hello hello
great hi everyone I’m Gabi Flores and
the title please please
so I’m Filipino and Filipinos love to
eat we love eating it’s almost insane
how much we love to eat
I remember being seven years old and if
I wanted to get cake slices I would have
to dance for it and it wasn’t just any
dance it was like a dance craze it was
viral before viral meant anything other
than a disease it was called well I
didn’t expect to get laughs with that
one it’s called the Ocho Ocho Oh
although what it has to do with the
number eight in Spanish I have no idea
and it was kind of a weird dance so you
take your hands put them on your thighs
like this just right above your knee
just a little bit you keep like a
neutral spine I think is a term and then
you move your lower back back and forth
and now that I think about it it’s super
explicit so I won’t do it on the stage
right now but the fact is that I did and
I got so many cake slices out of it and
it was like fine and it was totally
normal and of course after a while my
shape just became a cake like that was
like my body shape does the cake whole
cake but you know when I went to school
there was always someone not only taller
but like bigger and fatter than me so
I’d never thought of myself as unusual
so imagine my surprise therefore when at
11 years old my mom and I moved to Hong
Kong and for the first time in my life
I’m in a class with girls who are almost
all exclusively like this tall and like
this wide and no one ever danced for
cake slices ever
and my whole batch was around 50 people
so I stuck out and I got bullied because
that’s what kids do when you look
different from them but this is not a
talk about body image not really
so thankfully I didn’t stay an outsider
for long I met two friends I eventually
met a group of friends and I even met my
best friend who I’m still in touch with
to this date and I did it by being funny
humor became a way for me to channel
their laughter onto my own terms it made
it made people laugh with me but not add
me I used humor as a signpost I directed
people to the parts of me that they were
okay to laugh at so my stomach rolls in
my armpit sweat not so much but my loud
burps and like my machine gun sounding
laughter is totally fair game that’s why
to this day self deprecation remains my
drug of choice and I used the word drug
here quite deliberately anyone who’s
ever told a joke ever which I’m like
hoping and praying is everyone in this
audience right now knows the self esteem
boost that you get when someone laughs
at your joke and you also know like the
disappointment name the dishonor when
someone doesn’t laugh or worse just
laughs really awkwardly like Oh Hina
or worse sir worser oh that’s so funny
I can’t stand them but that’s another
TED talk entirely let’s get back on
track there’s not one hallelujah or
Eureka moment where I realized that I
was funny it became kind of like a layer
of skin that I just slipped into I
remember being in eighth grade and so
I’m hanging with my friends out lunch
and there’s a new girl and we invite her
to come over to hang out with us and all
my friends introduce themselves but
before I can get like one word and not
even hi
one of my friends points to me and she’s
like oh my god this is Gabby she’s so
funny oh wow Gabby tell a joke right now
and because nothing in my life goes
according to plan ever my mind
completely blacked out I remember
standing there just like no but the
weird thing is yeah yeah the weird thing
is people laughed they laughed so hard
they were like oh my god that is so
funny
a classic Gabby strikes again and I was
remember standing there like oh well
this is my life now but as time went on
I started to become really wary of my
designated persona and I actually have a
few recent examples so my friends and I
host this informal kind of thing where
we invite people over to our dorm and we
share stories worth sharing and they’re
called Teddy talks please don’t sue us
because we’re so broke anyway so my
Teddy talks would be about you know like
the embarrassing you know situations I’d
find myself in because of my suppose an
ethnic ambiguity the times that I would
like embarrass myself in front of a guy
I liked bad dates where I literally had
to send like SOS signals to my friends
to come get me all that sort of stuff
but then after a while I started to
worry I started to ask myself you know
are these the only stories that I can
tell I was really kind of displaced and
I would think to myself you know am I
just here for comic relief like is this
all that I can give
if people you know expected something
funny from me I would give it to them
and became like a kind of persona I
built for myself and I told funny
stories because I just wanted people to
listen and I was scared that if I stop
being funny
then people would stop liking me so I
held myself back even outside of teddy
talks I would roll my eyes now I would
glare at someone who was trying to be
funny I equated being funny with being
annoying in my head and I didn’t want to
be annoying because then that would
bring me back to those days in build
school where I was bullied I wanted to
be serious I wanted to be mature and I
didn’t want to be a kid anymore but the
