Satirists across the country — especially student satirists — are struggling. But at UW, it's students that really suffer because they refuse to acknowledge how good we are for them.
By Paul Tael, Editor-in-Chief
The projector in our Vilas meeting room refuses to be centered on the chalkboard. On a good day, two fart jokes make their way to our publication. Sometimes people forget to bring their laptops to weekly meetings and they have to borrow a laptop to put a fart joke on our communal google doc. It’s mean, it’s messy, but its the Misnomer. It’s our job to put out a few jokes every week. Damn good ones, too, but I guess I’m biased on that.
Joy is hard to come by on a college campus. You have classes, stress, and student newspapers always trying to make you care about something lame. Luckily a brave few of us are there to take the burden off of your shoulders. Through the joy we bring you, we allow you to endure the trials and tribulations of a college student. When there’s a midterm coming up, you look to us for a silly bit about how hard it is to walk up Bascom Hill. When you can’t stand going to your next lecture, we’re there to provide our hot takes on greek life. Without us, you would be nothing.
Unfortunately, we are under attack. The university keeps putting barriers in front of us. They got rid of Lori Berquam, a source of very hot content last year. Sam the Mentos guy has done nothing since his first project; it's not easy to work with that. But we do it. We push through the pain and difficulty of having fun because we care about you and your well being.
We could have chosen to do memes, but at that point we wouldn't be a satire organization anymore. Anyone can make a meme, and frankly, everyone does. By distancing ourselves from memes, we choose to maintain our integrity. Because of that, the meme page shines, while we mostly go under the radar offering true pleasure for the lucky few who choose to look in our direction.
You may look at us and say "Why do we need you, bigger organizations like The Onion are fun and all I need". They may be fun, hilarious even, but they’re not going to be around to comment on the issues that plague UW-Madison specifically. When Steve Carell showed up to UW-Madison last year, where was The Onion? Has The Onion ever even commented on Paul’s Pel’meni? QQs? Lori Berquam? Here’s a painful truth for the UW-Madison campus: you need us more than we need you. Just this week The Badger Herald wrote a piece in which they used the murder of Russian journalists to attest to the importance of adequate funding for their college newspaper. Who is going to keep The Badger Herald accountable but a group of ragtag silly folks in a college satire organization?
Some of you may have heard of The Black Sheep. Some of you may have read The Badger Herald’s section entitled ‘Banter’. Those ‘comedy’ publications on UW Madison’s campus should only further prove how essential we are to campus culture. We are the last bastion of humor in a blood battle being dominated by buzzfeed knockoffs and untalented journalists who want to have fun with their next piece.
The bottom line is we need money. Please donate to us. Please. We don’t have anywhere for you to donate to, but if you really value us you can find a way to get us money. You’re going to be miserable without us, I promise. It’s not that hard. Give us your money and attention and nobody is going to get hurt, okay? It’s that simple.
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