This past Wednesday, Hamilton students congregated in the Event’s Barn, or “giant birdhouse” as guest host Jourdain Fisher called it, for the final CAB comedy show of the academic year. As students filed in, the Barn quickly became a full house, while CAB leaders handed out concessions and raffle tickets. Jourdain Fisher, a comedian whose successful career has led to appearances on the

Tonight Show

and Comedy Central, took the stage, eliciting eruptions of laughter in his first few sentences. He spent an hour and a half sharing his own life experiences, poking fun at the audience, and sharing some of his most infamous skits.

When asked “Why comedy?” Fisher responded without hesitation, “Because I didn’t want to do Econ.” He then explained how his career emerged: “I started watching comedy when I was young, like nine years old, and then I just watched a lot of it. I thought it was something like cartoons and music videos that everyone just watched, and I was just a comedy nerd. Then I started being funny in school, and people were like, you should do stand-up comedy. And yeah, I tried at about age seventeen, and here we are, 15, 16 years later.”

Fisher shared his reaction to the jarring change of scenery. From the streets of Brooklyn to the pastoral farmlands of Clinton, NY, his drive through rural New York had him questioning why anyone would choose to go to college here. “Do you live on campus? What facilities do you have on campus? Dorms? Okay? I didn’t know if it was like stables or something,” joked Fisher. He did also admit that his experience in Brooklyn was not quite the hip scene he anticipated when he made the move from North Carolina. He explained his regret: “I live in Brooklyn because I made a mistake. I moved there and then I realized it’s just a bunch of white people playing Quidditch.”

Fisher went on to explain his experience during the pandemic living back in his

hometown of North Carolina and, just like everyone else, following viral online trends. He decided to poke fun at one in particular: “Free Britney Spears.” When remarking on Britney Griner, Fisher joked, “We needed the same energy for Black Britney as white Britney. You remember? We came together as a nation, documentaries and hashtags. During the height of the pandemic. We tried to free a white woman from her mansion in California. Free Britney! Where’s she gonna go? Her gazebo?”

In order to gauge who he was dealing with in the audience, Fisher asked a few students some questions. And, well, Hamilton’s popular and well-renowned Economics department received a lot of heat. Fischer asked students in the first row of the audience what their major was. When the overwhelming response was “Econ,” Fischer provided amusing commentary. He playfully teased, “When y’all graduate, you don’t get a cap and gown, you get khakis and a finance bro vest.”

Hamilton was lucky to host Fisher, and he even had to admit,“This is actually one of the better college shows. Sometimes its just like what the f**k am I doing with my life. It’ll be like five kids in a cafeteria munching on a Chick-Fil-A sandwich.” His career has taken him to be a staff writer for Jimmy Fallon, receive a highlight as one of 2018’s New Faces at Montreal’s Just For Laughs festival, and even write for Netflix. He can be found performing at the Comedy Cellar in New York City, and hopefully he will pay the Hill another visit.