(You can surpass 3 if you regularly speak to the same audience, and only if the reference has the popular and universal appeal to stick. Think that’s what she said (from the Office), and #feminism (John Oliver), which are recycled every couple of episodes.)
Comedy or not, use callbacks and repetitions to reinforce key ideas and takeaways in your talk for better information retention.
6) Use the Bookend Technique
“People have forgotten how to tell a story. Stories don’t have a middle or an end anymore. They usually have a beginning that never stops beginning.”
- Steven Spielberg
A bookend is a method of closing a part or the entire show by referencing opening jokes or stories. It’s a linear way to bring closure to a story or set of stories to leave the audience satisfied. Journalists, screenwriters, and comedians all use bookends as an unboring way to reach conclusion.
Let’s spot them in 3 subplots of Homecoming King:
- The subplot on the hate-love relationship with his sister starts with how he “hated that brown girl”, and ends with how he “couldn’t be more proud of her”.
- The subplot on love in America starts with a 6-year old telling him he’s “the color of poop,” and comes full circle when he realizes “once you go brown, you gotta lock that shit down.”
- The subplot of his relationship with his father starts with the joke that his dad will only love him if he gets straight As, and comes full circle with his dad saying “good job” after getting hired by Jon Stewart.
Side note: If you've considered professional speech lessons, I recommend TakeLessons' public speaking teachers.. Full disclosure, I work for TL, and happily promote the work we do to connect students and teachers.
Part 3 covers Stage Time, Present Tense, and Pop Cultural References.
