PULP GOSS: Honi v The World

We read USU Board Members’ Tweets, AUJS press releases and Honi Soit so you don’t have to!

In a tragicomedy of modest proportions, USU Board members have been scandalised by the comedic exploits of USyd’s nerdiest student media outlet, Honi Soit. Copies of Honi are previewed each week by the SRC’s Directors of Student Publications, which is meant to keep them out of legal trouble. However, one thing the DSPs can’t seem to prevent is the vexatiously litigious emotions of their fellow student representatives.

What caused all the fuss? The Welcome Week edition of Honi came with a handy USU pull-out that looked like sponcon but read like anything but. Inside they gave readers a helpful guide to running for Board. If you’re “uggo”, don’t run. If you’re in Panda, an international student faction, win in a landslide. If you’re a Young Liberal, run as an ‘independent’ and seize a narrow win via preferences. But when it came to libdependents, Honi had a little more to say, accusing an unnamed former candidate of Facetuning their campaign pics, to the detriment of students’ eyesight. 

Which candidate? It became pretty obvious when current Board Member Cady Brown tweeted:

Perhaps one of the more candid confessions to being a Liberal that you’ll hear from Cady, this criticism obviously hit a nerve with Honi, who followed it up this week with another shot. 

Week 2 Honi features a typically argumentative ‘The Jew vs The Catholic’ segment. At the end of the column, the theologians decree “Sorry Cady, we didn’t have enough time to get to your question ‘what’s wrong with my face?’ Stay facetuned for next week”. Next week, we can expect Honi’s feminist credentials to be blurrier than an unnamed candidate on the election run . 

But Honi’s travails don’t end with the hurt feelings of your student representatives. The Australian Union of Jewish Students (AUJS) also had a bone to pick with Honi comedy. In a press release, they described themselves “shocked and horrified” by a satire image which included the words “Should we get the Jews back for what they did to our absolute boy? Yes or No?”. 

AUJS Political Affairs Director and campus #girlboss Gabi Stricker-Phelps asked the paper who the absolute boy might be, to which she got the cordial reply, “It’s Jesus you fucking fool”. While the satire was meant to mock the antisemitism engendered by evangelical Christians, Gabi and AUJS concluded that Honi, a famously devout newspaper, clearly intended to provoke revenge for the Messiah’s death. 

While AUJS has demanded an apology, something about Honi’s communications with them so far tells us they won’t be in luck. We’re not sure if ‘The Jew vs the Catholic’, which directly addresses Stricker-Phelps, will do much to improve relations. 

All in all, your Pulp gossips, while amused from afar, are pleased not to be the SRC’s lawyers.

Pulp Editors