Now it's not as if I have come to expect much from the IU student newspaper. Most student publications suffer from the same type of problems. There are always the pretentious, arty column writers who try and be edgy and funny but fail on both accounts. There are the fluff pieces about the student government which no one outside of said student government care about. There's the need for the design majors to show off their new and creative idea about how to lay out a page. And with the need to put out a product every day there will always be the hastily put together stories about some wacky on campus happening or bio of a local person.
Earlier this week though there were two major stories that I was a bit shocked ran as prominently as they did. One was so unoriginal and uninspired I wondered how it even made it to print, let alone taking up the entire first page of the second section of the paper. And the other celebrated events that I think the university should frown upon. And if they won't frown upon it, they might as well not acknowledge it as a kind of silent protest.
The first point was a full front page dedicated to their depiction of "The Radish." To call this a blatant copy of "The Onion" would be absolutely correctly. The little radish icon they used is almost exactly the same, save the colors of the vegetable. The fake news stories and headlines were all laid out exactly as they are on The Onion. I'm not even sure what the point of the entire page was. If it was intended to be funny, like the Onion is, they failed. All the jokes were really poorly written. And because of it's to the letter copying of the source material one would expect that it would then be as funny.
I was just really shocked that the editors and writers felt that this would be a good idea. By ripping off a site that is known to basically their entire readership, they set themselves up to fail right off the bat. The reason the Onion is so funny is because they have an entire staff full of comedy writers who do this type of thing all the time. They write all kinds of shit, and they throw out the bad stuff. There was none of this kind of editing going on.
On top of that there was no originality being shown. Why copy the success of someone else? And again, if your going to attempt to copy a successful enterprise of someone else, you better damn sure do a really good job of it so that people can't see the flaws so clearly.
The second major problem I had with this specific issue was their glorification of the party culture surrounding Little 5. They specifically profiled an outgoing senior who threw a massive party. They outlined his planning of the all day affair, from his setting up entire sound systems outside his house for bands, reinforcing his deck so it didn't cave in to the large amounts of weight it would be holding, and to buying massive amounts of chocolate pudding for a ladies only wrestling contest.
The article goes on to talk about the party getting busted up by the cops on multiple occasions, people getting fined, and also the organizer ending up in the wrestling match with two ladies. During the description of his "wrestling" with the two girls the article goes on to talk about he he attempted to remove the girls tops for the joy of the crowd. He eventually succeeded on one girl, who ran away while covering up. She obviously didn't want to be topless, regardless of her participation in the event.
I find multiple problems with this article. First of all it was one of the longest articles I have ever seen in the IDS, which in itself is pretty shameful. The second is the celebration of Little 5 as an event where out of control drinking is acceptable, borderline sexual assault is encouraged, and much planning and care must be put into throwing out of control parties just for the sake of itself.
On top of all that, the article is being published by the university through their student newspaper. IU as a school should not be promoting Little 5 in this fashion. While it is fact that the entire week is now looked at as week long party with the races as only a secondary event, this is not the universities doing and should not be encouraged. Collage used to be something people really had to try hard to get into. Secondary education was not a given for most people. Now that many schools have turned into money making machines first, education centers second, this kind of behavior seems to be becoming more and more acceptable.
If the IDS had chosen to write an article about this same individual, and used him as an example of all the wrong ways that the Little 5 week has become I would see no problem with that being run. But in celebrating this kid's week and wild parties, and in turn celebrating the wild, rampant partying that is accepted during Little 5, the IDS has validated this type of behavior.
A combination of unoriginality and misplaced praise marked a very disappointing day to be affiliated with IU. I don't think it's wrong to expect more out of university.
