Sweaty and gross, as Columbia seems to love it

Per Bwog tradition, we sent two fresh-faced first-years to review Orgo Night. Sanam Jalinous and Asya Sagnak did not hold back, even surprising some other Bwog staffers. Is this Bwog’s next big scandal? CUMB probably hopes so.

Bwog isn’t new to taking jabs. Better yet – Bwog isn’t new to taking jabs, especially from our friends over at CUMB. So, like most students avoiding their exam revision by wandering into Butler 209 at 11:30pm, we decided to brace ourselves for the worst. Twitter open and thumbs warmed-up, we were ready to catch every big bombshell of a joke.

Interestingly, our thumbs weren’t even so much as tired by the time this semester’s Orgo Night reached its 12:40 end. Although the audience was anticipatory and excited as the MC’s yelled out the classic opening lines (we’re sure many lonely CC men spend their days looking forward to the one day a semester where they can shout out “Barnard students, put your vibrators on phone!” as loud as they want), many of the night’s jokes were met with small bursts of quiet, awkward laughter.

That’s not to say CUMB didn’t provide good content. The band managed to cover all major scandals, starting with Tampongate – or, as they called it, Menstrual Bloodgazi. The problem, they explained, was that CCSC President Ben “Ma-can’t-see-what-pads-are-for” and ESC President Caroline “Didn’t Bother To Explain” Park provided an opportunity for Facebook commenters waiting to jump on a new scandal and pissed off cisgender men who couldn’t comprehend “a discussion that didn’t explicitly require their opinion”.

Columbia Divest For Climate Justice also saw little to no mercy, being introduced as the “long-standing tradition of a Days On Campus protest.” This section featured one of the most popular jokes of the evening: “while you fossil fuel enablers spent your week ditching class, watching Netflix, and bitching about the administration, CDCG heroically fought the system by storming Low…. ditching class, watching Netflix, and bitching about the administration.” In a small quip we personally enjoyed, CUMB jabbed Spec, which, thanks to the protest, “took a break from beating the dead horse of… whatever the heck they write about.”

Next up was the segment on sororities (we all knew it was coming), where jabs were thrown at Kappa Alpha Theta – “Kanta Aholda Theirliquor” –and Bwog for the article depicting a screenshot from a sister’s Snapchat revealing alcohol in the brownstone. The genuinity of sorority sisterhood was questioned, comparing the New York Times article commending them for their feminism to “Jay-Z getting a husband-of-the-year award”. Ouch! This came with a lovely side-note on Delta Sig, accurately noting that their excessive bragging and masculine overcompensation very easily translates as “I’m totally not into socratic gayboy love.” CUMB also mentioned Bwog’s previous EIC, Mason Amelotte, and his resignation at the hands of the un-censored Theta article. We appreciated our shoutout as “Columbia’s premiere source for Facebook reposts.” Well played, CUMB.

The band then shifted their focus to Reclining Figure (RF) – the “art” that’s about to bless the small patch of green in front Butler Library. Their opening comments about the much-talked, much-hated statue were refreshingly accurate: “Fuck all of you for making this a big enough deal that we actually had to write about it.” This introduction was probably what resonated most with the evening’s crowd, clearly tired of seeing the same two opposing opinions stated over and over again in op-ed form. Both students and the administration were addressed as the MC’s roasted students who are “too afraid of any minor change in their life” and administrators who thought it would be a good idea to put a female figure in front of a building “with less diversity than a Harvard social club”. We’re always up for shade on the big Crimson, but we’re not exactly sure how this line of logic follows – wouldn’t the Reclining Figure’s femininity help diversify the building? The better joke in this section was that RF, just like Columbia students, is about to “get fucked by the administration.”

Finally, the band addressed Barnard as a whole. They started by bashing the Facebook group “Overheard at Barnard,” which got Columbia’s attention with the ironically not overheard picture of the Barnard student who slept with half of the Bacchanal headliner, Rae Sremmurd. As the audience howled in laughter, the band targeted Barnard’s new access to JJ’s place and claimed that that was the reason Malia picked Harvard was because of her mother’s “war on fat kids” and lack of Barnard administrative prowess – “Obamacare, but Barnard no care.” Love for Malia in the upcoming first-year class was also addressed, as CUMB mentioned the Barnard 2020 Facebook group’s disappointment at not being able to “hold Malia’s hair back the first time she has to puke in a Sulz toilet.”

Comedy-wise, the night featured many relevant high-points. The MC’s were skillful in their delivery, and diligent in the face of adversary – one man started playing loud music and shouting in the very beginning, and the presenters kept on speaking over him and shut him down by asking him to step down because “anything (they’ll) say will be infinitely better”. This being said, many of the smaller jokes at Orgo Night did fall flat, excelling more in delivery than content and relying much too heavily on toilet humor. Unfortunately, like the Varsity Show it criticized, Orgo Night strove to cover so much content that (due to the lack of cohesive transitions) that most of their jokes felt like random punchlines delivered at the end of each paragraph of script.

All in all, this Orgo Night did a very good job at one thing: providing campus satire while trying to stay out of the bounds of offense. While some people are always going to find Orgo Night insulting due to its nature and history, we can’t remember many moments where a harsh or unnecessary jab was made just for the sake of shock value laughter. All comments, no matter how valid, had some sort of political drive – the biggest victim of the night was the administration, which probably deserves all the criticism it gets. Clearly, this is a purposeful shift from the band. With a very large audience and hard-working minds behind the scenes, Orgo Night actually has an opportunity to hold the administration (and students) to a better standard. Although it’s only been one show, we hope this marks a shift in CUMB’s mindset of seeing the night more as a platform for relatable Columbia socio-political satire than just an opportunity to attack people by yelling into a microphone.