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on a busy weekday morning, someone was rushing to work and wanted to find a shared bike. there were none along the way, but he happened to find a lonely bike on the side of the road. he thought he had found a bargain, but then he thought again and was horrified: why was this the only bike left?

this is a scene that often occurs in daily life. the precise capture and ridicule of ordinary phenomena constitute the prototype of the jokes told by talk show host ya rong on the tencent variety show "talk show and his friends".

on the stage, as a part-time talk show host, ya rong shares jokes about work, blind dates, and celebrity idols slowly and leisurely with a relaxed smile, bringing a gentle yet powerful and interesting expression.

a female talk show host observes from a female perspective and tells stories about women's plight in a humorous way, allowing the audience to understand and perceive issues that they may not have noticed before from universal jokes. perhaps this is the unique power of duck down.

duck down. photo/provided by the interviewee

in august 2024, ya rong talked about her blind date in the first episode of "talk show and his friends" where she had such good conditions that people thought she was "lucky and got lucky". however, she said, "as a mature single woman, i know it's impossible to encounter such a good thing on a blind date... have you ever seen a shared bicycle parked alone at the entrance of a subway station during rush hour? don't drive it. if you really can't help but drive it, i advise you to drive it as soon as possible, and don't wipe the chair clean before driving it."

after six years of talk show, this time, after the clip of the online talk show was broadcast through the program, ya rong's performance spread on the internet and received a lot of attention. afterwards, she recalled the creation of the story and said, "when i wrote it, i thought it was a very good joke. i thought of the point of shared bicycles a long time ago, and i thought of different scenes to express it. later, i found that it was more suitable for the scene of blind dates."

the focus of ya rong's performance was not to define women. in the show, ya rong talked about how the man disliked her because of her overseas work experience during a blind date, thinking that she could not take care of the family and children. she retorted: "isn't my greatest social responsibility at my age to build the motherland and society?" the audience cheered.

outside the show, she is in charge of overseas business in a company. she often has meetings during the day, and talk shows are just a side job at night or on weekends. she worked in africa for half a year and is still a star-chasing girl. she told jiupai news that it is good to have a full-time job. with a guaranteed job, she does not put too much pressure on herself when working, and can also create more materials for talk shows through work.

here is the story of duck down:

[1] i don’t want to just make fun of myself for being poor and ugly to make the audience laugh. there are many difficulties in life.

i thought of the concept of "shared bicycles" in 2019. when i was riding a shared bicycle at the subway station, especially at night or in the morning, there were no bicycles on the roadside and only one was left. it was likely that it was broken, but every time i was lucky enough to give it a try.

i think this point is worth writing about. later, i met a boy who was excellent in all aspects. everyone was surprised when they knew he was single. after i got to know him better, i found that he had a lot of reasons to explain why he was single. so i put these two things in the context of blind dating. i think this is a very good joke, suitable for online dissemination.

after two episodes, you may find that i still like to talk about real things in my life. in the latest episode, i also talked about my hair loss and leg hair problems.

for example, "my hair finds different reasons to leave me every day. staying up late will cause hair loss, eating greasy food will cause hair loss, washing hair frequently will cause hair loss, and not washing hair frequently will also cause hair loss... i said this is too fragile, because i have never heard of any of the above things causing my leg hair to fall off. right, you said you stayed up all night, got up early and touched your legs, and there were hair all over your hands. it's impossible for such a good thing not to happen. leg hair is too difficult to fall off. it's hard to get rid of it even if you spend money."

the conclusion later was "really, my hair is like fallen leaves swept by the autumn wind, but my leg hair grows again by the spring breeze", which feels quite humorous.

looking back, i have been doing talk shows for 6 years and participated in two online talk show competitions, but the results were not very good. it was quite painful. at that time, for talk show performers, being on the show was the only chance to be discovered.

i first came into contact with talk shows in 2018. i watched a show and after it ended, the staff told the audience that if they wanted to speak, they could sign up. so i signed up and spoke at an open mic for a while.

the first time i spoke, the effect was not good. on stage, i lacked some skills, said a lot of nonsense, and the audience was cold. after speaking for more than a year, i wanted to give up. talking is not like singing. singers can ignore the feedback from the audience, but if you tell a joke to someone and the other party doesn't respond, it means he is not interested, and it is difficult for you to maintain a good state and continue to speak.

at that time, i didn’t think of myself as a talk show host. i vaguely remember that during that period, i had a joke that a high school boy thought my face looked like a tv. later he said he liked me. i didn’t know why, maybe it was because i liked watching tv.

it was not until 2019 that i gave my first performance at the goat club. i thought i would not give it if it was not good. unexpectedly, it was very effective. i received feedback from the audience for the funny parts and also received encouragement from some veteran actors.

