Jeff Foxworthy has developed quite a following, and a justified one, based upon his great tagline: “You might be a redneck…” I picked one of his books up the other day at Half Price Books. Some were so funny I cried at them.
Now how can we re-frame this for our own purposes?
Most of the redneck humor will not translate directly into the corporate environment, but we can use the premise and develop our own tagline.
You might be an apprentice.
You might be a trainee.
You might be a used car salesperson.
You might be a teacher.
Etc..
And then you choose a few, usually obvious, observations to go with your tagline.
This does not have to be a solo endeavor, enlist co-workers, assistants and family to help. Spouses can be great sources for these “obvious“ idiosyncrasies and traits… the ones for which we seem to have a blind eye.
Here is an example:
If your pupils are now rectangular… you might be a blogger.
If you start to get nervous when away from a keyboard… you might be a blogger.
If you have started to read the old magazines at the doctor’s office in a desperate search for a new post… you might be a blogger.
If you understand what “DoFollow” means, you might be a blogger.
If you get a thrill from being first to comment, first to Stumble or first to Digg… you might be a blogger.
If finding a cool new widget for the sidebar makes your day… you might be a blogger.
And if losing your internet connection causes you more grief and stress than wrecking your car… you might be a blogger.
It does not have to be hilariously funny. Foxworthy’s observations are funny because they are obvious, or because we have done the same thing or something similar ourselves – not because they are particularly humorous in and of themselves. And they may not be funny at all to someone with no knowledge of the topic. But in most situations we know our audience and can use that to our advantage.
Keep in mind with this and any list type humor that you do. It is easy to Focus On The Escape. Unless you tell the group up front how many of these you have, you can always bail out early if it isn’t working.
on Sep 16th, 2008 at 1:19 am
[...] admin wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerptFoxworthy’s observations are funny because they are obvious, or because we have done the same thing or something similar ourselves – not because they are particularly humorous in and of themselves. And they may not be funny at all to … [...]
on Sep 16th, 2008 at 8:28 am
[...] unknown wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerptFoxworthy’s observations are funny because they are obvious, or because we have done the same thing or something similar ourselves – not because they are particularly bhumorous/b in and of themselves. And they may not be funny at all to b…/b [...]
on Sep 16th, 2008 at 7:08 pm
If you leave blog comments even though you don’t really have anything to say, you might be a blogger.
I like what you’re doing here, keep it up!
on Sep 16th, 2008 at 7:41 pm
Thanks Sly, That is a true blogger trait.
on Feb 11th, 2011 at 1:21 am
I have gone through your post and i enjoyed the humor in it. Thanks for posting.
on Feb 18th, 2011 at 12:58 pm
Lol thanks for posting! My favorite one is “And if losing your internet connection causes you more grief and stress than wrecking your car… you might be a blogger”.