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CONT E NTS 01 The Waldorf Times 02 Rejected McKinney Contest Submissions 04 Genericon: Improving Sex Positivity at RPI 06 Shitpostering 08 The Real Reason Club Penguin Is Vanishing 11 The S&W Crossword Brain-Blast: The Last Ides of March
FO RT NI G H TLY FOTO
STAF F Editor-in-Chief Noah Tebben Managing Editor Izzi Cain Business Manager Chester Kowalski
E D I TO R I A L
Culture Editor Alex Zylka Humor Editor Peter Wood News Editor Parth Bhide Op-Ed Editor Oleg Yakovets Selections Editor Kevin Phoenix
DESIGN
Copy & Composing Editor Alex Zylka Copy & Composing Editor Jr. Izzi Cain Webmaster Kevin Phoenix Webmaster Jr. Peter Wood
S TAFF P H OTO Statler & Waldorf | Rensselaer Union Room 3314 | 110 8th St. | Troy, NY 12180 | sw@union.rpi.edu | Mini-Issue 17.3 | March 2017 Statler & Waldorf is published while classes are in session by the students of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute under the authority of the Rensselaer Student Union. It is provided to the community at no charge. Opinions expressed within this publication are not necessarily those of the staff or Editorial Board of Statler & Waldorf, the Rensselaer Student Union, or Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. Pieces in the Humor section are satirical in nature and do not necessarily refer to real places or people. These pieces are for entertainment value only. The Editorial Board reserves the right to edit all submissions in compliance with the Statler & Waldorf Style Guide. All submissions should be sent to sw@union.rpi.edu. Please see our webpage, [http://sw.union.rpi.edu], for more information.
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CONTRIBUTING MEMBERS
Shannon "Spoon" Barrett, Bobby Martino, Lt. Snow Snake, The Association for Truth, Joe Iaquinto
"All the News That's Shit to Print"
VOL. DCLXVI—NO. 70
The Waldorf Times ALBANY, WEDNESDAY EVENING, MARCH 29, 2017
MARCH HORRIBLESCOPES Aries Fremdschämen: the German word for the second-hand embarrassment that you feel from seeing people trying to outshitposter the neo-nazis. Taurus The only use you've gotten out of Multivar so far is being able to determine the slope of how downhill your life is going. Gemini You might be more open to listening to WPRI, if only they reviewed your favorite play: Shirley Jacksonspeare's classic, 'A Midwinter Eve's Cancellation.' Cancer There are two types of people in this world: those who know when St. Patrick's day is, and those who think it’s on March 19th. Leo The saying "a little goes a long way" doesn't apply to "just the tip," no matter how much you try to convince her otherwise. Virgo You don't know where your life would be without hand sanitizer... except for the damn 0.1% of germs that can hold their rubbing alcohol. Libra You will now be auditioning for the role of Newton's law of inertia with the song "Don't Stop Me Now" by Queen. Scorpio If April showers bring Mayflowers, put away your turkeys because you probably have your months mixed up.
Four-year Forecast YUGE chance of shitstorms PRICE: FOUR CENTS
SHANNON "SPOON" BARRETT, MYSTICAL CONTRIBUTOR
Sagittarius Your April fools prank of replacing all the tortillas for the Simply Sage turkey wraps with pictures of Chance the Rapper was much funner in your head than it was received. Capricorn Buying from the vending machines is a lot like asking the popular girl out: it creates more losers than winners, and you stand in a line only to have your money taken. Aquarius Your use of the term dyslexia is politically incorrect: the proper term is “Consonantal Drift.” Pisces It’s a sign that global warming is a bit out of hand when your stoner roommate keeps trying to bake cookies on their car dashboard. Spring for an air conditioner soon.
Rejected McKinney For those of you writing-inclined on campus, you hopefully tested your mettle against other campus writers in the annual McKinney contest that closed just over two weeks ago. While we wait for the prestigious winners to be announced in mid-April, we wanted to showcase some rejected McKinney submissions that were gracefully shared with the crew here at S&W.
The Playboy in Outer Web By Terry Bastioné Swipe left Look right Will you share my bed tonight Another girl claims she loves dogs And wishes that I dressed Like I only cut logs Beards plus C-minus I wish I could show All these girls that I know The copy-paste bore Of their dating profile chore We may not have a marketing major But they get one shot And leaf emojis only Make it hard to be a player
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If A Robot Wrote This Do I Still Get The Money By Steve Frank The writing on my life Sucks for you Would if I could Possibly if we can We make it an evening or later? I don’t rush at commons No I am a relatively simple in design It to be free if I can come Running along the bay Where my great time later My boyfriend wait for me If I wouldn’t be so sick so I can’t remember to do that When is fine My heart is doing math
Contest Submissions Look forward to reading featured winners in our print issue coming next month! We wish everyone that submitted the best of luck and hope that next year’s McKinney will be even larger!
