When failure brought you to your favorite Celebrity.
The real reason why Conan went to Korea.
Note: You can check out the whole story here.
In 2016, Conan visited Korea after receiving a fan mail from a young lady called Sunny Lee (The lady with the black coat at the picture above). It turns out that she was supposed to study for her SAT but she procrastinated and binged Conan’s shows on youtube instead, then she wrote a fan letter for Conan, one in English and another in Korean.
Conan read the letter to the audience and it wrote(and I am paraphrasing here) that, she loved Conan’s show. She showed it to her friends and she ended up binge-watching his show instead of studying, and she wrote a huge Team Coco on her SAT answer sheet. In addition to that, she also sent him a box full of Korean snacks, which eventually his assistant Sona ate them all before he could even have a bite.
You can tell she loved his show when she wasn’t ashamed of telling him AND the audience that she failed her test anyway. In Asian culture, failure in school is a big no to parents. Some are ok with it, but most aren’t (believe me, I am Asian). However, using self-deprecating humor will not make anyone ashamed to tell their failures to people.
Self-deprecating humor is something that Conan used all the time in his show, it helps makes the other feel comfortable even if his status is higher (Conan is a Harvard graduate and a celebrity, the fact that Sunny Lee shamelessly confessed that she failed is a sign that he knows how to make people comfortable to say something like this). I wrote two articles on how he managed to do this, the method and an example here:
In return for her love of Conan, he decided to visit Korea to visit Sunny Lee and take a tour around the country. And as you can see from above they were having a great time together, and Conan managed to shoot some remotes about his travel in Korea.
Even this was all fan service, I think there is something we can learn from here:
- Failure doesn’t mean you will not be successful. Sunny Lee didn’t pass her SAT, but she indirectly brought Conan to Korea, where most of the Koreans loved his show. And the Koreans cheered for her.
- Be kind. Not only did Sunny Lee gave him a sweet letter, but she bought him a box of Korean snacks. In turn, not only did Conan visited Korea and met her, but he too gave her snacks.
- Don’t take things too seriously. Sunny Lee had no problem telling everyone that she failed her SAT test, she didn’t even feel embarrassed about it. School isn’t about everything, there is something in life where we have to learn by ourselves.
Conan is an amazing talk show host. His self-deprecating humor is a way to let everyone know that he can get along with a lot of people, using this can also help you be more likable like him.
I hope you get something from this post.