thing is it felt really itchy and that’s
the closest word I can come to describe
it it felt really uncomfortable for me
to not joke about the fact that I almost
tripped on my own shoe on the way to the
dining hall it felt almost exactly like
an itch the kind of discomfort where you
can tolerate it but just barely the
thing is after a while after trial and
error I thought I found that balance I
thought it was cured but during the last
TEDx mock talk I went over the top I was
making sure that people were laughing
the whole way through I was like
gesturing on stage I was like pacing
back and forth like I see all my
favorite stand-up comedians do and I was
slowly burrowing myself deeper into a
hole that I dug so sometimes your
biggest strength can become your biggest
weakness now I’m a literature student
and I’m going to ask for forgiveness for
the literature professors and the
audience for this lack of new ones that
I’m about to impart but one of the
things I learned is that we tell stories
as Windows into our own world but also
as defense
mechanisms and there are ways that
different ways that the self-defense
manifests you know fake it till you make
it is a common refrain for sure but I’ve
seen people you know act super macho
I’ve seen people just internalize their
emotions and just focus on their work
entirely I’ve seen people who just
project themselves as really fun and
really outgoing and I started using
humor as a self-defense mechanism
because I wanted to deflect the mean
comments that I thought I was gonna get
anyway so if people were gonna make fun
of me for my weight or my appearance or
my personality then I could at least
beat them to it but what about stories
as a way into other people’s world well
the closest thing I can come to describe
it is a comment that my friend wrote to
me when he said I really appreciate how
you make yourself look silly to make
other people feel comfortable I can
relate and that comment reminds me of
another comment that my creative writing
professor said well after I just
submitted a draft of my autobiography
and we were workshopping it in class and
he stops a discussion and he says this
is effective because it’s really hard to
be funny and of course at that time I
was like what are you saying do you mean
they’re like other way that people cope
with decades-long deep-seated
insecurities in the chief personal world
like I had no idea but now I kind of do
it’s my vulnerability that endears me to
people because we’re primed to be strong
and we’re primed to pretend that
everything is totally chilled it’s
really hard to admit for example that
you tried flirting with your crush by
laughing at their joke just like
everyone says you should but no one says
that you shouldn’t drink water at the
same time because then you end up like
doing a big gulp and like drooling all
over yourself but also like snorting
some stuff up your nose like when you’re
first learning how to swim and then your
crush is leaving you’re like please
wait oh my god oh no I have to go back
up there it happens and acknowledging
that it happens and finding the humor in
it teaches you to see that the things
that you thought were the end of the
world were just not I started a trend on
Instagram and by trend I mean like with
myself where I post parodies of Cobo TVs
and I don’t know who’s in the audience
here so I’m just gonna say some quick
points of clarification loti d stands
for outfit of the day which is a
phenomenon that’s on instagram which is
a picture sharing platform owned by
Facebook which is created by Mark
Zuckerberg the story of which was made
into a movie called the social network
which won a 2011 Academy Award for Best
Screenplay anyway you get the gist so I
would post parodies of ootds this one
would obviously be I’m a TEDx speaker it
not really is a social experiment or
whatever but more in the sense of like
people already think I look like someone
who fertilizes kombucha from her toilet
in like her tiny apartment in Bushwick
so I might as well and I find it really
fun and I’m glad that other people find
it fun too
I was gesturing all over the stage you
know during my last mock talk because I
wanted to prove even at that point once
everything was said and done and once
the speaker list was already finalized
that I deserved to be giving this talk
today and so one of the things I’m I’ve
learned one of the things I’m literally
learning as I stand here in front of you
is that humor is not as one-sided or as
shallow as people think in a world that
tells us to put a brave face on humor
has helped me see the importance and the
value in putting that mask away and when
I do I realize just how many people are
wearing that same mask even though it
may look different
mine we’re all just trying to let our
guard down it’s a shared struggle and in
that struggle I’ve learned that
vulnerability is strength and being
funny is hard because it’s really hard
to open yourself up and to allow people
in but as Mark Twain once wrote nothing
worth it ever comes easy I’m gonna
quickly leave the stage before someone
calls me out on the fact that I
literally just made that quote up thank
you good night [Applause]
great hi everyone I’m Gabi Flores and