Sorry, Your P lumber Is In Another Battle By Daisie Detztaronia The mail courier came back today. He took off his mushroom hat and told me the news. He’s been sent back to the fray. My plumber was meant to be on his own steed coming home but the pipes burst in World 7 and now he has to go back lest we lose the front to the hedgehog menace. I couldn’t move. I could only look at the cake sitting on the dining hall table and wonder if I should just leave it and let it rot and then the cake and I might feel the same. But I couldn’t do it. I gave myself the harrowing pleasure of throwing it in the garbage, and I watched the red frosting smear along the side, words that once said “Thank You Mario” blended and merged into “Dank Er Wrio” and I had the garbage can destroyed as I went back to my chambers. He used to save me. A giant turtle starved me for days in a castle miles away and he would always find me. He was my superstar. And now I can only wonder where you are. I locked my door. I don’t need a giant turtle anymore. I spent my life relying on someone else and now I do not know if he will ever return again. I have captured myself. Home is my new dungeon.
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SOMEWHAT RECENTLY RPI WAS GRACED
with the annual Genericon, and judging from the happy mask-covered faces I saw there, it was another year of growing success.
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GENERICON: IMPROVING SEX-POSITIVITY AT RPI NOAH TEBBEN, EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
For those that don’t know, Genericon is RPI’s residing anime convention, though the convention has grown in scope to include an emphasis on video game culture and internet culture as a whole. However, anime and cosplay still remain the priority item for the weekend-long festival, and it shows from the slew of anime-characters-I-didn’t-recognize to the handful of Undertale cast to the various video game heroes gracing us with their presence. While my personal interest in anime is limited to a select few mainstream shows that I watched in high school, thus labeling me a ‘filthy casual’, the convention strikes as a strong example of niche inclusion on campus among groups that often face higher levels of criticism for their passions. Why might anime have such an ostracizing stigma around it? While the social characteristics of this are so much more complex than one introspective IT major can hope to lay out, I can offer some surface insights into the dynamics at play. It is no secret that anime, taken with a very wide lens, often integrates sex appeal and fantasy realms into its narratives and design aesthetics. This generally gives it a social handicap compared to other mediums as a result of living in a society where sex is considered more obscene than violence, blow-for-blow. It is also possible that the sheer time effort and the medium through which anime is consumed also play into the stigma. There is more quality anime
to watch than any one person can hope to consume in a lifetime, and the method of consuming anime is typically less social than other interests, requiring passive consumption through a screen. This is not to say that anime fans are inherently anti-social, but that the hobby itself does not typically grant practice in physical social interactions. The prevalence of anime parties on campus and clubs oriented around the consumption of anime shows that RPI makes a cognizant effort to integrate socialization and community aspects into the hobby, and this culminates in the bright beast that is Genericon. An under-appreciated aspect of Genericon goes even further to target the ‘obscenity’ of sex on campus. I noticed two distinct seminars/discussions/ events that revolved around sex, one being a BDSM workshop (for the uninitiated, think consensual and highly-controlled masochism during sexual activity) and another being a presentation of the best comedic hentai series available in recent memory. While anime gets criticized, hentai is largely considered completely taboo and often remains hidden to the secrecy of deleted browser history. Hentai is merely anime content that features heterosexual sex as part of the plot device. Nothing more, nothing less, and yet Genericon is the first place I’ve ever witnessed having an open discussion about a medium that is relatively popular but
never openly discussed. Granted, there are unfortunate tropes of hentai that sometimes fetishize female pain and rape scenarios, and these are abysmal parts of the medium. To Genericon’s credit, highlighting positive examples of hentai seemed like a forward-thinking way to promote healthy sex habits. I spoke to attendees of both workshops, and while many of them found the discussions a little underwhelming, they gave credit to the openness of the event and found it therapeutic to find other people willing to express their sexuality and move beyond the stigma. I also heard that the event cleared up a lot of questions and anxiety among students interested in exploring these aspects of life. In conclusion, while some find it easy to mock the brightly-colored passions of Genericon participants, the convention stands as a hub for some very healthy social developments and serves as a modern masquerade ball of shared interests, great fun, and plenty of showing off the long nights of becoming one’s favorite character. RPI has taken a unique medium and developed a strong community within it, and that deserves merit. &
SHITPOSTERING CHESTER KOWALSKI, BUSINESS MANAGER
C LU B S . P O L I T I C A L A D S .
