On Thursday night, laughter roared from The M-Shop.

Moses Storm immediately captivated the audience. His first joke was about The M-Shop.

“It’s so nice to be here at Iowa State’s weirdly hip church,” Storm said. “It looks like there should be a slightly out-of-touch preacher would be saying ‘Let Jesus kickflip into your heart.’”

He covered a range of topics during his stand-up. From his first time buying drugs from a man who lived in a boat parked in the middle of a cul-de-sac, to the idea that gender neutral bathrooms have not been created yet because men do not want to give up the perpetually short lines for the men’s bathroom.

Through the laughs, Storm brought up some good points. At one point he talked about how the term white trash is implicitly offensive but no one ever realizes it.

“Being white is such an elite thing, that if you’re not acting ‘white’, then you’re considered white trash,” Storm said.

Before Storm came out on stage, Brandon Thomas softened up the crowd. Thomas, freshman in pre-graphic design, is straight from Indianapolis. His natural storytelling ability and whimsical personality made it hard to believe he didn’t have years of stand-up already under his belt. Thomas said he likes comedy because it gives you a different perspective on life.

“Looking at life as a normal person is like looking at a Subway sandwich after it was made,” said Thomas. “Looking at life as a comedian, is like taking the sandwich and spreading all the ingredients out on the table in front of you.”

When asked how he got started with comedy Thomas said, “It all started with Dane Cook on Pandora, since then I would listen to so much stand-up from different comedians, I would fall asleep to the comedy radio on Pandora.”  

During Storm’s stand-up, the young comedian addressed some real-world problems through the lens of a comedian. Regardless of the thunderous laughter he got, when asked about these same topics after the stand-up he said, “It’s issues like these that need to be addressed. We can’t just keep ignoring these things when people are getting marginalized.”

Storm was born in Michigan but didn’t grow up there. In his stand up he mentioned how he had been living in the state for 12 years, traveling around the United States going from coast to coast. His family was a strict catholic family but that didn’t seem to fit his persona. After he finished high school he went to a community college for video production. After one semester there he decided he did not have what it takes to be behind the camera. Instead he found his calling to be in front of the camera, choosing to leave for Los Angeles to pursue his dreams of performing.

“My first couple months in Los Angeles were very scary,” Storm recalled, “My first job there was a busboy at an after hours club – a club that stays open well past the normal 2 a.m. bar close -.” He explained his responsibilities were nothing close to just cleaning tables and washing dishes. “Since the club was after hours it could not serve alcohol, so people brought their own forms of intoxication…basically I had to clean up a wide variety of vomit every single night.” 

Storm first got started with comedy when a few of his friends convinced him to join them in going to improv class.

“Improv was a lot easier because if you mess up on stage, there is at least one other person up there with you,” said Storm. After that, his spark to perform in front of an audience grew.

Currently Storm is touring the midwest doing stand-up at a variety of venues and colleges. “Colleges are my favorite place to perform,” said Storm. “A lot of older comedians don’t like to perform at places like this because of the amount of polarizing topics that exist. For me it is the opposite, I like to perform here so I can bring up things that we need to be talking about now, such as gender neutral bathrooms, implicitly offensive insults, and so on.”

Although Storm likes to perform at all colleges, he did have a preference between Iowa State and the University of Iowa.

“I like Iowa State better because the University of Iowa is just odd,” said Storm. “They have mopeds for student athletes which is just very odd.”