On Friday, Sept. 29, I was invited into a secret Facebook group called “The Golden Antlers” which peddles in mediocre campus satire.
This makes sense, because I applied to work (well, volunteer) for them.
On the same day, my friends informed me that I had finally gained acceptance in their eyes as a humorous, fun-loving person.
Currently, the GA’s Facebook page has 10,000,000 likes – and looking at its comments section, it seems that the GA shares an audience with The Onion, The New York Times, and The Student Life. I believed, and still do believe, that as an Ántler, the best way to affect change is to present the Claremont Colleges with a livestream of an orgy in Hiram Chodosh’s office before the semester is over.
In theory, the Golden Antlers is a non-partisan organization with a focus on publishing at least twice a semester. In practice, it is an insular group of people, whose members unwaveringly do the bidding of one they refer only to as Jacksón, a name which I don’t believe exists.
I am extraordinarily proud to be part of a group that has published such landmark investigative pieces such as: Pomexit, the 5C Challenge, and Watergate.
Of course, what I am most proud of is the event that led to my hiring (and, really, the continued relevance of this publication): the complete destruction of meme culture at the 5C’s.
Before being hired, Jacksón sent this text to me: “There are a lot of folks on the staff who are feeling ambivalent about your hiring – reasonable or not – so I think it might be best if you prove yourself by MAKING ME LAUGH NOW!”
This is a ridiculous demand from the editor-in-chief of a publication who apparently thought it was funny to run for freshman class president as a senior.
But I have hope.
I hope that I can turn this publication around. Some may say I’m naive, that an entrenched culture of insular jokes and a general disregard for journalistic ethics cannot be overturned by one new staff member. And, well, yeah they’re probably right.
Ruthless Plagiarism by David Cremins ’18
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