he started writing comedy when he was 12; camp's humorous columns were printed in the high school literary magazine. upon arriving at the university of virginia, he won a competition to become the humor columnist for the school newspaper "the cavalier daily". camp then wrote a weekly humor column for all four years he attended the university. he began performing stand-up comedy on his 19th birthday at an open-mic night at matt's pub in richmond. at richmond comedy club, camp gained his first paying gigs. he also performed regularly throughout the rest of his time at the university of virginia, opening for jimmy fallon, darrell hammond, lewis black, and tracy morgan when they came to do shows at the school. in his final year of college, camp self-published a book of his humor columns entitled "neither sophisticated nor intelligent". upon graduation he moved to new york city.