Lucas Zelnick ’17, now a professional comedian, was rejected by campus improv group Combo Za — “rightfully so,” he said. “At the time, I did not deserve to be [in] anyone’s improv group,” he told the Record.

Zelnick is a New York City-based comedian whose punchy crowd work clips skyrocketed him into TikTok fame, amassing over 37 million likes. Yet excluding a failed Combo Za audition, he never did comedy during his time at the College. “I used college as an opportunity to narrow my horizons and focus on drinking and smoking weed,” he said. “I wasn’t super focused on my calling or the way I wanted to spend my life.”

He attributed his lack of involvement in comedy to a culture at the College of neglecting creative careers. “The routes of creative stuff were pervaded by jocks who I hung out with [who were] taking it as a gut class,” he said. “I didn’t feel like there was a great opportunity to take it seriously.”

That culture did, however, drive him to comedy after graduation. “Everyone around me seemed to be taking banking [and] consulting so seriously that it really helped push me away from that,” he said.

After graduating from the College as an economics and English major and attending Stanford for a master of business administration, Zelnick worked at Viacom — a media company — but he found that it still felt like the kind of day job he wanted to avoid, he said. After trying both improv and stand-up comedy, Zelnick discovered his passion for stand-up and decided to start Sesh Comedy, a comedy club in Lower Manhattan, with comedian Jamie Wolf in 2021 as a way to get stage time as a new comedian. He now performs new material weekly at the club.

Zelnick preferred stand-up comedy to improv, as he felt uncomfortable acting out a character in improv. Performing stand-up comedy, on the other hand, allowed Zelnick to feel like himself on stage.

“Some comics are like, ‘I want to be the best joke writer, the best performer, the best comedian,’” he said. “[My goal] has always been — at least in the first couple years of stand-up — to be the most myself, to feel free, and to be who I am at my best with the closest people in my life. If I could show that to strangers in a heightened and brief context, then I’d be succeeding.”

While Zelnick didn’t spend his time at the College developing his comedic skills, he did develop his personality — the core component of his comedy. “As I started to pursue comedy, I had a really clear picture of who I wanted to be on stage, and that person is really a reflection of who I was at Williams — someone who was carefree but intellectually stimulated and liked to make people laugh and be silly and adventurous,” he said.

“I made my best friends in the whole world there,” he added. “I got to really develop who I am around my best friends, which connected back into who I’ve always wanted to be on stage.”

Zelnick first gained recognition through TikTok clips of his crowd work, but he said that he is more interested in joking about serious topics during his stand-up shows — which can sometimes lead to a disconnect with the crowd. “Maybe some people [at the live show] are ones that just didn’t want me to talk about, like, being a Jew that’s pro-Palestine, for example, or my relationship to the R-word as the brother of a sibling with special needs,” he said.

Zelnick wants to make people think as much as they laugh. “If you want to go see someone be totally silly and not hear about real stuff, that’s a totally valid reason to go to a comedy show — just as much as going and hoping that someone will say something insightful that changes the way you look at the world [is],” he said. “I don’t think comedy is required to serve either purpose.”

“My interest is in performing at the top of my own intellect and not dumbing myself down,” he said. “As a Williams-Stanford shit, I want to sound like one.”

In addition to his shows at Sesh Comedy, Zelnick tours across the country. “I work when other people party,” he said. “I don’t really party at all, but if I were to party, I’d have to do it while other people aren’t because my nights off are Sunday nights.”

As he continues to tour and perform weekly, Zelnick is working on other projects, including pitching a television show and making his acting debut in two movies — playing “finance bros” in both, he said. “I left Williams, but what I took with me was the ability to play a guy who went there,” he joked.