Comedian Myq Kaplan kicked off Homecoming weekend Friday night, as he competed for laughs leaving many offended in the Hixson Union Building.
The Brooklyn native has appeared on “The Tonight Show with Conan O’ Brien”, “Last Comic Standing” as well as his own half-hour Comedy Central Presents special.
Kaplan has found success nation-wide, and with over 10,000 fans on Facebook, his act seemed promising to students but not all of those who attended left laughing.
ASWU brought Kaplan to perform his stand up comedy, but Kaplan’s controversial jokes alarmed many of his audience members.
Kaplan’s material poked fun at the innocent as he joked about different ethnicities, religions, sexual orientations and even beliefs.
Even Jesus was not off-limits from his poking-fun.
“Sure so was he nailed to a cross, or was it just that he was hammered? Did Moses part the red sea? Maybe he just had a powerful breast stroke in a low tide,” Kaplan joked, as the audience fell quiet.
Freshman Jordan McKenna attended the event in hopes of catching a few laughs but said Kaplan left the performance early saying Kaplan’s act was not what she had anticipated.
“The only thing that he said that was funny was when he said ‘I was six for about a year,’ that was the only part I laughed at,” McKenna said. “Not all his jokes were as tasteful as they could have been.”
Freshman Saryn Mooney was disappointed and surprised that ASWU would bring an act like Kaplan’s to a Christian campus, as the content made a mockery of different biblical references.
“I know his act is going to be the same wherever he goes, but just coming to a Christian university, some of the jokes he cracked weren’t as funny to us as say they would be at a public university,” Mooney said.
Although many students got up to leave mid-performance, Kaplan didn’t receive the hint to slow his controversial slams.
Audience member and freshman student, Kendra Stubbs was able to see both the good and bad in Kaplan’s act.
“I’ll admit I had a few laughs,” Stubbs said, “but I don’t think it was necessarily a good thing that school funds brought someone like him to perform on campus.”
Whether the audience members left shocked, offended or laughing, Kaplan was able to provide an act that will be remembered in either a negative or positive way.