Bash Compactor: Art Jokes

  The National Arts Club, founded in 1898, is that room in your grandmother’s house you were never allowed to go into: Venetian glass ceilings, stained glass windows, old people wandering around aimlessly. College Humor, founded in 1999 in a college dormitory, is that room you are sure to regret going in to. And Wednesday night, the former bestowed upon the latter—more specifically founders Ricky van Veen and Josh Abramson—the first ever Citation of Merit for the Art of Comedy. Hijinks were sure to ensue. With its strict no-denim dress code, the NAC would seem like the last institution to host, let alone honor, College Humor.This is a site, after all, whose homepage currently features a video entitled “Internet Bridge Troll.” That being said, the crowd looked downright dapper. Skinny suits, polished loafers, freshly pressed shirts and only one plaid flannel in sight. Bucking this trend, of course, was one of College Humor’s original partners, party pariah Jake (he has apparently retired Jakob) Lodwick, attired in a black T-shirt and one of Rihanna’s former haircuts, but that’s to be expected.

With time to spare before the evening’s presentation, I decided to chat with some of the Humorers in attendance, mostly with the goal of running into Anna Wintour’s daughter and recent Humor hire Bee Shaffer, who has served as honoree van Veen’s go-to gal since last year, but she appeared to be a no show. I (fantastically) assumed she was at The Boom Boom Room hanging with the models, actors and Courtney Loves of the world and attempted to ease my pain by playing a game of “Which server will knock over a porcelain priceless?” with myself. Much respect must be given to the staff as remarkably, even more so given the increasingly crowded room, none did.

The club’s president Aldon James, who started the whole sunglasses indoors trend, soon took to the podium in his rose-colored sunnies. His tribute to honorees van Veen and Abramson was both eloquent and concise, displaying the aim of the Arts Club to truly welcome a new group of young artists and creators into their fold.As he told the crowd,“Everyone can laugh but not everyone can be a creator of humor.” This moment was of course quickly ruined when every former frat boy in the room began to chant “SPEECH” as van Veen accepted his award. Are we really still doing this?

Van Veen’s remarks paid tribute to his site’s employees in the audience and their close bond. “On the weekends we hang out with our coworkers—and not because we’re losers,” he proclaimed. He then asked the room to raise their glasses and toast: “To getting paid to make people laugh and working with people we love.” Abramson followed, lacking his cofounder’s prepared remarks, and addressed a question one of his friends asked back in 1999 as to whether or not he would still be running a site entitled College Humor outside of college. His response: “I’m not gonna run a college humor site when I’m 28.”