Anjelah Johnson's Superiority Theory

The nail shop that the comedian, Anjelah Johnson, is in hosts some very aggressive nail technicians who love to upsell their products and services. They put down their customers somewhat to get them to feel insecure and purchase more services to look better and dim their insecurities.
Johnson’s stand up exploits the Superiority Theory. She plays with the topic by making the audience laugh at her while she laughs with them at herself. It affects the hilarity of the message by showing how funny it is that she is getting “Played” and is opening her story to her audience so they can share her pain. By her laughing at her own pain, she adds an extra layer of hilarity that most typical comedians do not have.
She sets the comic bit up by talking about how she likes to spend time with her family and how she went to get her nails done with her sister the day of the story. She used multiple punchlines throughout …show more content…
Every joke in the bit is setup by the previous joke said before it, while the punchlines are either at the end or the very beginning of the joke when she starts it off. Johnson does link a couple jokes together to persuade the audience to believe in the final message. For instance, she mocks the nail tech, whose “American” name is Tammy as she explains earlier in the bit, accent but connects it with other jokes to get the message across of how funny the tech is because of the things she says and how she says them. The logic flows inductively because Johnson uses points/clues from throughout the bit to bring up new jokes that add to or lead up to the punchline/ message. The way she tells a story to get the audience to follow along makes a connection with the audience and she gives the jokes out back to back which keeps the audience engaged and, on their toes, waiting for the next laugh, thus also using Expectation