WUnderground WashU's Premier (only) Satirical Newspaper Est. 2004
On Tuesday, Student Life, WashU’s independent, student-run “newspaper,” filed a lost & found report with WUPD after misplacing the second half of its website title. As the top search result for “studlife” is a page entitled “StudLife’s” (shown above), WUnderground staff initially assumed that this was one of the publication’s signature typos and was meant to read “StudLives.” However, after interviewing over 100 students, staff writers finally spoke with a student who occasionally reads the paper and revealed the shocking truth: the confusing search result usually reads “StudLife’s Website.” This student asked to remain anonymous under fear of “living out my next three years as a pariah and potentially having to transfer.”
While the document that Student Life filed with WUPD was technically a “Lost Item Entry,” sources within the organization have reported that this move was largely political. According to a nameless informant writing from the email address “studlifesecretes@gmail.com”, in reality “the preveiling [sic] hipothesis [sic] is that this really was actually a case of larsony [sic].” After poring through decades of StudLife archives, WUnderground analysts interpreted this poorly spelled and structured message to mean that StudLife staff believe the website title was stolen. It remains a mystery what exactly it is that StudLife secretes, but we have a few ideas.
The email goes on to explain that in recent years, Student Life has received threatening messages from The Record, another campus publication which overtook the student-run outfit in readership several years ago. The Record is famously shrouded in mystery- its publishers, why they are always up so late, and how they got all of our email addresses are subjects of widespread speculation. These details combine to explain StudLife’s astounding conspiracy theory: that hackers from The Record infiltrated the website and replaced its original explanatory name with a confusing moniker to reduce traffic to the page.
If this diabolical plot really exists, it has certainly been effective. Daily visits to the StudLife site have reportedly been cut in half over the past week, dipping well below five. Meanwhile, visits to Uncle Joe’s have increased due to distressed students that have been set adrift without the publication’s invaluable guidance on which bread to pick at Subway, what songs to play during sex, and why they should hate fraternities. Studs all over campus are holding out hope that the website will be easily identifiable again in time for the paper’s classic “WILD Bingo.” Tori Arneson, a junior, is especially eager: “That’s my favorite StudLife moment every semester, when they release the [WILD] bingo card. It gets me so excited for the concert, which I will absolutely spend playing a StudLife bingo game!