the title please please
so I’m Filipino and Filipinos love to
eat we love eating it’s almost insane
how much we love to eat
I remember being seven years old and if
I wanted to get cake slices I would have
to dance for it and it wasn’t just any
dance it was like a dance craze it was
viral before viral meant anything other
than a disease it was called well I
didn’t expect to get laughs with that
one it’s called the Ocho Ocho Oh
although what it has to do with the
number eight in Spanish I have no idea
and it was kind of a weird dance so you
take your hands put them on your thighs
like this just right above your knee
just a little bit you keep like a
neutral spine I think is a term and then
you move your lower back back and forth
and now that I think about it it’s super
explicit so I won’t do it on the stage
right now but the fact is that I did and
I got so many cake slices out of it and
it was like fine and it was totally
normal and of course after a while my
shape just became a cake like that was
like my body shape does the cake whole
cake but you know when I went to school
there was always someone not only taller
but like bigger and fatter than me so
I’d never thought of myself as unusual
so imagine my surprise therefore when at
11 years old my mom and I moved to Hong
Kong and for the first time in my life
I’m in a class with girls who are almost
all exclusively like this tall and like
this wide and no one ever danced for
cake slices ever
and my whole batch was around 50 people
so I stuck out and I got bullied because
that’s what kids do when you look
different from them but this is not a
talk about body image not really
so thankfully I didn’t stay an outsider
for long I met two friends I eventually
met a group of friends and I even met my
best friend who I’m still in touch with
to this date and I did it by being funny
humor became a way for me to channel
their laughter onto my own terms it made
it made people laugh with me but not add
me I used humor as a signpost I directed
people to the parts of me that they were
okay to laugh at so my stomach rolls in
my armpit sweat not so much but my loud
burps and like my machine gun sounding
laughter is totally fair game that’s why
to this day self deprecation remains my
drug of choice and I used the word drug
here quite deliberately anyone who’s
ever told a joke ever which I’m like
hoping and praying is everyone in this
audience right now knows the self esteem
boost that you get when someone laughs
at your joke and you also know like the
disappointment name the dishonor when
someone doesn’t laugh or worse just
laughs really awkwardly like Oh Hina
or worse sir worser oh that’s so funny
I can’t stand them but that’s another
TED talk entirely let’s get back on
track there’s not one hallelujah or
Eureka moment where I realized that I
was funny it became kind of like a layer
of skin that I just slipped into I
remember being in eighth grade and so
I’m hanging with my friends out lunch
and there’s a new girl and we invite her
to come over to hang out with us and all
my friends introduce themselves but
before I can get like one word and not
even hi
one of my friends points to me and she’s
like oh my god this is Gabby she’s so
funny oh wow Gabby tell a joke right now
and because nothing in my life goes
according to plan ever my mind
completely blacked out I remember
standing there just like no but the
weird thing is yeah yeah the weird thing
is people laughed they laughed so hard
they were like oh my god that is so
funny
a classic Gabby strikes again and I was
remember standing there like oh well
this is my life now but as time went on
I started to become really wary of my
designated persona and I actually have a
few recent examples so my friends and I
host this informal kind of thing where
we invite people over to our dorm and we
share stories worth sharing and they’re
called Teddy talks please don’t sue us
because we’re so broke anyway so my
Teddy talks would be about you know like
the embarrassing you know situations I’d
find myself in because of my suppose an
ethnic ambiguity the times that I would
like embarrass myself in front of a guy
I liked bad dates where I literally had
to send like SOS signals to my friends
to come get me all that sort of stuff
but then after a while I started to
worry I started to ask myself you know
are these the only stories that I can
tell I was really kind of displaced and
I would think to myself you know am I
just here for comic relief like is this
all that I can give
if people you know expected something
funny from me I would give it to them
and became like a kind of persona I
built for myself and I told funny
stories because I just wanted people to
listen and I was scared that if I stop
being funny
then people would stop liking me so I
held myself back even outside of teddy
talks I would roll my eyes now I would
glare at someone who was trying to be
funny I equated being funny with being
annoying in my head and I didn’t want to
be annoying because then that would
bring me back to those days in build
school where I was bullied I wanted to
be serious I wanted to be mature and I
didn’t want to be a kid anymore but the
thing is it felt really itchy and that’s
