When I met comedian Xander Favazza at L’Appartement 4F, a patisserie in Brooklyn Heights, New York, he ordered a pitifully small hot chocolate. Favazza, an alumnus of the University of Massachusetts, told me that he had recently commenced a revolt against coffee meetups, now opting for hot chocolate, coffee’s more dynamic counterpart: perfectly analogous to Favazza’s own kinetic comedic pursuits that he has followed since his high school and college days.
Using the handle @Xandus17, Favazza began making short skits on TikTok in his freshman year in 2021. Many of his videos were filmed at UMass and involved spinning witty one-liners based on on-campus locations.
In one of his most notable videos, which has racked up 1.4 million likes, Favazza stands in front of an anonymous structure, saying, “Look how tall this building is! That’s 22 floors. And guess what? It’s a college dorm. Really blows your mind. Makes your head explode. Causes you to be assassinated.” Then, Favazza slowly pans the camera to reveal the building’s identity as Kennedy Tower in Southwest Residential Area.
@Xandus17 wasn’t the only handle Favazza posted on. From his sophomore to senior year, Favazza was the anonymous mastermind behind the Instagram account @Zoomass.
To Favazza, “It’s really easy to be funny if you have a certain niche.”
As Favazza ran his finger across the coffee table in hopes of collecting the last of his raspberry croissant, he told me of his first parodical account, @HWSuper. Beginning as the actual Twitter account of Favazza’s high school superintendent, Favazza himself quickly swooped up the account after the superintendent left his post.
“I was like, oh my God, I can take that handle…and I just made an account that looked exactly like his,” Favazza said. “I posted ‘Snow Day today!’ and everybody thought it was real.”
The jump from @HWSuper to @Zoomass was a smaller change than Favazza anticipated, motivating him to incorporate more variety into his work. Devoted to his love of parody but in need of change, Favazza co-founded The Brick, UMass’s satirical magazine, in 2023.
“It was kind of like doing [@HWSuper] again, but just on a larger scale for a whole college,” Favazza said. “I was mad I only did social media.”
Initially, Favazza found his comedy to be challenging. “[Comedy] that was all words seemed like such a challenge for me because I was so used to doing something visual,” Favazza said. “And a lot of times you can do something visual or in a video format that’s funny that wouldn’t be funny written down.”
In a satirical letter written by Favazza titled “Film class today sucked,” the speaker, Emily, devolves into madness after supposedly just finding out that two movies about Abraham Lincoln were released in 2012.
“One [was] called ‘Abe Lincoln: Vampire Hunter’ about Abe Lincoln seeking revenge on vampires for killing his mother. The other was nominated for 12 Academy awards including Best Picture. It was called ‘Lincoln.’ Two movies in the same year about Abe Lincoln,” Favazza said.
In an issue from 2024, Favazza co-wrote “The Official UMass Purity Test,” a UMass-themed spinoff of the Rice Purity Test from Rice University. Checkboxes included: “Brought your Halloween lobster back to your house and raised it like a beautiful little child?” and “Got into a physical altercation on a PVTA bus?”
Fears of the feasibility of pursuing comedy waned as Favazza’s comedic repertoire grew. He endured life as a computer science major for two years until changing his major to communications.
“I was like, if [computer science] is the rest of my life, I’m going to die … then I switched to communications,” Favazza said. “At least I’d be happy. I felt like I was way better at making videos than I would ever be at coding.”
Favazza reminisced on studying film documentary with communication professor Bruce Geisler, screenwriting with film studies professor Daniel Pope and particularly film production with communication lecturer Jason May, where students made a 30-minute talk show.
“The classes were so funny,” Favazza said. “The people were funny. It was great.”
A year and a half of UMass spoofs and a few correspondences with James Charles later, Favazza graduated and moved to Bushwick, Brooklyn, New York to kickstart his comedy career. He said the anxieties that once circled Favazza’s content creation while at UMass dissipated upon his arrival in the Big Apple.
“I started to change my mindset and be like, look, as long as what I’m making’s funny, it should do well,” Favazza said. “Now [content creation] feels like a skill rather than just a run of good luck.”
Favazza is now a freelance producer at media company Fallen Media. He produces, directs and edits Instagram shows such as “Crosswalk Crush,” which Favazza stars in, “I’m built like if butter got to become a real boy. Butter boy,” Favazza said in one skit.
Another show that Favazza works on is “15 Second Film,” where strangers are approached on the street, supplied with a cast and crew and challenged to create a short film.
Favazza resigned from his day job at clothing company Birddogs, a producer of three-in-one khaki shorts, which he jokingly referred to as an “eight-to-eight: job.
“There were nights where I’d be like, I should come in tomorrow and just be naked and be like, it’s over,” Favazza said.
Freed from the grasp of hyper-flexible khaki, Favazza has gone full comedian mode. “[I go] around the city,” Favazza said. “Someone reaches out to me like, ‘Hey, I got this idea, can you help me shoot it?’ I say, ‘Totally.’”
When Favazza isn’t filming, he’s brainstorming.
“I’ve got this note where I just write down anything funny,” Favazza said. “Literally everything that makes me laugh ever, I write down in this notes app.”
Favazza’s Bostonian drawl reverberates off New York City skyscrapers and shines in his most recent chrysalis, stand-up comedy. “I would rather have 10 people laugh in a room at something I said than 100,000 people have a little like button,” Favazza said. “It feels so much more personal … it’s addicting.”
Favazza is on your phone. He’s behind the camera of your favorite street-interview, he’s performing on-stage live in New York City. Favazza is moving, and he has no intention of stopping.
“In 10 years, I hope I wrote a movie,” Favazza said. “I hope I wrote a TV show. I hope I’m just hanging with my friends.”
“I don’t know if I’ll have a moustache still by then…It’s most likely a performative moustache,” Favazza laughed.
Moustache or not, look out for the butter boy. He is evolving in the blink of an eye.
Sally Mendelsohn can be reached at [email protected].
