Tag: frank

I’m a journalism student and as such I’ve written my fair share of articles. From op-eds to features, to listicles to reviews, I’ve written all different kinds of pieces. This semester, though, I started writing something a bit funnier– I started satire.

During the summer, I applied to join The Bunion, Boston University’s satire news publication. Now satire has always been a thing that interested me, I’ve been a fan of The Onion for a long time and about a year ago I found out about The Hard Times and Hard Drive, who make fun of punk music and video game scenes respectively. I was bit by the satire bug last year and when I saw The Bunion was looking for staff writers, I submitted my application almost immediately. I say almost immediately because there was a very important part of the application I was having a hard time with: the article submission.

I had to write an article to finish my application. Luckily, I zeroed in on what I was gonna write about pretty quickly. At the beginning of the summer, I got a notification on Facebook about a post somebody made on the Official Boston University Class of 2020 group. I hadn’t checked the Class of 2020 Facebook group since my Freshman year, so I clicked on the notification and browsed the group to see what my fellow rising juniors were up to. As I found out, the group had become a wasteland. Nobody had posted anything on the group in a long time, I guess like me a lot of people had forgotten about it. Essentially the Facebook group was now a ghost town, people were still in the group but nobody posted anything. I thought this might be something funny to write about so I took it and ran with it.

Choosing a topic to write about was easy, the hard part was actually writing it. At first I wrote the article with the idea of the Facebook group being a literal ghost town, a remnant from the Wild Wild West, and there was a sheriff of sorts that would protect the group from any new posts. I worked on it for a couple of days until I finally gave up on making it work. The whole cowboy-sheriff thing proved to be too complicated, since I realized I knew absolutely nothing about cowboys. I scrapped the whole thing. I settled on just writing down my raw thoughts and put a sort of journalistic spin on it. That was easier, but it really wasn’t funny. It kinda just read as a rant that didn’t really go anywhere, but I guess the editors liked it enough to have me join the team.

I got a chance to rework the article a couple weeks ago. After going to writer meetings, talking to fellow Bunion Staff Writers, and getting to write pieces of satire on other topics, I finally got what it took to make my first article work. The first thing I did was pretty much erase most of it. A lot of what I wrote down just didn’t work, or only I found funny. I then made my target more specific and I gave it actual jokes. I basically reworked the whole thing.

It felt nice working on my first article again; it was almost as if I had come full circle. In the short time I’ve been with The Bunion, I’ve really learned a lot. If you’re interested in reading my articles and other articles made by even funnier people, check them out over at thebunionpaper.com

P.S. Here’s a link to my reworked first article: https://thebunionpaper.com/student-makes-post-on-bu-facebook-group-as-if-anybody-is-gonna-look-at-it

 

College is a place for self-discovery, for experimentation, and for an almost deafening amount of music. Times change and with it, what you think makes for good music. Here are the Six Kinds of Music You’ll Listen to in College:

1. The Radio Hits

You’re young, you’re fresh, you’re new in town-- you also don’t know anything about music. The radio has been curating what you listen to for almost two decades, but it’s been doing the same for everybody else too. And when you’re the fifth person in a row to say they like ‘everything but rap and country’ in an icebreaker, it’s not a good image. It’s time to let go of the past and reinvent yourself. Time to listen to some new music.

2. The Obscure

The Drake’s, Cardi B’s, and Ariana Grande’s of the music scene are too superficial for you. Music has lost its true meaning to commercialism and big record labels. Real music is the kind of music that refuses to sell out. Your music taste has become as refined and articulate as an aged cheese, but a cheese that only you and about five others around the world know about. Fingers crossed these bands you're listening to don’t hit the big time, or else you’ll develop one heck of a lactose intolerance.

3. The Soundcloud Rap

The Drake’s, Cardi B’s, and Ariana Grande’s of the music scene are too soft for you. I mean, you only live once so you might as well listen to the best bangers the internet has to offer. It doesn’t matter the occasion, be it studying for finals at Mugar or just trying to relax and fall asleep, the sickest of Soundcloud raps are there to keep you up and drown out all those pesky ‘responsibilities’ you should definitely be on top off.

4. The Foreign

American music just isn’t what it used to be. I mean you’re not sure what it ‘used’ to be either, but you can say with certainty that it’s not the same. You know what’s stayed consistently good, though? All the music scenes from literally every other country. Listening to this kind of music will make you a full-fledged cosmopolitan! Sure, you won’t understand a single word being sung… But you can just feel it; you know what am I saying?

5. The Experimental

Music composition as a whole is overrated. You’ve grown past the need of instruments, or harmonies, or appealing sounds to listen to music. Now it’s all about that subversion! Actually enjoying music is for chumps. The way music is meant to be experienced is as a chore. Listening to this music is a complete pain, but imagine how cool you’ll sound when you mention you listen to this kind of music! Nobody has to know you hate every second of it.

6. The Favorites

This aimless charade of music types has left you tired and unhappy. Somewhere along this musical journey, you’ve forgotten who you are and what you really like. You’ve realized that for some reason you've been trying to impress an audience that really isn’t there. Who cares what you listen to? As long as you enjoy it, it’s good music. So listen to your favorites, regardless of what anybody else says. You’re gonna be in college for a while, might as well enjoy your time here.