It's only a story | Daniel Sloss | TEDxEaling

Scotland's Daniel Sloss is currently one of the fastest rising stars of UK comedy. He started doing stand-up aged 16, has appeared on numerous TV shows including 'Michael McIntyre's Comedy Roadshow' plus his own BBC show 'The Adventures of Daniel' and tours extensively thoughout the UK as well as internationally.He will be talking about how comedy is a series of short and truthful stories.

This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at http://ted.com/tedx

Good afternoon, everything all good?

(Audience) Yeah!

Lovely.

We're all storytellers
at different points in our lives.

We've all told stories in different ways
in different scenarios.

Whether you've been a parent
telling a child a bed time story

in a desperate bid
to make them go to sleep,

whether you've been
a friend telling a friend

about another friend's
drunken antic at the weekend

to make yourself seem
slightly less embarrassed.

Or whether you've been
at a party telling a story

to try and impress
the red-head in the corner

and you regale a tale about this time
you were very witty and snappy,

and this verbal encounter
you had with another person.

But you weren't really
that funny or snappy in reality,

you only thought
of comebacks on the way home,

but she doesn't need to know that.

She's on her third martini,
she's ready to go.

We all tell stories
in different ways as well.

When my dad tells stories
he's straight to the point.

It's all the facts, no thrills.

This happened, this happened
then this happened,

therefore this happened.

Moral of this story is:

Don't drink tequila with your mother
otherwise you happen.

(Laugh)

When my mum tells a story,
she likes to have all the extra details,

all the back stories,
all the character biographies

and by the end, it's been like
a nine-hour version of Inception.

You're not sure what's happened

you just know apparently someone
your mum works with is a bit of a cow.

(Laugh)

When my grandparents tell stories

they tell stories
the way old people tell stories.

They're very humble, don't like to brag.

It's always stuffs like: "Oh,
and then I got my medal

from Winston Churchill

for saving all those orphans,
but enough about me, how's school?

Children are the opposite.

When my brothers tell stories,
they do the thing all children do

which is they have so much
enthusiasm and excitement

that they promise a story that's never
going to live up to your expectations.

"And then what happened?"
"And then we went outside."

"And then what happened?"
"Then Matthew was here."

"Then what happened?"
"Then he farted."

"Great."

90% of stories
my brothers have told me

has always ended with
an unpleasant bodily function.

Everyone is a storyteller,
even in the media:

television, newspapers, tabloids,
podcasts, music, artists.

Everything's a different way
of telling a story.

I tell stories differently as well.

I'm a comedian.

I tell stories that are punchy, jokey,
all the way through in order to keep

an audiences ever-shortening
attention span solely focus on me.

I tell true stories,
I tell exaggerated stories,

I tell stories that are completely
and utterly made up. Total lies.

Like, I'll have been sitting
with my friends, having a drink,

and one of them'll say something like:

"Ah, wouldn't it be funny
if this happened?"

And I'll think to myself:

"Yeah, that would be funny."

And then I shamelessly
take it down in my iPhone.

Take it home. Write out. And somehow
integrate myself into this story

so I'd become a hero,

so I can then go out on stage

in front of a room full of strangers,

in a desperate bid to get them to like me.

(Chuckle)

Because that's all a comedian is.

We're desperate storytellers.

All we do is go out to a room
full of people we've never met

and beg them to like us.

So at any point you're wondering
why I agreed to do this talk,

that's why.

(Laughter)

And also because my mum told me

that if I turn down
the opportunity to do a TEDTalk,

she'd put me up for adoption.

I'm 22 years old,
I don't know how do that,

but it's best not to argue with her
when she's been drinking

You see that?

That was a perfect example.
I made that entirely up,

just so half of you went: "Ha"

(Laughter)

I was willing to fabricate
a story about my mother

being an alcoholic
with an emotional problem

who was willing to disown me
as a human being

just so 50 of you went: "Very good."

(Laughter)

That's what I mean by
"desperate storyteller".

And the thing is we're
the only storytellers, though,

that really get in trouble
for our stories.

Every few weeks there is
something in the newspaper

about this comedian
that said something awful or offensive

that's offended one member of the audience

who, by the way,
nine times out of ten, is an idiot.

And then they talk about it
on the news and everything.

They get scientists and doctors
to come on and analyse the joke,

interview the traumatized audience member,
and then they all sit down

and discuss, at length, a joke

which lasted one minute
in an hour-long set

and we all sit patiently

and wait for the officials to tell us
whether we were offended or not.

