A short live-stream commentary by TJ Walker analyzing a joke Vladimir Putin made at a Russian awards ceremony where he claimed Russia's borders 'don't end anywhere.' Walker discusses why political humor—especially jokes that reinforce negative perceptions—can create scandal and advises public figures to favor self-deprecating humor to avoid controversy.
Chapters
Russian strongman Vladimir Putin makes a joke and nobody really thinks it's too funny. Here's the situation. Putin was at a television awards ceremony was hosted by the Russian Geographical Society. And Putin asked a young boy a question as a 9 year old prodigy if he knew the borders of every country in the world and asked him, what are the Russian borders? What are the Russian borders? And the kid said, russians borders end at the Bering Strait with the United States. Putin then hugged the boy and corrected him and said, russia's borders don't end anywhere. He then quickly said, that's a joke. But in this current climate of so many people worried about Putin, about Russian meddling in the United States elections, all of the tampering with email eavesdropping, not to mention Putin's military adventurism, gets a lot of people nervous, gets a lot of people uncovered. And now it's a trending issue in social media and news sites all over the world. Here's the problem with humor, and this is why so many people like to complain about humorless politicians. It's because we when politicians use humor, it often creates scandal, especially if you use a joke that reinforces preconceived negative perceptions about you already. This brings to mind a very famous joke Ronald Reagan made when he was president. He thought the microphone was not on in a recording studio and he said, we begin bombing in five minutes, talking about the Soviet Union. Well, when the President of the United States, who does have his finger on the button, makes a joke about nuclear war, it's not funny. Reagan, of course known as the master of humor, self deprecation, kind of stepped in at that time because he wasn't making fun of himself. What Putin needs to, and Putin's not known as an especially funny guy. But the safest way for most politicians to use humor is to just make fun of themselves, whether you're the CEO, the mayor of your town, if you are in a position of high authority, of high power, anytime you make a joke, it's often seen as putting down somebody else, as attacking somebody else. So much of good humor is about attacking. So my advice to you, if you're going to use humor and you're in the public profile, you have a high profile and you're seen as in a position of power, you're far better off just making fun of yourself. You do that, you'll be on safe ground. If you make any other sort of humor, even if you clearly announce it as being funny, your enemies, people who are worried about you, who already don't trust you are going to use this as an opportunity to pick you apart.