the closest word I can come to describe
it it felt really uncomfortable for me
to not joke about the fact that I almost
tripped on my own shoe on the way to the
dining hall it felt almost exactly like
an itch the kind of discomfort where you
can tolerate it but just barely the
thing is after a while after trial and
error I thought I found that balance I
thought it was cured but during the last
TEDx mock talk I went over the top I was
making sure that people were laughing
the whole way through I was like
gesturing on stage I was like pacing
back and forth like I see all my
favorite stand-up comedians do and I was
slowly burrowing myself deeper into a
hole that I dug so sometimes your
biggest strength can become your biggest
weakness now I’m a literature student
and I’m going to ask for forgiveness for
the literature professors and the
audience for this lack of new ones that
I’m about to impart but one of the
things I learned is that we tell stories
as Windows into our own world but also
as defense
mechanisms and there are ways that
different ways that the self-defense
manifests you know fake it till you make
it is a common refrain for sure but I’ve
seen people you know act super macho
I’ve seen people just internalize their
emotions and just focus on their work
entirely I’ve seen people who just
project themselves as really fun and
really outgoing and I started using
humor as a self-defense mechanism
because I wanted to deflect the mean
comments that I thought I was gonna get
anyway so if people were gonna make fun
of me for my weight or my appearance or
my personality then I could at least
beat them to it but what about stories
as a way into other people’s world well
the closest thing I can come to describe
it is a comment that my friend wrote to
me when he said I really appreciate how
you make yourself look silly to make
other people feel comfortable I can
relate and that comment reminds me of
another comment that my creative writing
professor said well after I just
submitted a draft of my autobiography
and we were workshopping it in class and
he stops a discussion and he says this
is effective because it’s really hard to
be funny and of course at that time I
was like what are you saying do you mean
they’re like other way that people cope
with decades-long deep-seated
insecurities in the chief personal world
like I had no idea but now I kind of do
it’s my vulnerability that endears me to
people because we’re primed to be strong
and we’re primed to pretend that
everything is totally chilled it’s
really hard to admit for example that
you tried flirting with your crush by
laughing at their joke just like
everyone says you should but no one says
that you shouldn’t drink water at the
same time because then you end up like
doing a big gulp and like drooling all
over yourself but also like snorting
some stuff up your nose like when you’re
first learning how to swim and then your
crush is leaving you’re like please
wait oh my god oh no I have to go back
up there it happens and acknowledging
that it happens and finding the humor in
it teaches you to see that the things
that you thought were the end of the
world were just not I started a trend on
Instagram and by trend I mean like with
myself where I post parodies of Cobo TVs
and I don’t know who’s in the audience
here so I’m just gonna say some quick
points of clarification loti d stands
for outfit of the day which is a
phenomenon that’s on instagram which is
a picture sharing platform owned by
Facebook which is created by Mark
Zuckerberg the story of which was made
into a movie called the social network
which won a 2011 Academy Award for Best
Screenplay anyway you get the gist so I
would post parodies of ootds this one
would obviously be I’m a TEDx speaker it
not really is a social experiment or
whatever but more in the sense of like
people already think I look like someone
who fertilizes kombucha from her toilet
in like her tiny apartment in Bushwick
so I might as well and I find it really
fun and I’m glad that other people find
it fun too
I was gesturing all over the stage you
know during my last mock talk because I
wanted to prove even at that point once
everything was said and done and once
the speaker list was already finalized
that I deserved to be giving this talk
today and so one of the things I’m I’ve
learned one of the things I’m literally
learning as I stand here in front of you
is that humor is not as one-sided or as
shallow as people think in a world that
tells us to put a brave face on humor
has helped me see the importance and the
value in putting that mask away and when
I do I realize just how many people are
wearing that same mask even though it
may look different
mine we’re all just trying to let our
guard down it’s a shared struggle and in
that struggle I’ve learned that
vulnerability is strength and being
funny is hard because it’s really hard
to open yourself up and to allow people
in but as Mark Twain once wrote nothing
worth it ever comes easy I’m gonna
quickly leave the stage before someone
calls me out on the fact that I
literally just made that quote up thank
you good night [Applause]
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