by Ren La Porte
Head back, snoring and drooling or thumbs flicking on a phone – very good indications that you have lost the audience’s attention. We have all been that someone in the audience at some point trying to kerb boredom. But what do you do when you are the speaker?
THE BIGGEST ENEMY OF BOREDOM
Reading your audience for boredom means actually looking at the audience. For many who cling to notes (assistance for that here) subtle queues may be missed. The biggest enemy of boredom is humour.
“Researchers studied the Top 50 most popular TED talks and the Top 50 least popular TED talks and they found that popular talks incorporated humour an average of 12.92 times per 15 to 20 min, while unpopular talks only used humour for an average of 3.92 times”
Humour depends less on the words themselves and more on how they are delivered. Timing, pauses, facial expressions and voice variation can determine whether a humorous moment succeeds. So where and when do you instil humour into a presentation?
WHERE TO PLACE HUMOUR
Successful humour is not about becoming a comedian. It is about understanding the audience and delivering your message with impact. Humour should be implemented strategically and still maintain content flow. Possible times include:
- In a speech opening (as a hook)
- To relieve tension (relax yourself and the audience)
- Between heavy data points
- To introduce a topic or highlight a key message
- To support a lesson
- When you feel the audience losing interest
- On completion (when you want to be memorable)
Gauging the audience for feedback is imperative. Poorly chosen jokes can distract, while genuine humour can strengthen credibility. For this reason, it is important to have prior knowledge of the demographic you are addressing.
RESEARCHING YOUR AUDIENCE
If you do not directly know your audience and what style of humour will be the biggest enemy of boredom, there are several ways you can research:
- Ask the person who arranged the speaking engagement
- Look online at community directories
- Visually look into the audience to understand a common age (and know what aspects are important to that demographic)
- Ask some initial direct audience questions at the beginning of the presentation (if appropriate)
- Talk to people as they mingle before the presentation
- Send out a small survey as part of the entrance process
Effective humour often includes relevant stories that relate directly to the audience’s experiences.
WHAT HUMOUR IS BEST TO BEAT BOREDOM?
After gaining an understanding of the audience, there are many different styles of humour to choose from. Again, it is working with the audience in the moment, to know if these styles are appropriate for your circumstances and the results you wish to achieve.
To develop humour skills, speakers should:
- Start with personal experiences rather than prepared jokes
- Be authentic
- Include a situation that the majority of the audience can relate to
- Practise delivery, pauses and timing
- Observe audience reactions and adjust
Humour is a skill every speaker can develop. It creates connection, improves engagement and helps audiences remember messages long after a presentation ends. Given that mobile phones are increasingly a distraction, there are many great speakers using the biggest enemy of boredom – humour! Can you give it a go?
PRACTICING HUMOUR IN YOUR SPEECH DELIVERY
One of the best places to practice delivering humour in your messaging, is through Toastmasters. Every meeting provides a practice audience to hone your skills. You can enhance any line of communication of your choice:
- Team motivation
- Persuasive influence
- Presentation mastery
- Visionary communication
- Dynamic leadership
- Podcasting
- Running a group meeting
- Project planning
- Impromptu speaking
- Adding humour to your message
- Not feeling nervous in front of a crowd
- And much, much more
Tropic City Toastmasters is a not-for-profit organisation that has been assisting members in Townsville and surrounding areas for over 40yrs. There is no cost for visiting and trialling this experience to see if it is right for you. Choosing Toastmasters has been exceptionally beneficial for many members, hence it’s popularity the world over. To find out more about this topic, scroll to the Engaging Humour icon for this learning pathway and click on it.
REFERENCES
- Liu, S. (n.d.). The use of humor in English public speaking. University of Shanghai for Science and Technology, Shanghai, China.
- Mammola, S., Fontaneto, D., Santangeli, A., Oswald, K. N., Correia, R., Meierhofer, M. B., De Santis, V., & Stout, V. (2026). Statistically significant chuckles: Who is using humour at scientific conferences? Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 293(2067), Article 20253000. https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2025.3000
- Miron-Spektor, E. (2023). How women leaders benefit from using humour. INSEAD Knowledge. https://knowledge.insead.edu/
- Shoda, V. P., & Yamanaka, T. (2021). A study on instructional humor: How much humor is used in presentations? Behavioral Sciences, 12(1), 7 https://www.ijrrjournal.com/IJRR_Vol.7_Issue.11_Nov2020/IJRR0076.pdf
- University of Pittsburgh (2026). Tips for Analyzing an Audience. https://www.comm.pitt.edu/tips-analyzing-audience
- Wanzer, M. B., Frymier, A. B., & Irwin, J. (2010). An explanation of the relationship between instructor humor and student learning. Communication Education, 59(1), 1–18. https://doi.org/10.1080/03634520903367238
- Ziv, A. (1988). Teaching and learning with humor: Experiment and replication. Journal of Experimental Education, 57(1), 5–15. https://doi.org/10.1080/00220973.1988.10806442
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