Indiana Weekly Student spreads laughs on campus

The Indiana Weekly Student was the first news source to cover President McRobbie’s blood sacrifice before the Little 500 ceremonies began.

It included pictures, direct quotes from McRobbie and a disclaimer that the article was completely fake.

The Indiana Weekly Student, a satirical paper created by IU senior Kevin Tanner and friends including junior Stone Irr, has been gaining popularity for its humorous articles that are reminiscent of the Onion.

It has no association with the Indiana Daily Student, but its stories take a twist on news about campus life.

“We just kind of threw out all these article ideas,” Irr said.

Tanner said about seven of his friends collaborated on the IWS for a few months before the website was created.

“Earlier in the semester we would just get together and come up with article title ideas,” Tanner said.

He said generally they come up with title concepts, quotes and small segments first.
“I guess it’s a weird, backwards process,” Irr said.

He said writing the articles is a collaborative process. Someone in the group would come up with a quote or a subsection idea, and others would elaborate on hypothetical scenarios and “what-ifs.”

One of the original ideas came from the freezing winter, Tanner said. Tanner had joked about what would happen if there had been an article in the IDS depicting administrators staying home during the “polar vortex” while students were forced to brave the cold and go to class.

Since then, the group has published a dozen satirical articles meant to address things happening at the University with stories like “IU Basketball Team Kidnapped by People from the Future” and “Man Continuously Chuckles at Reddit Articles in Jordan Hall; Class Forms Mob.”

Irr said they were just poking fun at the University with their friends to start, but lately their fan base has been growing.

Although they said they don’t know their exact following, 4,500 people have already viewed the website, Tanner said. 

“It’s also floating around on Reddit,” Tanner said. 

Tanner said they continue to work on additions to the website.

Polls, infographics, and “horrorscopes” that predict readers’ future misfortunes are all being considered.

Tanner said it’s possible the website may soon have a form where people can submit their own work to be edited and potentially posted by the IWS.

“We’ve had a lot of requests for people to write articles for us,” he said.

While Tanner said the group has experimented with doing video, the multimedia aspect of the site is still a work in progress.

The IWS’s goal is not only to make people laugh.

Tanner said their articles are stirring social commentary.

“My favorite one is probably the one about the IUSA election and North Korea,” Tanner said.

He said the article makes a comment about problems at IU.

Tanner said it’s all lighthearted fun — no malice intended.

“We definitely don’t want to offend anybody,” Tanner said.

Instead of attacking any person or group, the goal is to point out the issues, Irr said.
People such as President McRobbie are used because they are major figures on campus, Irr said. But the stories are so outlandish that people will know they are satire.

Tanner and Irr said they hope to increase their readership through the IWS’s Facebook and Twitter pages.

“I just kinda hope my mom doesn’t find out,” Irr said.