In its 100 years as the only important newspaper on campus, The Who?byssey has been through a lot. Starting its history as a newsletter handed out to soldiers returning from the war of 1812 to our now history of being used as a bus stop seat cover when it’s raining, The Who?byssey has seen it all, man. Most important to our history is our fierce independence. We’re, like, so independent, like Destiny’s Child Independent Woman independent. Yeah, there was that 77-year stretch where we were owned by the Almonds Matter Society (AMS), but that’s only a grandparent’s amount of time.
The Who?byssey started with humble beginnings, in the basement of a building that was knocked down and turned into a parking lot. Founded by a plucky bunch of already semi-wealthy, white 20-somethings, The Who?byssey focussed mostly on what was important in 1918: getting ass and then getting married and then likely dying far too young. Now that we are NOT owned by the AMS we continue to uphold this journalistic standard our forefather (yes only fathers, women didn’t exist back then!) have taught us.
For a little while during the 40’s, we published an issue every day. Why? Because we are strictly committed to updating students to the news that matters the most to them. It has nothing to do with the fact that we are obsessed with the sound of our own voice. Many of our students went off to war this decade — however, it was a war against SFU.
In the 60’s and 70’s The Who?byssey got sooooo radical and even more independent. This was probably because for those two decades The Who?byssey was printed on LSD-infused paper. We published totally dope articles, like “56 ways to tell your marxist professor that you too are a marxist” or “How to pretend you’re against the war in Vietnam.”
We also got our then-new offices in 1968. We moved from Brock Hall to the penthouse of the Student’s Union’s Building’s. Although we were in the penthouse we were still very, very, very independent, thank you for asking. Moving from Brock to the SUB was like, so cool. We held totally cool parties and smoked totally cool weed.
During this time it was sometimes very hard to differentiate news that came from The Who?byssey and stuff that came straight from the AMS word mill, but it’s just because we both had incredibly similar, very important things to say.
In the 1980’s we didn’t do anything particularly interesting. Also everyone was so high on cocaine that no one could read. The paper was mostly just very cool shapes at this time. Notable headlines were “Man, what if we made a bar with 99 chairs in it” and “Prof goes to Expo 86, has a good time.”
At this time we were still in the SUB penthouse but we had different cocaine dealers than the AMS folks, so that made us independent.
In the 90s we only covered how much we INDEPENDENTLY hated APEC on campus. Also we like totally broke up with the AMS. Our offices moved to a different part of the SUB but we BROKE UP, OKAY!!!
Now on to the now history, where were THE MOST INDEPENDENT we have ever been. WE constantly publish stories like totally ragging on the AMS. Everyone who works for the Almonds Matter Society is a total nerd and we are the cool ones who really make a difference on campus. Please stop commenting on our facebook page saying that we are AMS cucks.
You can tell The Who?byssey is so independently independent because we all come from different backgrounds (upper middle class to upper class) and we all think different thoughts. Yes everyone loves the environment and hates racists and wants to seize the means of production, but we all have those opinions independently from each other.
Now on to some interviews that prove that people who wrote for The Who?byssey go on to do bigger and brighter things:
“Yeah I work for the Crappy Boredcast Committee now,” said some guy who works for the CBC now. “It’s cool because I get to work in the CBC building.”
“If you work hard, stop going to all your classes and never make any other friends, you might almost have a shot at being a journalist. It’s totally worth it,” said, Who?byssey alum Donny Sleepplain, who already came from a wealthy background and was living in Regina in order to be able to pay rent.
As for our future journalistic independence, who knows! We all figure that robots will take over our jobs. We wonder how robot Who?byssey writers and robot AMS executives will get along. Will they give each other nervous smiles on the bus? Give a little wave when they see each other in the Gallery 6.0? Complain about each other behind their robot backs? Only time will tell…
“I have only learned to scream and complain about the AMS,” is what we think the robots will say.