Jackson Cooper
    Staff Writer

With thanksgiving break around the corner, you’re probably finding yourself trying to suppress some awful sensation in your chest. It starts at the stomach, and then moves to the heart before ending up as a sound from your mouth that comes without warning.

It is probably a sob or scream that is a result of your high stress levels. But, thankfully, there’s another sensation that follows this same path, which is a different and more abrupt noise: a laugh.

These two sounds are clearly coping mechanisms for the common case of semester sobs. However, this semester, rather than suppressing them, I would suggest trying to quell them through comedy. This week, enjoy these top 5 comedians that will be sure to turn your frown upside down and wide open.

5. Aziz Ansari

Treat yourself to a prominent voice of our generation: a shrill, hip dude with a few things to say about the world we live in today. Ansari’s commentary on modern technology and the Millennial Generation’s lifestyle (something older comics and our parents don’t seem to quite grasp), never fail at being accurate and side-splittingly funny. For a generation that depends on instant gratification, Ansari delivers his jokes at breakneck speed, which makes listening to him while driving highly dangerous.

4. Amy Schumer

If you end up getting a bit annoyed at Ansari’s voice, Amy Schumer is a good pick me up. Giving off a sorority girl sweetness with trash-talking bluntness, it’s a shame more people don’t listen to Amy Schumer. I remember watching her compete in the NBC game show, Last Comic Standing as a young, still very self-aware comedian who had a knack for bad language and good taste.

3. Bill Burr

There are some people you love to see angry. And it’s not because you don’t like them, but because they manage to get super agitated and go on ten-minute rants without any inclination that people could think they are “weird” or “standoffish”. To those people, your angry friends say, “Screw you.” Bill Burr is that friend of ours. He often rants on a seemingly superficial subject (DIY Check Out lines at grocery stores, a first date) for ten minutes, but to see him do so is super fun. His buttons are pushed to breaking points and we laugh because we don’t know what may set him off again next.

2. George Carlin

My dad took me to a screening of a Richard Pryor show one time. Afterwards, if I remember correctly, he said, “Well now I guess you’re old enough to listen to George Carlin”. When I first heard about George Carlin, my best friend in high school bought one of his books and I had to put it down one night because I laughed so hard, I was afraid I’d wake the whole house. Listening to Carlin, you get the feeling he’s your typical bitter old man in a black turtleneck. Well, he is, but a lot funnier and a lot bitterer. Listening to Carlin is soothing because your hatred for humanity and mankind is now being vocalized through this prophet. Listening to Carlin is a religious experience, so grab a pew and hold on tight.

1. Louis CK

Louis CK is the uncle we all aspire to be. He says things without a filter or any additional explanation because what he says is the truth. Most comedians share observations, which are opinions when you really boil it down. But Louis CK’s deadpan humor isn’t really humor at all: it’s fact. He speaks to the bitter, get-the-hell-out-of-my-way voice in our head that comes out when members of society behave in stupid ways. Louis CK’s voice is universal and never alienates people, and even when he gets into territories like race and sex he still remains strikingly accurate and hilarious.