Stand-up > Play-by-play

Be like a stand-up comic, not a play-by-play announcer.

I received a kind and thought-provoking compliment from someone the other day after speaking to a group at their invitation. In a very complimentary follow-up note, this person (who I’ve greatly respected for many years) said that she and the rest of the group were really taken by my speaking style, so much so that she would love to learn how to model it herself.

That was thought-provoking for me because, to be honest, I haven’t ever considered why I talk to groups in the way that I do. It’s just me, talking, for the most part.

The compliment did get me thinking about my speaking style and where it came from, though, so I thought I might share a few notes here, in case anyone’s interested. And it starts, of course, with things I learned in college that had nothing to do with my coursework.

I grew up in one of the last households in the neighborhood to get cable television, and so I didn’t really get to binge-watch TV until my senior year in college. Let me tell you, I made up for lost time that year. Primarily, I watched two things: ESPN and Comedy Central.

ESPN’s offerings haven’t changed that much since 1990; I mostly watched game broadcasts and highlight shows then, just like now. One of my career dreams was to be a play-by-play announcer, and sometimes I would turn down the sound and try to call games myself. Most of the time, though, I’d just enjoy the broadcast.

Comedy Central, on the other hand, is not the same network it was then. Back in 1990, it almost exclusively showed stand-up comics at work, either in full shows or in packages of clips. (Shows like South Park didn’t come to the network until years later.) I never had any interest in being a stand-up comic, but I just loved listening to them.

When a medium is new and localized, it tends to allow for a broad diversity of styles, but as it becomes more established and more national, the norms of communication become a lot more defined. Back in the days of radio, I suspect, you had a lot of diversity of play-by-play announcers. Even growing up, I remember such legends as Vin Scully and Harry Caray; they each had their own very distinct way of calling a game. But on ESPN in 1990, the norms were beginning to settle into a standard, and now in 2023, when I hear an announcer, I really can’t tell who it is anymore. With a few exceptions, they all sound like Kenny Albert.

(By the way, this is true in other speaking formats. I have a college friend who became a United Methodist pastor, and one Sunday we got to hear him preach. He didn’t sound at all like himself; he sounded like all the UMC pastors I grew up with, almost to a tee. These days, I’ve noticed that the comics who rely on TikTok videos as their platform have a very distinct style. If they’re good, it works, but honestly the fact that they all sound the same makes it easier for me to get saturated with that kind of content. And don’t get me started on the homogenization of TED Talks.)

But back in 1990, stand-up comics were almost entirely local in audience, and so Comedy Central had all kinds of styles on display. My favorite was a guy named Jake Johannsen, whose style was a mix of 20-something self-conscious nerdiness and Bob Newhart dry humor that was anything but smooth. As a self-conscious nerd, I ate it up. But in truth, Johannsen was one of scores of comics, each with their own styles, who I soaked in, on the couch, when I should have been studying for finals.

Looking back, I take two lessons from my college-era cable-tv binges. First, if you want to learn how to communicate well in a format, soak in as much of it as you can.? To the extent that I can write, it’s because I read a lot of good writers as a kid (the fact that they were mostly longform magazine writers is probably why I write at the length I do). If you want to use a social media platform well, spend a lot of time soaking in the content of the people who rock at it. If you want to be a good speaker, seek out opportunities to listen to a bunch of good speakers. Even if you’re not studying them, taking notes on what they do well, the experience of surrounding yourself with artful communications sinks in like a marinade.

But the other lesson is more important. Don’t imitate anyone else; be good at being you. Especially in our global age, no audience needs to hear a knock-off of some other communicator (because the original has plenty of content out there that audiences can consume directly). My writing may have been influenced by writers like Gary Smith or Frank Deford, but I don’t have any intention of replicating them and couldn’t even if I tried. And I learned a lot by watching all of those Comedy Central standups, but I don’t think I sound like any one of them, nor do I try to.?

Embrace the diversity of the early 90s stand-ups and reject the temptation to become another interchangeable play-by-play announcer. The world needs YOU, in your voice.