Politics, protest and the injustice of the textbook sale industry — these topics, familiar to many at Stanford, were key ideas comedian Roy Wood Jr. riffed about in Memorial Auditorium on Thursday.
Wood’s comedy highlighted not only his funny bone, but also his ability to make everyone in the audience feel like his best friend. Opening and closing his show with crowd work, the host of CNN’s “Have I Got News For You” bonded with an audience member over catching her boyfriend cheating on Facebook — or, for him, being the one caught cheating, on AOL Instant Messenger.
Wood’s joke about AOL wasn’t the only one that aged him on stage. But he maintained relevance to his college student audience by highlighting the twisted nature of the textbook sale industry. Specifically, Wood jeered about a process called “Book-buyback.” The program allows students to sell used textbooks to their school bookstore or a (sketchy) online company — for around one-tenth of the original price.
“I know a scam when I see one,” Wood said, as he questioned why math books need new editions every year. “How much new calculus came out in the past few months?”
All of Wood’s points were poignant: who on campus (other than maybe freshmen) hasn’t witnessed protests over the past year? Which of us is truly not concerned with upcoming elections?
But instead of feeding worry, Wood created hope. No, he did not have all the answers. He also didn’t try to convince students to study hard and find the answers to global issues one day. Instead, the comedian inspired hope by reminding the audience that if we actually speak and listen to people around us, situations might turn out quite differently — be they political or personal.
It wasn’t just Wood’s nonchalance or funniness that made his show an undeniable success (at least as measured in laughs). Wood broke through the Stanford bubble. He highlighted the undeniable importance of human connection in a time when we seem the most stratified we’ve ever been: two-thirds of the United States does not have a college degree, and politicians frequently sound unapproachable when discussing policy.
“If I don’t understand it, I’m going to vote no — just to play it safe,” Wood said.
Though the joke was delivered with the confidence of a Stanford professor, what differentiated Wood from many speakers on campus is the lack of lofty expectations for students in his audience. During his hour-long set, not once did Wood allude to the fact that Stanford is one of the best universities in the world, or that the next Bill Gates might be among us.
Instead, his focus was on the human. He zoomed in on interactions between customers and fast food workers or cashiers, and how they connect on a deeper level than realized. These human connections would get lost with the rise of self-service kiosks, according to Wood’s “thesis.”
“Part of the job of a cashier is making me feel seen,” Wood half-joked. Whether it be connecting over a favorite flavor of chips or simply asking what else a customer has planned later, having physical cashiers made human connection a part of daily life.
Wood, for all his talk of self-service kiosks ending human connection, spent an evening building connections between audience members. Nothing brings people together quite like laughter, and there was plenty of it in the auditorium on Thursday night.
Wood was the first of five comedians being brought to campus by Stanford Live as part of their new series, “Comedy Live.” If the other comedians slated to perform are as vulnerably honest and hilarious as Wood, then I’ll be at the next four shows in a heartbeat.
Editor’s Note: This article is a review and includes subjective thoughts, opinions and critiques.