And then at the end of it,
they decide that we're offended.

Perhaps the comedian
shouldn't talk about rape or murder,

those sort of things on stage,

that they shouldn't be
broadcast in a household

and we all feel
quite good about ourselves.

Then switch over
to Eastenders or True Blood

where there are scenes of murder,
sexual audacity, drug abuse,

racially invoked crimes
and we all go: "This is amazing!"

Why is it different?

How come when a comedian
says something as a joke,

it's offensive?

But when it's acted out in front of you,

it's intriguing, it's a twist.

Actors are never criticized
or abused for their roles in films.

Nobody came out
of "Inglorious Bastards" going:

"Oh, I can't believe Christopher Waltz
killed all those Jewish people.

What an awful man!"

Nobody came out Harry Potter
thinking: "You know what?

I never trusted Snape.

Not since he had that awful German accent
and tried to kill John McClane.

(Laughter)

There you go.

People don't get upset because
they know it's fake.

They know the actors on stage
are just portraying characters.

So are comedians.

That's our job,

We're storytellers but we're also so vain

that we like to put ourselves
in the stories.

We're the writers, directors,
and stars of our own show

where we're just playing
an exaggerated parody of ourselves.

Because we're not going
to be ourselves onstage.

We might play a version of ourselves.
But we can't be our true selves.

If we were to come on stage
and talk to you about our real opinions

with balanced, thought-through points,
we wouldn't be comedians,

we would be politicians
and you'd hate us even more.

Alright?

When we come on stage, we have to
find ways to make you laugh

and our way of doing that is to come out

and say something
completely stupid and ludicrous

to make you laugh.

Another method of doing it
is to take a completely, utterly,

point that no one would agree with,

something very obscure and blatantly wrong

and find a way to twist it round

and make it seem valid just for a second.

For example, if I were
to make the statement:

"I don't think children should smoke."

Everyone in this room
would agree with it, yeah?

But if i were to
come out on stage and say:

"I think every child under the age of 13

should be forced to smoke
four packs of cigarettes a day

because as my brothers are getting older,

it turns out they're very close
to being able to beat me in a foot race.

That's a way of turning it around.

You're not laughing me
trying to kill my brothers.

You're laughing at me for being an idiot
for thinking that's a good idea. OK?

And that's what we do with our comedy.

We're playing stupid versions
of ourselves. For example,

if Ricky Gervais, Frankie Boyle,
or Jimmy Carr

were actually as big as

the bigoted, racist, fascist,
homophobic, sexists

that the Daily Mail made them out to be,

they would probably end up
working for the Daily Mail.

(Laughter)

They're making the stuff up
to get that reaction from you.

The reason I mentioned those names -
Frankie Boyle, Ricky Gervais, Jimmy Carr -

is they're the names commonly
associated with "offensive comedy."

The reason I put offensive comedy
in inverted commas there

isn't because I'm young and hip,

it's because, basically, I don't really
get the term "offensive comedy."

No comedian wants to offend you,
that's not our job.

Our job is to make you laugh,

make you think,

make you smile,
make you want to sleep with us

so that our night in that hotel room
is slightly less depressing.

(Laughter)

Not to upset you in any way, shape, form.

Because, the thing about it is
when comedians are telling these stories,

it's to get any form
of a reaction out of you.

And Jimmy Carr, famously,
was in trouble recently.

He made a joke about the Paralympics.

He made a joke that our troops
in Iraq were getting injured

but at least that would make us have
a good Paralympic team.

And people went mental.

People were so upset.

If you were to believe the tabloids,
trains stopped on the track

so that people could get off
in order to vomit

at how disgusted they were by this joke.

People killed themselves,
they were so disgusted by what he said.

Alright? That's not the case.

The only people who were not
offended by that joke?

The war veterans,

who found it hysterical.

They thought it was great.
They repeated to each other.

So if they weren't offended by that joke,

who's got the right to be offended?

People have developed
an amazing new ability recently.

People can be offended
on behalf of other people.

You can't be offended
on behalf of someone.

Feelings are non-transferable.

You can't be a husband
standing beside a wife giving birth going:

"Don't worry, honey.
I'm feeling pain on behalf of you."

She would beat you to death.

(Laughter)

Nobody asks people
to be offended on behalf of them.

They just did it.

They jumped in front of a bullet
that was heading towards a tree.

Alright? It was a blatantly stupid
sacrifice they never needed to make.

It's amazing.