Contests. Companies. All these and more litter the tape and paper strewn walk from the DCC to JEC. Recently, however, new strange posters have appeared. They throw off the shackles of purpose and advertisement and enter a poster renaissance. Welcome to the Shitpostering. It started in the most unlikely of places, in the most serious of topics. A poster that had a strange likeness to popular Vaporwave albums was made, advertising for a white nationalist group. The poster was quickly removed, and whether it was real or a cruel joke will never be known, but it sprung more into action. A bold new poster style was born, plain white paper with plain black text, with quick sayings extolling protection and acceptance. With statements like “Protect Muslims” and, most importantly “Goodnight Alt-Right”. This last statement caused the next cascade. Mimicking the poster that spawned it, a cer tain goodnightrpi@gmail.com made their statement. One page at a time, a set of white papers with black text stated the entirety of Goodnight Moon, all the way down from
the bridge to the end of the JEC. This may have been what truly broke the gates loose. Here we had an explosion of posters. One student, posting under the name RPI Shadow Squad, made meme after meme, spanning a wide array of topics. From statements about projectors stealing life force to open-ended “post meme here”s, they took the DCC by storm. However not all agreed. Next to a poster declaring “You’re not my real dad” a poster displaying Darth Vader can be seen. Next to another Shadow Squad original featuring Cincinnati’s Own Harambe, we could see someone declaring “2017 memes only” with a posted fine. Whether it will be paid remains to be seen. A final stand has been taken by rpilorax. Bemoaning the loss of many trees for both poster and exam alike, this most recent edition harkens back to the white paper days, but with an added image of Dr. Seuss's The Lorax. Where will the Shitpostering go next? Only time will tell. &
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The Real Reason Club Penguin Is Vanishing NOAH TEBBEN, EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
T H E N E W D I R E C TO R O F T H E E PA
won’t tell you this, the current administration won’t tell you this, and your 12-year-old cousins that routinely play Club Penguin won’t tell you this, but it’s time you heard the truth. Club Penguin isn’t shutting down because of its declining popularity or because ‘game servers are expensive’. It’s being taken down because global warming has melted over 40% of the available play area, and the remaining penguins are left to forage for scraps of digital fish. The first jarring indicator of our climate’s downturn came when the popular hangout spot in Club Penguin, cleverly named ‘Ice Berg’, no longer appeared on the game map, thus leaving a collage of crumbled infrastructure and neon penguin corpses in its wake. Disney executives quickly swept the catastrophe under the rug, citing ‘site maintenance’ and ‘new funeral emotes’ as the leading causes for the change. Tragically, the game’s snowy home continued to decline, as the Ski Resort attempted to rebrand itself into a Waterslide Emporium and the Snow Dojo
turned into the Water Dojo II. In another terrible incident, heightened sea levels flooded the entirety of the penguin mines, forcing Disney developers to rename the entire area ‘Underwater Caverns’. The resulting economic collapse due to the penguin gold supply becoming unavailable forced most players to sell their prized possessions to foreign entities and led to a number of riots in the main hubs that came to be known as the ‘Trampling of Puffles the Third’. The current state of affairs is even grimmer. The disruption of the local ecosystem via the warmer sea temperatures has run many of the island’s fisheries out of business and the resulting fish shortage has driven the penguin residents to convert the Stadium into a den for blood sports. Two penguins enter, one peng leaves, and the winner takes a day’s ration of food home to their penguin family. Some players condemn the show of barbarity but they have been exiled to peninsulas on the southern coast, while the remainder revel in the carnage. “The gore keeps us from getting
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hungry, and it weeds out the weak from our new society”, said community member Fluffypuffs407. The accelerated decline in penguin population has led to the uprise of a new contest among the Club Penguin community, and some of our readership may be familiar with the contest. Bluntly titled ‘The Ban Game’, there is a running contest for players to achieve the fastest time from signing up for a Club Penguin account to getting banned from the game. The current record as of writing stands at 37 seconds, and our journalists in the field report that while the population is recovering as a result, conditions are only getting worse on the island. “All these new penguins are just meat to the grinder”, said Fluffypuffs407. The blood sports are preparing to increase in scope, as Stadium organizers recently announced that an island-wide deathmatch is scheduled to begin on the very last day of March. “Our defensive line of snow forts may have melted, but we will find the strongest penguins on the island, and we will cull the rest, and then we will
It's time you heard the truth!
prepare to leave our ravaged home behind to bring hell to our distant neighbors, the Neopets.” Our reporters in the field were promptly evacuated via helicopter after the announcement, as Fluffypuffs407 began to set fire to the beloved Pizza Stand and Clothes Shop. We’ve reached out to Disney’s Club Penguin management team and they’ve declined to comment. They instead redirected us to their landing page promoting the new variant of Club Penguin, ‘Club Penguin Island’. Club Penguin Island is set to launch on the very last day of March, and is predicted to have ‘immutable temperature conditions’. The launch event is a somber ‘Day of the Fallen’ that will remain heavy on penguin hearts for the years to come. &
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CROSSWORD
THE LAST IDES OF MARCH 1
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ACROSS 3. We need a new coach in... 4. Your reward for RPI diplomacy
DOWN 1. We know you're all tired so we made this month's crossword a little less hard so just write thank you and we'll forget this month ever happened 2. The weather phenomenon that we're still getting more of
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Last Exit Before Toll