By Nathaniel Crouch
This is a satire piece from our Fun Issue, The Darkest Timeline. Life has become such a clusterfuck that it’s hard to tell the difference between reality and satire. While this is a made up story, it’s rooted in truth and research to provide social commentary. Have fun reading!
The Ryerson Students’ Union (RSU) is a collective that represents the best interests of the larger student body at Ryerson. They hold events free of charge, have a thorough understanding of how a union should operate and always acts with dignity when aiding student-run groups whose work directly benefits the mental and physical health of students.
Kidding! Maybe on Earth-616, where Alan Rickman is collecting his sixth Oscar and humanity as a whole figured out racism is bad, we get a student union that works to benefit students. Here in The Darkest Timeline, we have a bunch of slap sticks with a weird attachment to Scaddabush and the LCBO.
When the scandal broke that a quarter of a million dollars in student funds were allegdly used by the RSU’s 2018-19 executive team for personal effects, such as Uber and the Rec Room in Cineplex, student outrage was quick and loud. From the memes to hearings to students demanding impeachment, the scandal had lit a fire under students’ asses and forced them to reevaluate how much of student politics they took for granted.
Down in the bellows of Conservative hell awakened by student cries, sources say a sentient cheap blue suit named Doug Ford crawled out to the surface and towards the warm glow of making student lives all around worse.
Ford found the perfect marketing scheme for his Student Choice Initiative (SCI): a policy he announced prior to the scandal which would allow students to opt out of certain ancillary fees. Those crucial fees would threaten student groups like campus media, arts and culture groups and, of course, the student union.
Anonymous sources also tell us that the Premier originally wanted to call the SCI “Fuck Them Kids,” but realized he had to be more deceptive and give the choice to the students to take initiative on what they would support or cancel.
He came up with a social media plan of one single tweet: linking an Eyeopener story about the credit card scandal, using it as evidence in favour of the policy. Ford’s adversaries, however, were quick to remind him Edmund Sofo, vice-president of student life and events, was at his iconic, yearly, annual Etobicoke barbecue of that summer. They took a photo together which was widespread on social media in response to its irony.
Ford’s plan was perfect; or so he thought. As the year came to a close and the executive members of the RSU began looking more like Iron Man at the end of Avengers: Endgame, punishment was rolled out.
For a few executives, they received an embarrassing amount of memes and a lifetime of fear that someone would recognize them on Yonge Street and yell “Get ‘em!” One just fell off the face of the planet and hasn’t been heard from in a while (Mr. Ganesh, if you are reading this, give us a call—we miss you, boo.)
The new executives in charge of the RSU had to start brainstorming ideas to face the coming changes. Those who followed student politics were hit with extreme déjà vu, as the new execs fired the person in charge of managing their finances which is exactly what the team that got impeached did last year.
When RAMSS gave students the option as of early August to opt out, the cancelling commenced. In September, student groups ran to secure funds in the few weeks they had before students could no longer opt in.
The SCI had pissed off a bunch of groups. While the RSU has a love/spend relationship with money, the unions savings ensured they’ll at least hang on for a few years. Ford failed as our champion, and went back to his usual position; looking like someone aged that kid from Home Alone 30 years and left him in the sun for too long.
Leave a Reply