Search ‘March of Shame’ on CollegeHumor.com and unveil a ‘March of the Penguins’ parody written by Syracuse University alumnus Dan Gurewitch. The video narrates college girls shamefully marching home instead of penguins migrating across Antarctica. 

‘It’s obviously a silly joke,’ said Gurewitch, a senior writer at CollegeHumor and the creator behind the parody, ‘but if you go to SU long enough, you see many girls walking back to their own rooms in 8-degree weather and in high heels and costumes.’

Gurewitch is one of two SU graduates working at the popular comedy Web site, which features humorous videos, pictures and links. He and fellow SU graduate David Young, who is in charge of advertising sales writing, write numerous scripts for the Web site.

The two alumni discovered a shared passion for comedy during their time at SU, and each said they became involved with as many comedic groups on campus as possible.

Young and Gurewitch, both television, radio and film majors in the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications, performed stand-up comedy together, directed the SU improvised comedy group Zamboni Revolution, wrote scripts and directed films together. Five years later, the two now get paid to sit at desks 5 feet apart and make each other laugh all day.
 
CollegeHumor.com began about 10 years ago, when the two creators, Ricky Van Veen and Josh Abramson, were college students. The two friends went to different schools, so they built a Web site to share links to humorous pictures and online content with one another. As the site gained momentum, they started to occasionally write humorous articles while receiving submissions from other college students.

The site stayed this way for roughly five years, and when Van Veen and Abramson graduated, they moved their business to an old, converted apartment.

Gurewitch was hired as the front desk administrative assistant around four years ago, when CollegeHumor was beginning its transition to include videos. Gurewitch said his bosses were impressed with his dedication and talent in writing 70 articles during his first year at the job, and Gurewitch was soon given the opportunity to help develop video content.

‘Viral, original content wasn’t really a thing four years ago,’ Gurewitch said. ‘We were really on the very edge of the beginning of making Internet videos that felt like short films instead of filming sketches that could also work on stage.’

Gurewitch said some of the first videos he wrote were largely inspired by his own college experiences. He wrote a series of point-of-view videos: bringing a man’s brain to life while sitting in class, failing a test and walking through a dormitory bathroom.

‘We are really, really proud,’ Gurewitch said. ‘Because the majority of CollegeHumor traffic used to come from pictures of boobs and kegs, but now the vast majority is from people liking the original comedy we make.’

Last summer, two SU students who interned at CollegeHumor were able to further the site’s orange influence. Alex Schmidt, a senior television, radio and film and history major, said he loved his time there. Schmidt, the current president of Zamboni Revolution, said he definitely felt a connection to Gurewitch.

‘I thought it was really cool that we had so many shared experiences and then got to work in the same place,’ Schmidt said.

Just a few years ago, Gurewitch and Young were sitting in SU desks, learning from SU professors while sharing their talent without pay. Now they work for the No. 1 comedy Web site on the Internet.

‘There are so many opportunities at SU,’ Young said. ‘Comedy is about finding your own voice — what you find funny and true — and for four years Gurewitch and I were able to work out our material and find our voice as opposed to waiting until college was over.’

tpollack@syr.edu

Published on March 31, 2010 at 12:00 pm