Hello and welcome to strategy six presentation. Technique six we are moving right along. And techniques six states that when the topic is solid, simplify when the topic is serious simplify when the topic is humorous, amplify, when the topic is solemn simplify when the topic is humorous, amplify, you've probably seen comical writing or maybe writing that was satire where everything was exaggerated. An example of that is the famous piece by Swift, a modest proposal at the time, the Irish were in dire poverty, it was the potato famine, people were going hungry, there was mass migration, people were dying and the Irish were living in abject poverty in many situations, and the English at the time were mistreating the Irish in many cases. And so Jonathan Swift wanted to bring it to people's attention in a way that would shock them into wake them up sort of a attention, create a tension to sort of hold a mirror up so that people would get involved and make changes.

And so in the mosque proposal, he This is a kind of disturbing image. But he, for example, said why don't we use baby skin as persons and it was just this ridiculous exaggeration, let's use Irish baby skin is to show that they were dehumanizing the Irish and they were not treating them like human beings. And so that's an example of hyperbole or something is greatly exaggerated, but it gets the reader's attention. And in that situation, it wasn't meant to be directly funny, but it was an example where exaggeration was effective. And so like I said, in a situation where it's humorous, exaggeration can actually make it funnier, or increase the effect if it's satire. And then in a situation where it is serious.

You definitely don't want to exaggerate it, frankly. For anyone who has read serious writing with exaggerations knows that it comes across as melodramatic, absurd and sometimes unintentionally funny. You might have seen some old mellow dramas from the past. And they have that effect because they were a little ridiculous. A lot of the if something bad happened, it was exaggerated. So poppers kind of have that vibe about them.

I'm not, you know, distinct so poppers. I've watched a few myself, but they you have to admit there's an absurdity to them because of that. And, likewise, humor that falls flat can sometimes undermine a writer's goals. I am totally a fan of deadpan humor. Like I said, you have to look at the context of the situation. For example, Bill Murray, he is a comic genius and he uses understatement in comedy.

So I'm not making this an absolute rule. But in more cases than not, hyperbole shouldn't be used or exaggeration shouldn't be used in serious serious And in more cases than not in humor, you wouldn't do something that's flat or under exaggerated unless you're trying to be funny in that sense, and you're very aware of how it will affect your audience. So just keep your audience in the context of the situation in mind when you're doing something like that. Um, so solid topics should remain simple. Allowing the situation to speak for itself. Humor is the proper time to exaggerate in most cases, and use hyperbole and blow situations out of proportion.

Now, here's an example of an article in 2007 from the onion. If you don't know what the onion is, it is a newspaper that is entirely satire. And it a lot of times is sort of a social commentary on certain things, but sometimes it's just plain silly, and they use a lot of exaggeration, and a lot of people like to read it because of the humor behind it. And so in 2007, they put out an article entitled my space outage leaves millions friendless. And I've had My students read this. And basically, it's, it discusses the loss of identity, complete panic in aid from the Red Cross that comes as a result of the mass space outage.

And MySpace was more popular a few years ago than Facebook is now. But basically, it was just meant to make fun of the fact that people get so dependent on social media that they literally should have wires homeless tied into their head, and how people when they're cut off from that they're kind of like, their cell phones are like, Oh my god, I'm gonna die and and you realize, you know, it just puts it in perspective that exaggeration obviously is meant to be funny, I don't want to over explain it but you get the point. Bringing in the Red Cross just adds to the silliness of the situation. But the articles humorous effect explains the onions popularity as well because it has many many articles like that. I encourage you to look up the onion and read some of the articles. They're very funny as long as you're not easily offended.

But keep in mind for strategy six. The last technique in this particular strategy, remember to exaggerate in humor more often. And to downplay not to minimize the importance of something serious but not to over exaggerate when that there's something serious. The last technique and strategy six