Hello Prox Populi.
Aparna Nancherla is one of the few comedians I relate to. Not because I am funny like her, but because of the uniquely quiet register she occupies in a profession (and world) that privileges loudness. She doesn’t bowl you over with her presence. Rather, she reels you into the byzantine recesses of her brain. For example:
But it wasn’t until I read her essay on introversion from her book, Unreliable Narrator, that I realized just how much I relate.
She writes:
Extroversion is so often seen as strength and power, while being quieter or less willing to take up all the air in a room is seen as weak and submissive. But if an entire personality trait is framed as something needing improvement, what does that do to the person inhabiting it? How do you exist in the world and in relation to others when you’re so often fed the message that your instincts are wrong?
Cue Yowei gasping and dropping the book.
For as long as I can remember, I’ve been trying to fix this part of my personality. One of my niche emotional conundrums. So it was downright healing to get to talk to Aparna on the pod this week, as a fellow introvert who’s further down the road in her crawl towards self acceptance.
Here are some performance tips I picked up from Aparna during the episode. They’re useful for anyone trying to get more comfortable in front of people:
If I need a little time away from other people, I don't need to explain myself or I don't need to feel embarrassed about that because for me it can make a difference. I even remember at a show once I got to the green room and my friend was like, how was your day? And I was already so in my head about the performance and I was just like I cannot talk to you right now. Like, I can't answer that, and I felt kind of rude, but I was like, OK, you're just built the way you're built.
If the audience feels like you're trying too hard to figure out what they want or you're catering too much to them, I feel like they can pick up on you not being as authentic or trying to morph too much into some weird version of what you think they want versus talking to them more honestly. … I think I'm now more at a place of like, OK, this is where I'm at and you can meet me here or otherwise, we'll just have to agree this wasn't the best fit.
I need to write everything out. I know exactly my jokes down to the punctuation. And then there are comedians who are like, “Yeah, I'm just going to talk it out on stage. I'm just going to maybe even figure it out by talking to people in the crowd.” I see comedians who are so good at it and I'm like, that's just not my speed. Because … it kind of mixes everything that makes me nervous, which is like talking to people I don't know well, and trying to riff off of their answers. But then I'm in my head. I'm already worried about like, am I offending this person? Did this person even want to be spoken to? I just get very caught up in things that I think someone who's good at crowd work is probably not thinking about. There's just a full range … I think it's like music where there's like certain genres of comedy. I don't think all comedians are into crowd work by any means.
When I'm able to be like, can I have the [interview] questions ahead of time? … In the past I'd be like, that's cheating, a real comedian would be able to think on their feet, but I'm like, well, that's not how your brain works.
Eternal gratitude to my esteemed listeners who’ve signed up for our Patreon. As of today, we’re at 343 paying subscribers out of the 3,000 we need this year to keep going! So we’re heading in the right direction.
And thanks to everyone who’s left a rating and review on Apple Podcasts. I read every single one and take note.
From praise and encouragement:
To whining about my whining:
Don’t forget to leave a rating and review on Apple Podcasts, if you can. This stuff helps us.
Some very cool things happened the other week. Proxy charted at #2 in Science on Apple Podcasts.
And we made it into the top 200 podcasts, period (!).
AND Apple Podcasts featured Proxy in their New and Noteworthy section!
Proxy was also recommended in Lifehacker (“There is nothing like Proxy, making it a space for unique conversations never heard before”), and named one of the best podcasts Australian Broadcasting Corporation listened to in May (“In this little act of sharing and understanding between two strangers, something good, and maybe healing, happens”, as well as one of the essential pieces of pop culture The Guardian’s The Guide newsletter was following that week.
Finally, I got to do some real talk about my journey from big network to indie producer in Podcast Marketing Magic. Thank you for all the Proxy love!
End of scene on shameless plugging.
Your emotional investigative journalist,
Yowei
Edited by Juliana Feliciano Reyes.
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