A Weekend at W&M, Starring Bo Burnham

During a typical weekend at W&M, there are are definitely things to do on campus. Scratch that, there are too many things to do on campus…

Many campus activities are scheduled by our campus activities planning board named AMP (short for Alma Mater Productions). On any given weekend there can be movie screenings (this weekend is The Proposal and Year One), a guest speaker (last year AMP brought alumni Bill Lawrence, the creator of the show “Scrubs,” back to campus), a magician, a hypnotist, or (the highlight of my past weekend) A COMEDIAN.

For those of you who have never heard of Bo Burnham, I have one compound word for you: YouTube. A 19-year-old comedian and songwriter, Bo Burnham made his name through his YouTube videos which collectively boast 5 million plus views. He prides himself on being a lyricist and playing with words which, as a fan, I’ll tell you he does very well. I will warn, his songs can be a bit offensive but, as I said before, I’m a fan nonetheless.

So, some genius in AMP (I’m still trying to figure out exactly who because I need to give them a hug) decided to bring Bo Burnham to campus… and they did! A funny tidbit: he didn’t bring his guitar so told AMP he was going to need to borrow one from someone on campus. That someone was one of my best friends. Cool, huh?

The show started at 9, doors opened at 8. We were sitting outside at 6:30 (we even beat the AMP members there). Needless to say, we REALLY wanted front-row seats. And we got them. Unfortunately, the first part of the show coincided with the last quarter of W&M’s season-opening football game against UVA (WHICH WE WON, by the way) so everyone kind of had that in the back of their heads for the first ten minutes of the show. Luckily, Bo was aware of this and used the opportunity to poke fun at the football-obsessed members of the audience.

The show was absolutely fantastic. I laughed, sang along, and even had a mini-conversation with Bo when he asked for the names of the College’s proposed mascots just so he could bash them. After the show, AMP had arranged for Bo to stay afterwards, sign autographs, take pictures, and just chat with his fans (the numbers of which had definitely augmented during the course of the show). I got two posters signed, one for myself and one that I’m going to send to my little sister.

I’m so glad AMP brought Bo Burnham to campus. Not only was it the highlight of my weekend, it really shows how the campus, even though we may be a bit small, still gets some really great performers (we got the Ting Tings for homecoming last year before they hit it really big). Leave it to AMP, there’s always something to do on any given weekend. And maybe next year, your favorite comedian will be standing 3 feet away from you.

Also, in case you cared, Bo Burnham can solve a rubix cube in a minute and 20 seconds.

-Tara Safaie, Class of 2012