One of the other topics, one of the most
controversial ones last year,

was that Frankie Boyle

made his comment
about Katie Price and her family.

Regardless of your opinions on the joke,
which everyone will be divided on,

don't pay that in context,
you have to understand

that Frankie Boyle made those jokes

about Katie Price.

Not to her.

About her.

He made that joke onstage
in front of a room full of people

who were fully expecting him
to make that sort of comment.

It wasn't until the newspapers
phoned up Katie Price

and repeated that joke to her
several times

in order to get a reaction.

That's when she knew about it.

I am fully aware

that there are many people
out there in the world

who don't like me,

who say mean things about me everyday,

but I'd rather not know.

OK?

If you came up to me and you told me that
there was a man I'd never met before

who was saying horrible things about me

and you then listed the awful things
he said about me to my face,

you're the bad guy.

That person has the right to say
whatever he wants about me.

I've never met him but he can say
what he wants, that's his right.

It wasn't until you told me
that I knew it was going on.

You've turned it into a personal attack.

Mostly when comedians
are making jokes about

these celebrities and celebrity culture,

it's no different from stuff
you hear from friends.

The banter we have
every day with our mates

about some celebrity on television
that we don't particularly like.

Are you trying to suggest
that celebrities

don't know they're ridiculed
by the general public?

That Katie Price thinks
that Frankie Boyle

is the only comedian that
doesn't respect her life choices?

No, of course.

We're just individuals,
willing to risk going onstage, saying

what everyone else down
the pub is saying on a Friday night.

It seems the general public can say
whatever they want about celebrities

but comedians can't, and that's hypocrisy.

That's not fair.

There is a market for shock comedy.

A huge market, OK?

But there's also a market for
legging sadomasochism and Justin Bieber.

All arguably more offensive
than anything anyone's ever said.

I'm not trying to say that you
shouldn't be offended or upset by things.

I'm in no position to tell you
what should or shouldn't upset you.

That is your right
to react however you want

But,

we comedians also have a right;

a right to say whatever we want
to make our audience laugh

and get the reaction that we want.

We're fortunate enough
to live in a society

where there is loads of comedy nowadays.

Comedy's bigger than it's ever been.

So if you don't like one style of comedy,
you can go see another one.

Everything's catered for.

But we should be allowed to do
whatever makes our audience laugh.

Not people that weren't there,

the audience that paid to come see us,
that traveled around the world

and countries sometimes to come
and see us do what we do

without having to worry that
there's someone in the audience

who might take one of our jokes
out of context and then repeat it.

Because most of the time
the jokes are taken out of context.

You know, you're only given
the brutal punchline.

You're only told the joke
by a news presenter

with her sour face just repeating it.

That's not how it was delivered.

You're not given the context,

you're not given the setup,

you're not given the atmosphere,

you're not even given
the audience reaction.

And that's not fair. You don't take other
storyteller's stories out of context.

If I were to tell you
when I was five years old,

my dad would tell my a story
about a mass murderer

who would disguise himself
as a close relative

in order to get close to a young girl
so that he could have his way with her,

and just before he managed to do that,
he was brutally murdered.

Everyone would agree that
my dad's a dreadful man.

But if i point out

that that's the basic story line
for 'Little Red Riding Hood,'

a lot less people are phoning
child services. OK?

You know how it was intended
to be delivered and you expected that way.

Alright?

A story is just a story,
and a joke is just a joke.

You knew the stories that you heard
as a kid weren't true. Right?

There was no monster under the bed,
no Boogie Man in the corner.

Your granddad wasn't really
ripping off his thumb

and taking the pain exceptionally well.

He was just doing it.

Please apply the same logic
to our stories.

We're saying these jokes as jokes.

There's very rarely
malicious intent behind it.

There may not be jokes that you like,
but what we're doing is taking a concept

and we're exaggerating it,

lying about it,

turning it in such a way
you weren't expecting it.

And sometimes, we turn it in a way
that you don't like.

But that's your problem.

The world doesn't revolve around you.

Ignore it.

Move on.

Forget about it.

Alright?

You seem to assume that comedians
haven't gone through any hardships.

Whereas most of the time it's a hardship
that's caused us to get into comedy.

Our reaction to our hardships
was to make light of the situation

and get over it, as opposed to
going round the country

making sure that nobody ever mentions
it ever again to hurt my delicate soul.

So that's my point,
that's the point I'm trying to make.

If at any point you've [dis]agreed
with anything I've said,

don't worry, it was just
a story, I made it all up.

Thank you very much

(Applause)