Self Jokes

Self-deprecating humor is a wonderful piece in the toolkit of any communicator. It can oil the gears in networking and win over an audience for the platform speaker. In general, it’s a powerful device for engagement.

But yet.

Self-deprecating humor, like any other tool, can cause more harm than good and should always be used judiciously. There are a number of reasons for this.

Some years ago I used lawyer jokes quite liberally in my writing and presentations, and was mostly met with laughs and acceptance. I figured that as a lawyer I was entitled to do so. But a colleague challenged me: “Are lawyer jokes any different than Newfie jokes or Jewish jokes or Italian jokes? Don’t they rely on unfair stereotypes and don’t they feed disrespect for a group?”

Well, he was right. Seen in that light, there wasn’t much of a defense. I’m not going to say I no longer tell lawyer jokes, but the few that remain pass a high standard where it’s all about clever use of words and not at all about “taking a shot”.

Self-jokes are of a kind with self-slurs. You know the sterotype where young black men call each other “the N word” and young Italian-Canadians joke about each other as “Wops”. Cute, or playing with fire? Can you demand respect from outsiders if you don’t show it with insiders?

I recently heard a dynamic keynote in which the young female speaker challenged us to break the ubiquitous “Hey, guys!” habit, which we use even when talking to a mixed audience, sometimes even an all-female audience. She spoke from the heart about her battle for gender-respect and individuality in the male-dominated world of engineering. (Her Ted Talk is here (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nJRO6QVzYRE) .)

Being respectful about our pronouns is one thing, but seeing the larger picture of killing respectfulness by a thousand cuts is another. Like most important things it begins at the micro level, just having an awareness that the words of our mouths can build and encourage, but they can also tear down and destroy.