WUnderground WashU's Premier (only) Satirical Newspaper Est. 2004
To the Washington University Community,
We are thrilled to announce our petition for the purchase of a WUnderground house. For those of you fortunate enough to have so far avoided our incessant online and in-person harassment, we are applying for $1.38 million in block funding from Student Union, funds we intend to direct towards the purchase of a house for our publication and our staff. This is a necessary next step for WUnderground, as we continue on our quest to become the greatest satirical publication west of Cambridge, south of Chicago, and outside of our former editors’ office in Los Angeles (because they legally own all of our intellectual property).
We chose the block funding process because it represents the will of our second biggest readership demographic, the Wash U student body. We would have asked our primary audience (our mothers) for their support, but they already bankrolled our annual spring break leadership retreat to Cancun and we don’t want to burden them. Because of the public nature of our request, we want to answer a few common questions we’ve gotten from all of you. We hope that this letter will help you understand our position and convince you to join our cause. If these answers also compel you to send us cash/nude pics/blackmail we can use against members of SU, more power to you. Thank you for your support as we take this next step. Sign the petition here: https://studentunion-secure.wustl.edu/Pages/Block-Funding-Petitions.aspx?petition=1
Why are you doing this?
Because we can.
Is this satire?
No. Satire is the use of humor in the name of social criticism, with the goal of improving society in some tangible way. While this campaign is humorous (and we daresay funny), we have no intent of improving anything at all. And while it might be construed as a critique of Student Union and the funding process in general, and while both entities do deserve our most thorough mockery, they are really just pawns in our game of self-aggrandizement. Nor does this have anything to do with SPB and the concert formerly known as WILD Fall 2016. We only wish we could have done something so hilariously damaging to SU’s reputation as they did to themselves.
What happens if you get the 1,029 student signatures necessary to get on the ballot, and then receive the 2/3 majority vote on said ballot needed to secure block funding?
First of all, good on you for doing your research! It’s refreshing to see students taking their civic duties seriously. That said, we have no fucking clue. This is the largest block funding petition ever submitted (by a margin of approximately $1.35 million), and the first attempt in known history to purchase a residential property using SU funds. We’d be pretty happy just to get a meeting with Chancellor Wrighton. We’d be even happier if he begged us, kneeling before us in his three-piece suit, not to accept the money we had rightfully received. We would be positively thrilled to accept his offer to name the new expansion of the campus west of Brookings after us, pending our return of the $1.4 million. We’re thinking: The WUnderground Enrichment Center for Student Achievement in Subversive Activities. Of course, we’d be pretty jazzed to get a house, too.
Can Student Union stop this from happening?
Probably, yeah.
Will they?
See above.
Anything else?
Yeah. You should probably also support S.A.R.A.H.’s petition, because they actually do good work for the community. We may be schmucks, but we’re moderately ethical schmucks.
We hope these answers will convince you to support our cause. Otherwise, go fuck yourself.
Our love forever,
The Editors
Andrew “if I’m funny enough maybe someone will finally love me” Miller
Mac “Deck” Slone
Sam “it was changed from ‘Blumpkin’ at Ellis Island” Blumkin
Petition link: https://studentunion-secure.wustl.edu/Pages/Block-Funding-Petitions.aspx?petition=1
