Feature by Aditi Kapoor
Photos by Jane Mok
Sometimes electric blue hair balayaged with blonde highlights, a byproduct of a past that needs no recounting, is not about philosophical substance––it’s simply silly. Not to mention it looks cute. So believes Venice Ohleyer: part time student, full time comedian. A gift to Columbia from a substandard college we don’t speak of [Dartmouth], Venice has made several headlines in her time here. This includes being featured by the capital-O-fficial Instagram of Columbia University in the City of New York (or as Venice calls it, the greatest college in the greatest university in the greatest city in the world). In that light, one can often refer to her as an inhouse celebrity.
I met Venice in an off-campus cafe on 103rd street, purposely distanced from the maddening crowd that occupies the halls of Butler. Spotting her from afar in her fluorescent jacket, I couldn’t help but concur that she has the most colorful aura. Completed by her eclectic selection of eyeshadows, and even more eclectic comedy sketches, one can usually find her florally dressed, or in a fashion she describes as “space alien-y,” in John Jay, sipping on her new favorite obsession: broccoli cheddar soup—newly distinguished by her as a culinary phenomenon, and not just another soup.
Engendering phenomenons is part and parcel of being a creative writing major. For Venice, writing doesn’t always have to be scholarly; it could also be fun! When asked why she chose to pursue comedy––of all things––Venice claimed her love for the art form simmered intrinsically and was propounded at LaGuardia, local-celebrity-churning-haven, where the value of performing arts was never questioned. She recalled the head of the department, “a somewhat devil figure, synonymous to Terence Fletcher from Whiplash, saying: ‘people who are always observing, end up being writers.’” Yet, Venice “didn’t want to be a writer,” she explains, “I wanted to perform!” Today, she’s found a way to do both.
Comedians have an edge over their audience and perhaps it’s because comedians “are people who notice things that other people don't notice.” More than doing things for shits and gigs, there’s an innate psychological analysis behind the art of stand-up comedy, which Venice argues, is in fact art. Stringing together a hilarious narrative doesn't begin to cover stand up, there is a lot more that one’s personality needs to bring to the table, including an overarching sense of self awareness, which Venice believes is of imminent importance, almost to a crippling degree.
All the prerequisites that come before being a successful performing artist, however, do not restrict one from performing in multitudinous ways. Venice is the epitome of a multimedia artist. Not only has her work been published in longform in Columbia Spectator, it has also found its way to Twitter’s banned accounts list. The infamous story of Joe Biden’s parody account both precedes and haunts Venice’s being in equal measure. “Someone’s gotta do it, you know,” she said about impersonating Joe Biden, “it was to underline the almost blase, blanket-like statements from the people in power that made me think, what the hell are we doing?” The tweets were her attempt to acknowledge the hypocrisy of performance activism on the internet. One would be hard pressed not to mention that Venice’s tweets, eerily, did indeed resemble real tweets from the actual President of the United States.
Fuelled by the uneasiness brought along by American statesmanship, Venice also curated CDC’s guidelines for fully vaccinated people, which hysterically laid down a listicle of things one could partake in, once fully vaccinated. Her list, in true comedic fashion, proved to be more conscious of the pandemic than CDC’s, which can be deemed as yet another play at governing institutions that often flounder in the face of crisis.
CDC Guidelines by Venice
Some comedians hesitate intermingling politics with comedy, but Venice’s work makes one ponder the discrepancies and shortcomings within our systems. It’s a way to perhaps wield comedy as a tool to overturn the dynamic between the masses and the government. Although, this dynamic is often challenged by diplomacy, hence, the sad demise of Venice’s eight-year-old twitter account, now resting in remembrance. The Twitter debacle, however, didn’t deter her quips. As of August 2021, to bite all impersonator-claimers, Venice’s alter ego has resurfaced on the internet as her unflinchingly true self— @venicesvagina.
Comedy is certainly not black and white, if anything, for Venice, it's an expansive palette that allows her to express herself in prolific ways. “It's like when something crazy happens to you, there's potentially a way to turn it into something better or something fun, like ‘oh, I just noticed this person do this batshit crazy thing’ and maybe I can make a sketch out of it.” The best skits, she agrees, are grounded in reality. They are an extension of one’s experience in the world. In the same vein as being a creative writing major, Venice looks at curating stories based on the subjects she encounters, or the instances that befall her: “that's why people respond to comedy, because they're like, oh, yeah, the same thing happened to me, I recognize that behavior.” On a certain plane, comedy arouses a shared human connection by demystifying life experiences and celebrating commonality.
One of the many reasons for her deep rooted commitment to comedy is its unpredictability. What one may find funny can often land abysmally in front of an audience. Ergo, one can’t only be a master of words— they also have to be a master of people. Venice is on a journey to be just that; figuring out trends while being comfortably distanced from the world of TikTok, she wants to be real, with the people, for the people. Her online performances, that mostly avail the hands-free video feature of the Instagram app, are working to unite the masses, even if it may be in the name of broccoli cheddar soup. Secretly embodying her suppressed main character syndrome, she’s patiently awaiting the day Columbia Dining finally notices her.
Short by Venice
Venice’s work can be found on https://www.veniceohleyer.com/, and her favorite medium of distribution, Instagram, at @effervenice. Her twitter fame is amassed on @veniceohleyer1 and @venicesvagina. She can also be found performing with Columbia's oldest improv group, Fruit Paunch.