Guys, I was in stitches when the Sept. 26 issue of The Captain’s Log came out. I submitted my column the week before, completely unsuspecting of what was to appear in the paper that week as well. Contrary to popular belief, I don’t just read my column. I look at the rest off the paper too. Imagine my surprise when I open to the Opinion section and I see the title “CNU Greek organizations respond to Comedy Column.” This oughtta be good…
In the article, BOTH the Interfraternity Council and Panhellenic Council responded to my Sept. 19 column, where I described fraternities as an “incessant nuisance” and compared them to cancer. It was funny, trust me. And the only comment I made about sororities specifically was a crack about me looking like a girl from behind, therefor sorority sisters ask me if I want to rush. I would like to point out that before I made those jokes, I said, “I don’t mind hanging out with frat bros and sorority sisters, they’re all fine people.”
The actions taken by Interfrat and Panhellenic have lead me to a startling conclusion. I am worried that perhaps the concept of a “joke” may be eluding some of them. For instance, I posted a status on my Facebook about how cornhole sucks, and all of a sudden I get a million notifications like, “Ralph Lauren McBowtie commented on your status” defending cornhole like it’s his job. Any sport that sounds like a sexual act is out for me. That’s why I don’t play kickball.
But seriously, is there any real need to run damage control after an article posted in The Captain’s Log? It’s The Captain’s Log for Christ’s sake. It could say “SHITFARTBONERPENIS” on the front page, and no one would notice anything. And my column is all the way in the back. I wouldn’t be surprised if Darryl, our editor-in-chief, had just randomly thrown in the words “huge cock” into the middle of an article just to see if anyone would notice. I doubt they would. Huge cock.
My favorite part of the article was probably Panhellenic Council’s comment: “[We] hope the nature of these statements were in fact satirical.” I can only imagine taking one of your sorority sisters to a comedy show. Everyone would laugh, and she’d say, “Golly, I hope that was a joke.” Of course it’s satirical. This is the Comedy Column. It’s great for two reasons: It’s funny and Paul Trible loves columns.
See, that was satire! I used a play-on-words. It’s a device used by comedians to create the comic effect of a joke. I took advantage of the fact that Paul Trible seemingly loves columns because every building on campus has them, then used his love for columns to relate to MY Comedy Column, which is obviously not the same kind of column. That’s why the joke is funny. As much as I’d like to explain every joke in detail, I can’t because these columns would turn into novels.
Maybe I’ve been a bit mean. To be fair, neither Interfrat or Panhellenic slammed me specifically. They just said that my comments were wrong or inappropriate. Panhellenic described them as “troubling” while Interfrat didn’t condemn my column, they just flexed a bit saying that they’re awesome and their article had an implied “Don’t listen to Stephen” tone to it.
Which is fine. You don’t have to listen to me at all. You don’t have to read my column if you don’t want to. If you’re offended, email me and I’ll tell you what I meant. But two enormous student councils publicly responding to one student in an article intended for comedy just looks silly. It’d be like if the Healthy Haven at Regattas had the tagline, “Eat more healthy” and Chick-fil-A called and threatened to sue the school. Pick your battles Greek councils.
On the other hand, I think I have stumbled into PR gold. It seems my column has gotten more attention. I was an idiot: all I have to do for this column to be popular is to make fun of other on-campus things so they’ll respond in the paper! Since I already talked about frats and sororities, my next target: Student Assembly!
Hey, Student Assembly! …. You suck! What do you even do?? Just… elect new people then… assemble in places!? Gosh! Man, you guys really SUCK.
Alright, now let’s see if Student Assembly has a good sense of humor and look to the Opinion section to see if they responded! I’m pretty sure they didn’t (don’t make me look stupid Student Assembly.) n
