How To Be Sarcastic WITHOUT Being A Jerk

Sarcasm is one of the toughest types of humor to pull off when executed improperly. It can leave people angry at you as often as it leaves them laughing. So in this video, we are going to take a look at the king of sarcasm, Ryan Reynolds, AKA Deadpool.

The hell's your name? Ray Bans. Come here. Alright, Stevie Wonder, what's your superpower? Shoot laser eyes out of my eyes. That's the stupidest superpower I've ever heard. You're not on the team. I'm kidding. You're on the team. You're not on the team. Sit back over there and sit down.

So how do you use sarcasm without leaving people angry or hurt? Well, if you're going to do it, it cannot be a one off potshot, otherwise it feels like a pointed attack. So getting in the habit of joking all the time, even in semi serious moments, helps signal to others that your statements are usually to be taken in jest. Now, I talk about this at length in our video on Chris Pratt, so I won't go too far here. I'll leave a link in the description. But here's a quick example of taking a serious question about who Deadpool is and making it much more absurd. You know, I think they see that the world is ready for something different.

No matter what the rating is. Though babies will love this.

Of course, there are times when you're going to give an honest answer so that people can actually get helpful responses, but there's still an opportunity to crack a joke afterwards. Watch in this next clip how we get the real answer. Then a joke and then a heightened version of the joke, which is a classic comedic technique.

Is Ryan Reynolds missing a tooth? What do you. No, these are all my teeth. What the hell's going on here? Ryan Reynolds is missing a lot of things going on. Get these calf implants out too while we're at it.

Deadpool's sense of humor is really just an extreme version of Ryan's. So here is that principle taken to the extreme. Now for context. In the next scene, Wade Wilson can't sleep because he is worried about his terminal cancer. And this is what he says.

Hey, what's going on? Hey, Sorry. That'll be a Mason nightmare drip that kidnapped his daughter. He just wasn't having it.

This irreverence and refusal to be serious for too long is common to most comedians. And you're gonna see it in almost all of our other breakdowns on funny personalities. But one bit that is a signature of Ryan Reynolds style is its specificity. Watch these Next clips. For examples, what did you play when.

Your wife was in labor? I jammed a little Marvin Gaye's Let's Get It On. Yeah, how did that go? It was like steak knives came out of her eyes. But they both sob hysterically when I'm in the scar makeup, so it's very traumatizing for them. So they'll be reenacting most of those episodes with crude sock puppets and a therapist for the rest of their life. Yeah, but the thing is, this is back when like the Internet was made of a fax machine of wood.

Like all of those jokes could have been told easily in a less funny way if they were just less. For instance, he could have just said staring daggers at me instead of steak knives came out of her eyes. But the generic version misses the humor that comes from hyperspecificity. Crazy as it sounds, just getting specific will turn your lame jokes into laser guided homing pigeons of hilarity. See what I did there now? And since Deadpool is just an exaggeration of Ryan's day to day sense of humor, we see the same ultra specific principle used to create comedy in the movie.

Lets not forget naked tandem base jumping with the WNBA's Sacramento Monarchs.

Now, in a real world without a script, this level of specificity can't possibly be planned. So you have to get used to just throwing random sequences of words together and seeing what comes out. And you will not always have the right combination. So you're gonna blurt out all kinds of random things. And for an example that just watch how Ryan rift when he was shooting Deadpool.

You'll leave me all alone here with ChristianMingle.com leave me all alone here with Kevin Sorbo Girl you're gonna leave all alone with Nikki six Gonna leave me all alone here with Buster Rhymes. You're gonna leave me all alone here with Henry Winkler Gonna leave me all alone here with.

Hey you guys.

You're gonna leave me all alone here with Chris Angel Mind freak.

And when you throw this much volume of humor out, sometimes you hit the nail on the head.

Gonna leave me all alone here with less angry Rosie o'. Donnell. So.

