Ramy Youssef on positive silence in standup

Silence is fine if everyone’s engaged and curious about what you'll say next.

Great joke from Ramy Youssef on being a religious person, as told on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.

I grew up in a town where I watched my gay friends struggle to come out to the religious community. And now I live in LA, where I’m a religious person struggling to come out to the gay community.

JUSTIN J WEE FOR ROLLING STONE

Ramy Youssef on Comedy Today: ‘It Is the Tightest Tightrope I’ve Walked’ [Rolling Stone] is a profile on Ramy where he discusses positive silence in standup:

“I remember doing this one set at a bar,” he recalls. “I was like, ‘I’ve been fasting for Ramadan. I do it because I actually believe in it.’ And there was silence. Then I thought, ‘Oh, that’s interesting.’ It was a type of silence where I was like, ‘Did I just say something edgy?’ And then I thought, ‘Oh, yeah. This is what I’ve been trying to get at.’ ”

…

For him, the muted audience response at that nascent stage of his career was a door being opened, not closed. “When I stumbled on it, I found that reaction to be positive, in a sense. Because it was a type of silence that I always felt was like, Oh, wait. Everyone’s engaged. It’s not like they’re rejecting it; they’re actually really curious as to what I’m going to say next. In that moment, I didn’t have that part. But then I said, ‘Oh, that’s my job. How do I step into that? Because that’s actually what I’m chasing.’”

As his act evolved, he figured it out, focusing more on personal material than crowd-pleasing ideas. “My first filter was, If this doesn’t get a laugh, you still have dignity.” He began developing a bit about how the hardest part of being Muslim is that you go to Mosque on Fridays, before the weekend, whereas Christians don’t have to go to Church until Sundays: “I’ll just be at the mosque being like, ‘God… Shit, I don’t know what I’m doing tonight.’ It’s such a worse position to have to pre-apologize. It feels so much nicer to do it and then say, ‘Sorry.’” As the routine began to connect with the audience, he felt emboldened, “Because this is fully me, but it’s also in the reference of the culture that I’m surrounded by. And then I started writing in those pockets.”

His debut late night set on The Late Show With Stephen Colbert in 2017 is also discussed. He had to push to get his closer on the air.

In a couple of recent stage performances, he had closed his act by saying, “I’m not trying to be preachy, I’m really not. All I’m trying to say is, just submit to Islam, because it’s the truth. And that’s the only way you’ll be saved. Seriously!” Both times, it got huge laughs. But Youssef says the Late Show producers were so nervous about the joke that they told him, “If you fight us on this, we’re not going to let you do the set.” He pushed for a compromise: He would close with “Submit to Islam,” and if they still felt uncomfortable, they could edit it out of the aired version. Instead, it killed, and the final version of the segment ended with a cut to Colbert, beaming with delight at the joke as he sent the show to commercial.

“That was the first experience I had with dealing with a network and being like, Oh, we should be pushing these things and then expanding it. And that’s where it gets fun.”

Takeaways:

• Silence is okay if everyone’s engaged.

• If everyone’s curious as to what you’re going to say next, you’re on the right track.

• Focus more on personal material than crowd-pleasing ideas. If it doesn’t get a laugh, you still have dignity.

• Write in areas that are fully you and the culture that surrounds you.

• Push edgy things and then expand – especially if you can cut them later.