A message from the chairman:
Six hours.
That’s the combined runtime of the first three Star Wars movies. Appreciate that number for a moment. Six hours. That’s a bad night’s sleep. That’s a day spent on Facebook procrastinating a thesis. Six hours is a drop in the bucket of our lived experience. It’s trivial. And yet, six hours of screen time changed the world.
Six hours later and jockstraps were being colored like Stormtrooper armor while America’s children were sticking Darth Vader action figures into wall sockets instead of forks.
Six hours later and marriages were being officiated by deacons dressed as Wookies, and parents were dressing their babies to look like droids.
Six hours later and doctors in emergency rooms were having to learn how to remove plastic lightsabers from butts.
Six hours later and someone founded a religion. The Order of the Jedi Knights currently has over 300,000 members. And they’re all single.
Six hours.
In the time it takes to finish a problem set, an entire planet was inspired to be nerdier than it had ever been. That’s the power of one creative idea. And, beautifully, that’s a power anyone with a day-dream can inherit.
We each have the potential to make a grown man dress up like something we see in our minds. And enjoy it.
Not everything will do what Star Wars did. But creative expression invariably has an effect. And if there’s anything I’ve learned after four years with this magazine, it’s that you have to be brave and put your ideas on display. You won’t always succeed. Sometimes you’ll make a Jar Jar Binks. And you’ll have to stare that monster in the face. But you’ll learn from it. Other times, you’ll make a Han Solo. Or an Ewok. Or an IG-88 (deep reference for the true killas reading with me). And somewhere out there, somebody will notice. Maybe that means you’re giving someone a five minute break from a fucked up day. Maybe that means you’re convincing someone to create a toy that will eventually find its way into somebody’s butt.
Whatever the case. If you’re sitting on an idea, or barring the doors to an imagination that deserves to be shared, relax, turn off your targeting computer, and fire.
Who knows the impact you could have.
With this, I say goodbye to a magazine that has been the source of more sidesplitting moments and incredible friendships these last four years than I could have ever anticipated. You don’t get many passes to be serious when you’re writing for a comedy magazine. And I want to take mine now to say I’ll miss every moment of this. I’m turning off my targeting computer for the last time.
May the force be with you,
CJS ’16
Chairman