Why PR pros should learn to laugh at themselves
Making light of a tense or potentially embarrassing situation can help your audience relate to you—and might make it easier to push through the moment.
Laughter isn’t just good medicine—it’s also a PR boost.
In December 2016, comedian-turned-U.S. senator Al Franken made an astute observation in The New York Times Magazine about President Donald Trump: He doesn’t ever laugh.
Trump’s absence of public mirth has caught the attention of other notables, too—most recently David Litt, a speechwriter for former president Barack Obama. Litt wrote that Trump’s inability to deliver “gracious one-liners” left him “ill at ease in front of all but the most adoring audiences.”
That’s not to say Trump hasn’t charmed audiences in other ways. He also has elicited laughter, but often at the expense of others. That has provided fodder for commentators, who have remarked on the irony of a president with no ability to laugh at himself, yet has a penchant for mocking others.
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