🟡 006 | The opposite of a refrigerator

Today, a revelation about puns, and the anatomy of a 3-part hook.

It's CreatorBoost, the newsletter that teaches you systems to for high-performance writing and smart audience growth.

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🔸 The opposite of a refrigerator

I’m dodging debris as I drive up a muddy mountain road. It’s the day after fall’s first big rainstorm.

Up ahead, a van is parked on a curve, blocking one lane on a blind turn. I let off the gas and get ready to take the narrow space slowly.

The van is part of a home repair service. It’s a white, nondescript kind, with sides covered in letter decals that list appliances they work on: ovens, washing machines, heaters, and refrigerators.

My inner voice chimes in.

“Did you know the opposite of a refrigerator…is an enfuegourator?”

I enjoy this one. It’s quite good.

I’ll spend the next five turns thinking more about my pun than the blind turns, the slick mud on the road, or the 200-foot drop off the open cliff to my left.

Enfuegourator, with its handsome word construction: a two-letter prefix just like refrigerator, and the fridge-to-fire connection in the middle.

And a white guy using the word fuego is so groan-worthy.

It’s a masterpiece of a pun.

A complete disaster.

—Owning an enfuegourator would be far far better than having a basic old “oven” as far as I’m concerned.

Enfuegourators would be big. Impressive. I picture a set of matching refrigerators and enfuegourators for sale. Similar in size and shape. One cools. One heats. Sold as a set, each with an absurdly giant bow wrapped around it to keep the door from opening accidentally during transport.

And this — THIS — is my mind, all day long.

At any moment, a new association or pun might not just appear, but dive down a rabbit hole of exploration. Sometimes I share part of what I’m thinking, but it would be exhausting to keep anyone abreast with the whole inner narrative of rhymes, puns, and dad jokes galore.

So I keep driving, filled with a certain loneliness about a joy that’s just for me, wondering what makes a person randomly come up with puns and jokes, day after day, and just because.

Why is my subconscious so obsessed?

***

When I was kid, we’d often have dinner as a family, and oftentimes, my dad would tell one joke. Just one. A sort of Joke of the Day.

“Do you know how to catch a polar bear?” dad asked one day. I was 12 years old. “Well, you see, you gotta carve a big hole in the ice. And then you get some peas, and you put them all around the hole as bait.”

This sure sounded like an odd food to lure a polar bear with, but I was totally on board.

“When the polar bear comes to take a pea, you kick him in the ice-hole!”

“Michael!” my mom protested. We weren’t even allowed to say, “this sucks,” growing up. She almost never referred to him by his actual first name, and ice-hole humor apparently was the line.

Me, I wasn’t offended by the language. I thought it was hilarious. I mean, I was 12. There is maybe no better age to joke about butts.

Dad passed away from cancer before I turned 16. But sometimes I wonder now if my quest for puns is a way of carrying his memory with me always.

***

I’m on the narrowest part of the mountain road now. The part where if another car comes the opposite way, one of us has to back up without accidentally backing off the cliff.

That’s when it hits me.

To write a joke, you set up a pattern, and then reveal how a twist leads to an amusing outcome.

Puns and jokes require pattern-matching and pattern-breaking.

The love of puns, wit, and sarcasm that my dad instilled in me taught me to cultivate this habit, but not just in humor, but for everything.

This is the same superpower that allows me to see copywriting formulas, troubleshoot complex systems, trade invisible movements in the stock market, and make connections between ideas that others never see.

Pattern matching.

If you too have a mind that seeks something out despite all that is going on around you, contemplate on it. You may also find a superpower hiding inside.

***

🔸 The patterns of a 3-part tweet or LinkedIn hook

--> 1. Begin with an attention-grabbing statement.

There are tons of ways to grab attention, but it’s not exactly easy to get and hold it. (Especially on a dopamine slot machine like a social platform.)

The key is that this is different from, say, a thesis statement, or an introduction.

You can grab attention with:

• A big number

• A public figure’s name

• The beginning of a story

• Highlighting a challenging situation

• A relatable observation that applies to most people

And countless other ways as well.

I dug around for a few minutes and here are some examples of provocative first lines I found:

“I was responsible for driving business for a $50M healthcare management and consulting company.” —@DougKennedy93

“Dodging black mambas, disease outbreaks, & working in remote war zones was hard” — @worth_parker

“I posted 12 threads in October, got 3.6M impressions & 4.2k followers.” —@InspiringSia

“The creator economy will never get saturated.” — @_SyedHuq

“The worst coaches:

• Get lost in "solving problems"

• Hyper-fixate on advice

• Panic coach"

— @hayden_flohr

Each of these highlights something so interesting, you move on to reading the second line(s).

--> 2. Next, the middle.

The middle of a hook is the most variable. I’ll share examples from the same tweets as above.

Common middles include these 3 options:

1) Twist the knife

If you introduced a pain or challenge, agitate it further using language real people use to talk about why it’s painful.

“I felt insecure, lost, & didn't know what to do.”

2) Benefits

Reverse the situation and talk about the benefits of following the right frameworks or advice.

What’s the reader’s life like without this challenge. (And what will this thread therefore do for the reader?)

“Avoid these 13 MISTAKES I made en route to my first $100k coaching:”

3) Credibility

Share your own victory over a problem, and set yourself up as an expert to help others solve it. Use data if you can.

“I sent 1000s of cold DMs to build partnerships.”

This leads us to the end line of the hook.

--> 3. CTA + Valuable benefit

Here’s where a lot of people drop the ball.

The end of a 3-part hook BEGINS with a call to action to keep reading (“7 ways to crush your 2023 goals”), like to expand the Twitter thread, but that’s not the most important part.

You want to tease of what’s inside AND add a sweetener for extra sizzle and urgency. Assert the value of your post. You have to sell the value of opening.Examples:

“Here's the playbook to help entrepreneurs adapt to any situation & win:”

“Avoid these 13 MISTAKES…(3 years and $30k worth of experience inside)”

See how each tells you what you get AND what it does for you?

That’s often the difference between so-so and must-read content.

Just a few words.

Always remember, you’re competing for attention and asking for someone’s time. If you want that attention, you need to offer evidence that their time is worth the investment.

That's all for now.

Catch up with you again soon.

—Rob Lennon (@thatroblennon)

--> Whenever you're ready, 3 ways I can help:

CreatorBoost - Find my tweet inspiration database and Twitter guides on creatorboost.xyz.

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• Join me for AMA-style Q&As

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Members will also meet with me once a month 1:1 to discuss strategy and we'll work together in sprints to achieve your audience building and monetization goals.

If you’re curious about being one of the 10, grab a 30-minute no-pressure call with me to chat about your goals, or reply to this email with questions.