Fireside Chat with YouTube and New Media Humorist Adam Chase on October 28th at 8 PM

Old Owls,
 
The Yale Record is hosting a fireside chat on New Media with Adam Chase O.O. ’19 at 8 PM on Thursday, October 28th. I was looking to find the most senior Record alum involved in this crazy new YouTube landscape. Then, I realized that no one over 30 is involved in the new media landscape.
 
In addition to the standard Yale Record fare of publishing in the New Yorker and other old-school publications, Adam runs a humorous YouTube site with almost 2 million subscribers and is writing audiobooks with James Patterson.
 
This new media landscape is very different from what I remember at Yale. In one recent note from Adam he said, “I’m writing you from LAX, where I am because I’m currently engaged in a pretty wild video project for work: my colleague Ben and I put together a list of the 34 weirdest laws in America, and we gave our boss $5,000 and 72 hours to break eight of them. But we’ve got a tracker on him, and we’ve got $3,000 to try to chase him down. Every time we tag him he loses a point. We managed to cut him off in LA; he’s in Vegas now and we’re at LAX plotting our next move.”
 
In short, there’s a whole new world of writing out there, and we’re excited to talk to Adam about it.

The "Welcome to Yale!" Party. (A New Yale Record Tradition)

In the fall of 2018, Adam Chase (our guest speaker on October 28th) was tasked with throwing a party to celebrate the First-Year Issue, and to welcome the new First-Years to Yale. But he was just one man, and we were just one magazine. How could we possibly manage to throw a party that could make all 1,100 or so First-Years feel welcomed to Yale? If we couldn't make all 1,100 First-Years feel welcome, why not make one First-Year feel extremely welcomed? And so, we did.
 
It was important that the First-Year not know about the party. We also needed to find that first-year who would lean into a surprise party thrown by a group of strangers. So we asked around: "Does anyone know any first-years who wouldn't be freaked out if we did this to them?" And the answer came back: Yes. And his name Zuri Goodman.
 
Zuri's Facebook page featured a cover photo of him in a tuxedo running away from an explosion and also there was a cat in it for some reason. So we felt like we had found our man. We made a Facebook event, and invited a bunch of people, but not Zuri. We wanted there to be a lot of RSVPs before someone inevitably showed it to Zuri so that he would be maximally surprised:

Then we created the ultimate Zuri-themed party. We created a Zuri-themed cocktail based on all the information we could find about him online: his tutoring business, his high-school track times, etc. We got posters printed of pictures from Zuri's Facebook wall. We pasted Zuri's face onto cardboard cutouts. We found YouTube music playlists Zuri had made, and used them for some of the evening's music. We had a slideshow running of Zuri pics. We had a really big sign that said "Welcome To Yale Zuri Goodman!" We had a bunch of signs with various puns, "Zuri Good Man, Charlie Brown" and so on.
 
A surprising number of people came... including the man of the hour, Zuri Goodman. And our hopes of truly welcoming one specific person to Yale were realized: Zuri was a god among men. A cause celebre. When he arrived there were cheers, a chant, and, after some prodding, a speech from the man himself. This tradition continued in the following years with the “Welcome Ben Chen!” party of 2019 and “Welcome to Yale Cami Donadio!” this year.

Thank you for your help and we look forward to hearing from you soon!
 
Best,
Rob Schlaff O.O. ‘99
Alumni Relations Chair
The Yale Record Corporation