Features

Uniting people around common truths

By Alison Freeland

Spring/Summer 2020

“I’m Lebanese, so I’m resourceful,” says Nemr Abou Nassar (BBA ’05), an international stand-up comic who goes by his first name alone. “When people ask me what they need to do to be in stand-up, I tell them to study business—marketing, branding, and cash flow management—because 99 percent of the business is business. And risk-taking, of course. I’ve been risky my whole life.”

The coronavirus quarantine of 2020 found Nemr in California and highlighted another of his talents—improvisation. He had been planning another world tour and had taken time off to become involved in Lebanon’s thawra, but was now stuck in his Los Angeles house. So, he improvised. “I can pivot and change,” he says. “And I can do it fast. Improv is a state of mind that keeps you at ease and stable no matter what comes at you.”

Not being able to tour, Nemr jury-rigged a studio in his home, and like a multi-armed production engineer, learned to change camera angles, record video and audio, play music, interview guests, take calls, and host the show by himself. Over the months, it has grown into The Very Funny Podcast, which he simultaneously livestreams on YouTube, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, and Twitch, while reading the chat messages and communicating with his international fan base.

“The global online community started as a Nemr-led community,” he says, “but it’s transitioning to a community-led Nemr. They guide me based on what they want to see, what they ask for. I have to surrender myself to the possibilities, let go of myself and embrace the collective energy.”

Recently the collective energy accompanied him on a bicycle trip around his neighborhood, while he streamed and narrated the experience. “People liked it,” he said. “So, it looks like I’ll be doing more of that kind of thing.”

Nemr also straddles East and West, having spent his first ten years in California before his family moved back to Lebanon, where he “grew into” being Lebanese. He says, “I found myself as a human being when I got to Lebanon. I needed to be there to close the loop of my personality. Had I not gone I might have been a fish out of water forever.”

He majored in business at AUB and also sowed the seeds of his comedy career there. Nemr’s comedy rises from a deep place within him that has to do with uniting people around common truths. “So much divisiveness and conflict in this world is unnecessary,” he says, “unforgivably unnecessary. The solution is my goal. The human race responds powerfully to examples. If I can be an example of one person who is universally funny to everyone, it’s progress. When two people laugh together, it’s the surest sign of agreement. It’s truth.”

In his thinking, Nemr’s solution to world conflict will take place on a world stage. “First, make people laugh in different venues all over the world. Second, get them in the same room, virtually. The final stage is a massive audience in one place but broadcasting everywhere so the whole world laughs together at the same time, to the same jokes, on the same planet. It has to be millions of people. I do have a long way to go,” he concedes. “I need to get famous. I won’t be satisfied until I achieve that. My whole life is a journey to that point. And I’ll get there.”

Nemr purposely puts himself in places he doesn’t know, trying out his material on new audiences. He goes to every stage he can, small and massive, known and unknown. He plays before crowds in Lebanon, Berlin, Winnipeg, and Pennsylvania, trying out his jokes to find the humor that is universal. He says it was fitting that he attended AUB because of the multicultural student body. “They were from all over the world, all classes and ethnicities. Going to AUB is basically going to the world. There you encounter all the challenges that the world presents, you see solutions and professors who were helpful and terrible. It’s a mix of everything. You can be best friends with people whose parents drive taxis and others whose parents are politicians. You could get a great education on YouTube, but you go to AUB so they can teach you how to be a better human being.”

Increasingly, Nemr’s global audience shows up to hear his trademark “No Politics, No Religion, One Love” message, and Nemr studies them as much as they watch him. “If someone loves your style as a comic,” he says, “what they love is your perspective, and they’re paying to hear you apply your perspective to something they haven’t heard yet. They’re there to find their truth and who they are. In that case the experience is only an hour, but the results can last a lifetime.”

You can check out Nemr’s touring schedule here.