Getting to know Izzy

1) Introduce yourself. Tell us a bit about who you are.

I was born in Morgantown, and have lived in New Martinsville, Bridgeport, and I now live here in an apartment in Shepherdstown with my fiancée and our cat, Godfrey (pictured below). I chose to go to SU (which is 3 hours from my family in Bridgeport) because of the intimate size and heavy focus on the arts, as I am an English: CW major and Art minor hoping to become a secondary school teacher. I enjoy both reading and writing poetry, and I am very much interested in true crime, psychology, mythology, astrology, and the occasional conspiracy theory.

2) Why are you taking this class? What do you hope to learn or gain from it?

My motivation for taking this class is partially selfish, as I am very fond of stand-up comedy and all different kinds of humor. Also, I have had Dr. Hanrahan for class before and I know I enjoyed the setup of the course. However, I am interested to see how this class will relate gender or other characteristics of a person to their style of comedy or what they may find entertaining. I hope to gain insight into people in this class and eliminate some generalizations I may subconsciously retain about humor. I am also very excited to have some open conversations about some of my favorite comedians with others who share an interest in comedy, and maybe even find a new favorite comedian.

3) What makes you laugh? Who are some of your favorite funny people and why?

I laugh at a lot of things, a lot of the time. I laugh at my cat, as well as many of my friends, as I tend to surround myself with funny people; I watch Netflix specials and YouTube videos that I find funny, as well as (way too much) of the TV show Whose Line Is It Anyway?. Each of these have different genres/styles of humor, though physical humor is one of my favorites because of how extreme and outrageous it can be.

As for famous funny people, I enjoy Jenna Marbles, Chris Delia, Iliza Schlesinger, Drew Lynch, John Mulaney…the list really could go on for pages. Though I like a lot of different comedians, I tend to especially enjoy the queer, feminist ones.

As for people I know, nobody makes me laugh more than my fiancée. However, my best friend Megan and my younger brother are both masters of physical comedy. I’ll include some pictures of them, as well as Godfrey, below.

This is Godfrey, he will be 2 years old in July!

This is Karson, my fiancée.

This is Megan, who goes to WVU for Digital Art.

This is my brother, I couldn't find any good pictures of him so here is one with my family dog, Riley.