therefore, because i am special and not a full-time talk show host, i basically had to figure out my own performances at the beginning. it is easy to be discouraged in the early stage, and it takes a long time to digest the embarrassment of a cold audience. at this stage, i especially need to get the recognition of the audience and seniors. later, i slowly figured out my own style.

talk show hosts can entertain the audience by telling self-deprecating jokes about being poor and ugly, which is indeed a dilemma. however, i feel that there are many dilemmas in life and they are not limited to these. i hope to speak truthfully and tell about my own troubles.

i admire hu lan very much. he presents a very wise image on stage. he does not put himself in a low position and can communicate with the audience on an equal footing. this degree is actually very difficult to grasp. as for myself, i should be a typical text-based contestant, finding new angles and viewpoints through observations in life.

[2] when you are angry, write a joke about what offended you.

after i started doing talk shows, i tried a lot of things that i had never tried before. for example, i received a scam call. i knew he was cheating from the first sentence, but i didn't hang up. i just chatted with him for fun to understand how he cheated. every scammer has different techniques, and i am willing to listen.

this is like going home from get off work. i know which way is the shortest, but i want to try different routes and see different things every day. in the process of getting in touch with new things, new ideas and emotions will definitely arise, and these things may become a joke.

after doing stand-up comedy for a long time, i also started to pay attention to my emotions. in the past, when i was in a bad mood, my first reaction was to cheer myself up as soon as possible, but now, i will study why i am unhappy. once i understand the reason, i can create something.

for example, after being offended, i would think about what the person did to offend me. for example, i would get angry when i heard something like "little girls don't have to work so hard", and then i would start to analyze the reasons: first, i don't like the lifestyle that others have determined; second, why is this sentence only said to girls? because they think men and women should do different things.

once i find this point, i can write it down, but i can’t change people’s ideas. what i can do is that when someone says this to me, i won’t get angry, because i have already written you into the joke, and i don’t care about these people anymore. of course, this may just be a “spiritual victory”.

duck down. photo/provided by the interviewee

my principle in writing jokes is not to let others guess who i am writing about. i will not write about the original story, but will change the scene and the expression. because i am a comedy creator, i must process the structure according to the material.

but in terms of work content, it actually didn't have much impact, i just worked in the office normally. one advantage of working two jobs is that you don't have to spend too much time trying to please your boss, and you have more confidence to stick to what you want to do.

in my talk show performances, i can talk about what i want to talk about without having to speak in a style or with content that i don’t like just to please the audience.

【3】i was moved by the resonance of women

this year, when i participated in "talk show with his friends", i was much calmer and not as nervous as in previous years, because this time the competition system guarantees that i will have at least two performance opportunities.

in addition, the industry has tended to develop in a more global manner in the past two years. for actors, appearing on tv shows is no longer an inevitable path to career development. by doing a good job in offline special shows, they can also gain a good reputation online.

i hope the audience can go to offline theaters. this industry should always pay attention to offline activities. because the actors only have five or six minutes in the show, and many viewers watch the competition through one or two sentences captured in short videos. the online competition is very fierce, and using a complete work to win the audience's attention for more than ten seconds is not sustainable.

offline theaters, the audience has to buy tickets and invest money, so everyone can focus on my work. i think it’s good enough if one or two sentences can be remembered by the audience online.

i saw many people say this year that there are many excellent new actresses in the show. in fact, many of them have been speaking offline for several years. what they lack is not the ability, but the opportunity to be seen. although the audience of the talk show industry is objective, it is still an industry where the minority decides the majority. there are only a few people who make the decisions. it is a bit like the workplace, which is not very friendly to women.

this year we did a special show called "three good sisters", which was an all-female talk show. in fact, we also tried to do an all-female show in the past two years, but such opportunities are very rare. because in the talk show industry, most of the actors are male. for example, in a compilation show, there may be only one female actor.

there is no gender restriction when selling tickets for the "three good sisters" special performance, but most of the audience are women. offline talk shows themselves have more female audiences. during the performance, the audience is relatively objective, because laughter is a difficult thing to fake. i will put myself in a service position, hoping to bring them happiness.

one performance that touched me deeply was during the international women's day. the effect was very good. i made a very small observation on the stage and the audience started laughing without any processing.

i also thought of the jokes in the first episode of the show. most people started laughing after the "shared bike" part, while the girls started laughing when the "blind date is not such a good thing." because everyone resonated with it, they felt this point and felt that i said something that resonated with them. in a place where most of the audience are female, there will be many such moments.

i like moments like that. when i throw out a joke and the audience laughs, it means they understand. one time, my friend came to listen to the "three good sisters" special performance. after listening, she told me that someone finally expressed her thoughts and she felt very moved.

jiupai news reporter ma jieying and zhou yuhe

edited by wang jiaqing and wu di

[source: jiupai news]