Sarah Cooper


Sarah Anne Cooper is an American author and comedian based in New York City. Her first book, 100 Tricks to Appear Smart in Meetings, was published on October 4, 2016. Her second book, How to Be Successful Without Hurting Men's Feelings, was published on October 30, 2018. She has written for the animated TV series Science! During the COVID-19 pandemic, Cooper began uploading videos of herself lip syncing statements made by Donald Trump.

Early life and education

Cooper was born in Jamaica in 1977. Her family moved to Rockville, Maryland, in 1980. Her father worked as an electrical engineer for the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority in nearby Washington and her mother in the human resources department of a consulting company. Cooper was already interested in show business as a teenager and originally intended to study theater. However, following the wishes of her parents, she first pursued a degree outside the show business and earned degrees in Economics from the University of Maryland, College Park and in Digital Design from the Georgia Institute of Technology.

Career

Cooper began performing stand-up comedy in Atlanta, and later accepted an offer to work as a user experience designer for Google Docs, Sheets and Slides. While there, she continued to write and perform stand-up and met her now-husband, Jeff Palm, who was an engineer on Google Docs. In 2014, she wrote a blog post called "10 Tricks to Appear Smart in Meetings" that went viral with five million views. Later that year, she left Google to pursue writing and comedy full time.

Online videos

In spring 2020, Cooper began publishing a series of videos on Tik Tok in which she lip synced comments by Donald Trump on the topic of potential cures for the 2019 coronavirus. Cooper's first viral satire features her lip syncing of a minute of audio from the April 23 press briefing during which Trump suggested that inserting light into the body and injecting household cleaners would be an effective method for treating the coronavirus. She has subsequently produced several other similar videos and has posted them on other social media as well. The videos are popular and have gone viral. They are viewed as examples of how comedians can perform political satire without any audience, which was particularly germane due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns. The videos are also noted as being examples of extremely economical political satire, since Cooper's videos are structured around an unedited voice clip of a politician speaking.
Cooper appeared in , a fan film recreation of The Princess Bride, in the role of Inigo Montoya.

Works and publications