3 Replies to “Aziz Ansari | Texting with Girls”

  1. Even worse than setting up a date via text is making a quirky comment. Normal text to her. Normal text to me. Text to her. Text to me. To her. To me. Her. Me. Her. Me. And then I joke that if she wants to see me again then she needs to find the jade monkey before the next full moon and…. nothing. Not a damn thing. Annnd then it occurs to me that it probably wasn’t a great idea to use a random Simpsons quote on the British girl with the long pigtails, daisy duke cargo shorts and dual desert eagles on her hip.

  2. The art of self deprecation, of which Aziz Ansari is prince, gets at what’s so important about creativity to begin with. There is much to learn as artists from a creative mind like Aziz. Chuck Palahniuk, of Fight Club fame, said it best when he was struggling with his own writing as a beginner. He was taking a workshop, and whilst drinking his teacher informed him that he was a great storyteller but couldn’t write for crap. He told Palahniuk to focus on telling a story orally and glean from that what he’s doing right and what he’s doing wrong. From there, he took off and became a best seller who is also considered artistic. Aziz, in his above bit on texting, gives us a perfect example of conveying and connecting with his audience on multiple levels of emotion and ironic thought. He does this by telling a story. Yes, even a joke is a story. And i would contend that comedy is an art form all to its own. An example we writers can learn from. In other words, he’s connecting with his audience regarding a subject and scenario on which we can all relate.

    1. Self deprecation really does do wonders in comedy. As with writing, comedy is all about writing something that is relatable or evokes some sort of an emotional response. With Aziz’s comedy in the above video, his delivery gets the laugh, particularly from a younger generation that uses texting as a mode of conversation.

      Humor in writing can be more difficult. You don’t have the opportunity to use your facial expressions to convey whether something is ironic, hilarious, or sad. You have to pick your words carefully so you don’t go overboard trying to get your laugh and you don’t leave your audience all confused. You can’t hear the laughter mid essay to know whether people really think you’re funny. Though, I guess that could be better than a room of people not laughing at a bit you think is hilarious.

      And gentlemen, I’m sure you too have halted a text convo. Sometimes I really do leave my technology in other rooms or the battery dies. Yup, that’s my story.

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