ISU AfterDark is always a success and a great time for students. With free crafts to make, activities to partake in, and food to eat how could it not be?

This AfterDark was one of the best. In addition to a fun craft and tater tot bar, the night featured performances from Reza the Illusionist and BuzzFeed’s Matt Bellassai, known most prominently for his weekly video series called “Whine About It.” 

Reza entertained the crowd with an hour of awe-inspiring feats, with almost most all of the acts including audience participation. He did tricks that involved classics like making someone disappear and guessing the card someone chose. 

However Reza also did some things that no one expected. He chose a member from the audience and pulled her onstage to create a painting by a series of her own choices. However, when she was done, he uncovered a painting he did earlier and it was identical. 

Reza also brought a skeptic named Derek on stage to try out a voodoo doll. He poked the doll on the back and touched its arm with a feather and Derek felt both. The really crazy part was when Reza burned the dolls hand and Derek felt just a small amount of warmth. When he opened his hand, there was a black, circular burn mark on it. 

Reza performed a trick that is often requested. Placing a broken bottle under one of four paper bags, he brought another audience member up to slam their hands down on each bag. Reza did the first one and then said the girl he invited up was going to do the others, but then assured everyone that he would never do that. He had her blindfold him and choose which bag he would try next. With every suspense-filled swing of his arm, the audience let out a huge gasp and then a collective sigh of relief. 

At the beginning of the show, Reza picked one audience member to keep an eye on a box on the side of the stage. Inside that box were predictions about some people he would meet and some things he would learn about them.

At the end of the show, he opened the box and all of his predictions were completely accurate, astounding the audience by revealing a sheet of paper with the name of the audience member, a birth date, two random candy bars that the audience named, and lastly the word “onomatopoeia.” 

For the grand finale Reza escaped from having his hands tied, being tied in a bag and then being locked in a box. Not only did he escape, but he switched places with the assistant who locked him in the box.

The audience was astounded and concluded the show with a massive cheer.

The second performance of the night, Matt Bellassai, attracted a full house. People packed into the Great Hall like sardines in order to see the social media star.

Bellassai started the performance by making the moderator his sworn enemy because he pronounced Bellassai’s name wrong several times. While introducing himself, he described his job with BuzzFeed as “a professional drunk.”

When Bellassai was asked how he got started with his career on BuzzFeed he first said, “I sucked a lot of d–k to get where I am.”

This was met with cheers and laughter from an astounded audience.

He then talked about his first post to BuzzFeed, titled “Olympic Booty Appreciation,” and claimed that the staff said, “That is the s— we like to see. You’re hired.”

Talk quickly turned to politics, which got a huge response out of the audience. 

According to Bellassai, “If you’re not a feminist in two thousand f—ing sixteen then you should go f— yourself,” which was met with an eruption of applause and cheers.

If the reaction to that statement was huge, it was very little compared to the reaction that came from talk about Donald Trump.

When Bellessai was asked his thoughts on Trump, he said, “I never know what to say about that orange beast.”

The reaction to that statement was incredible. There was cheering and hollering and clapping and stomping. 

Bellassai claimed that if he was president he would make babies illegal in public and make pants stronger to avoid the “third testicle” problem of ripped pants.

Bellassai claimed that his view of couples was simply that Instagram couples are the worst kinds of people and those couples who share Instagram accounts were to follow. Based on the laughter and clapping, the crowd seemed to agree with this. 

The audience got a true insight into Bellassai’s past when he was asked to describe his perfect wedding with One Direction’s Harry Styles. He took out his phone and pulled up an old blog post from his blog “Literally Matt” that described his perfect wedding day.

After a period of the post loading, during which Bellassai shouted, “Your school Wi-Fi sucks!” and the audience raucously agreed, he proceeded to tell a very detailed story from sun up to bed time of his perfect wedding day with Harry Styles. 

Some of the most enjoyable parts of the show were Bellassai’s vomit stories. He told three stories, each with details of the only three times he got sick from being drunk.

His fourth story was about a trip to Old Country Buffet. During this trip, a young Bellassai and some other kids went on an adventure to the bathroom and found a disaster.

“Someone blew the seat off the f—ing toilet,” Bellassai said.

As the story of vomiting through the restaurant unfolded, the audience reacted with a mixture of groans, laughter and applause. 

Bellassai concluded the night with some horror stories about his roommates before waving enthusiastically and moonwalking off stage to an enthusiastic and cheering full house. 

Overall, the night was a fantastic combination of audience interaction, suspense and endless laughter. I do not think anyone walked out of the Great Hall without sore sides.