Not everything Ryan said there was hilarious. And that last one was even a little bit upsetting for Gina Carano. But that is the price that you pay for letting your brain just free associate and blurt things out. And it's really the only way to tap into this style of humor in your own life. You have to get used to lowering the filter on what you say and letting duds come out sometimes in order to build a stronger sense of intuition of what is going to be funny. Now, that said, the filter isn't dropped completely because there are a few guidelines that Ryan almost always follows in order to make sure that his sarcasm doesn't wind up just hurting people's feelings like this other type of sarcasm might. I am a fan.

I just can not wrap my head around you sitting and watching the Proposal. I can see you watching and just being like, fuck this guy.

No, I felt that when I saw Green Lantern.

Okay, yes.

So what are the actual filters that Ryan uses when he's using sarcastic humor? Well, first, he almost always makes himself the butt of those sarcastic comments. Just take a look.

Question. Why such a. I'm kidding. I'm totally, I'm kidding. That's the second question I skipped ahead. Let's get to the heart of the matter now. Why can't you be like other actors, good ones? Speed round stage.

Were you always good with the ladies? Did you always have game? What were you like as a kid?

I was. No, not really. I mean, I, you know, I, I, I, I really. Up until I was like 18, I, I looked like a Vietnamese girl.

Second, even when Ryan's jokes appear to criticize other people, the subtext of the joke is often that he's the stodgy old man who's angry for a bad reason. So really, he's teasing himself. Like in these clips.

Eat your brain alive for a month. Cause it's just so good. You little high school pricks. You could, you could shove your nene. You could shove your Nene song up your ass. Hey, wait, wait, Calm down now. The Nene song. Does anyone else notice this thing jiggling.

Like, this is it.

No, no, no. Don't touch it. Don't you touch it.

Third, when Ryan does make someone else the butt of a joke, he usually teases their strengths or something that would be totally absurd so that there's no reason for them to get upset about it.

There's a, a certain height at which you can't really be a movie star, right? I don't know. I know some that are huge movie stars that are under four foot. You know, with the nine inch lifts. Actually under four feet. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I didn't realize. Is George Clooney. George Clooney. I have one friend that always, like, my daughter is quoting CHEKHOV and she's 2. And I was like, your daughter's an asshole.

Follow these very simple filters. You can use all of the sarcasm that your little heart desires without worrying about leaving people upset. Now you might be thinking though, wait a second. Deadpool doesn't do any of this. In fact, many of the jokes that Deadpool makes are very much at the expense of other people.

Screw, please. Here now. Just kidding. I know it's been decades. You'd be surprised. Pretty grossed out. Mr. Wilson, how can I help you besides luring children into a panel van?

And this is where Ryan and Deadpool differ. Because even though they have very similar styles of humor, the difference is that Deadpool does not use those four filters that we just touched on. He will tease anyone, even if it might come across as mean, and he will go right at their potential insecurities. Now this works because we're the audience, we're in a movie theater. But if those types of jokes were cracked in real life, they might make us laugh. But we'd also think, man, that guy's kind of a jerk. So it's a combination of letting the filter on what you say relax while keeping those few guidelines that we mentioned. That's how you can use sarcasm to its most excellent effect. In fact, it's these simple guidelines like this that allow you to be spontaneous in the moment while still ensuring that you're charismatic and, and not offensive. And if you do want more, we also have a simple four piece framework for making an amazing first impression on anyone every time. So if that interests you, go ahead, click the link in the description and you can get a video that's going to show you those four steps and start using them today. Just drop your name on the email on the page afterwards. Also, if you want to ask me anything in the world, we're going to have a live stream at 11am Pacific Time tomorrow. That's a chance for you to ask about this video or anything else. And I'll do it for as long as you guys enjoy it. So I hope that you enjoyed this video. I hope that you decide to subscribe to the channel because we've got more awesome breakdowns and talking head style videos coming up and I will see you in the next one.