Comedic congregation

If you felt like campus got funnier on the weekend of March 31 to April 1, you were right. That weekend — which, appropriately, included April Fool’s Day — saw Princeton Tiger Magazine’s second annual humor conference. Dubbed "National Intercollegiate Humor Conference Part II: National Intercollegiate Humor Conference Harder: The Wrath of Khan," the gathering brought together writers, artists and editors from humor magazines all over the country (well, all over this half of the country) for two nights and a day of semi-productivity and extreme hilarity.

On Friday night and early Saturday morning, delegates arrived from Penn, Yale, Cornell, UVA, UNC, Michigan, Swarthmore, DePaul and Tufts. Things got going that night as the representatives of the different magazines bonded in the only way Princetonians know how — by going to the Street.

“Last year, we pretty much just held writing activities for most of the day, and while people got some value out of them, there wasn't much in the way of interaction,” said Tim Matchen ’14, president of the Tiger. “So this year, we really redesigned the conference around the idea of meeting new people; everything we did, from the actual events to even how we scheduled things, was set up to encourage people to meet fellow humorists.”

Once everyone had found his or her way back from the eating clubs and gotten a few hours of sleep, the actual business of the humor conference began. First on the agenda was a warm-up exercise in McCosh 28 in which delegates got into randomly selected groups and came up with the top 10 funny headlines of the last year (one of the biggest laughs went to “America loses 3,000 white collar jobs and one black turtleneck job”).

From there, the day became an enjoyable blend of interesting dialogue between writers and hilarious comedic discourse. It was particularly fun to witness a conversation in one of the forums in which writers pondered what exactly it meant to “cross the line.” They never agreed on where the line was, but rest assured: It was crossed by almost everyone in the room during the forum.

A highlight of the conference for many was the appearance of internet comedy duo BriTANicK, who became famous for videos like “Trailer for Every Oscar-Winning Movie Ever” and “A Monologue for Thee” — if you haven’t seen those already, do yourself a favor and check them out, STAT. The two explained their rise to prominence in the comedy world in a funny and self-deprecating way, placing emphasis on the importance of hard work — something rarely stressed in the world of humor writing — and of retaining rights to what you create. Nick Kocher, one half of the duo, mentioned that the rights issue was something fellow internet comedy sensation Jake and Amir had overlooked and, as a result, their characters are now owned by a website. This point is especially important to BriTANicK, since, as Kocher said, “Our characters are just ourselves.”

Dire warnings about selling out aside, the audience enjoyed hearing two professional humorists doing what they do best. That night, they also got the opportunity to hear some amateur humorists. I realize that sounds potentially awful, but the conference’s stand-up comedy competition, "The Humor Games," was anything but.

Comedic styles varied greatly. Plenty of comedians went with the time-honored approach of the awkward, self-conscious kid making jokes at his own expense (see Burnham, Bo or Martin, Demetri), while others ... actually, pretty much all of them did that. Not everyone played it up for comedic effect, but you got the sense that almost everyone was a little apprehensive. And why wouldn’t they be? Even if you’re part of the 1 percent that doesn’t fear public speaking, trying to make a room full of humor writers from some of the best schools in the country (and Yale) laugh is a daunting task. Some were more successful than others, but nobody bombed — the performers and the audience had enough respect for each other to laugh it off when a joke just didn’t land.

Ben Schlanger of Michigan and DePaul’s Chris Ostendorf were both very well received, as were Princetonians Alex Judge ’14 and Kevin Shi ’15, whose set included a long-overdue tirade against grapefruit. When the delegates had all cast their ballots, it was a Tiger who took the first-place prize (which Jim Valcourt ’12, chairman of Tiger Magazine, assured everyone was absolutely nothing). Nonny Okwelogu ’15 was voted best comic after a set that seemed professional. Her timing was practiced and virtually perfect, her jokes were timely and just offensive enough and she even had her own catchphrase: “You’re doin’ too much.”

The conference ended, of course, with more partying, this time in the taproom of Colonial. Since the delegates departed on Sunday morning, Matchen says he has received positive feedback and that there will be a third humor conference next year.

“We have too much fun doing this for there not to be another one,” he said. God only knows what title they’ll come up with next time.