Dear Fed: Are We Still Friends?

By Rocky Rūb and Iris Eisenman

Illustration by Derin Ogutcu

During a polycule outing in Gowanus, BK, the following messages were recorded while Bweditors (Blue & White Editors) confronted Feditors (Columbia Federalist Editors) about a recent claim in the latter “publication” that the former Magazine is BROKE (bye). The truth is, allegations like this started three years ago when an-ex EIC accidentally used the company card instead of her parent’s, draining (almost) our entire savings, when checking out a two hour rental of the sexualized SVEDKA Fembot—NO REFUNDS. In the spirit of transparency, here is the transcript from that confrontation. 

Affirmative by Rocky Rūb

Listen, the article was funny, I’ll give you that. But can you please stop telling people we’re broke? I’m starting to get tired seeing my likeness used to make scam GoFundMe pages. Jodi Kantor just donated to one called, “Save The Blue OR White: The Columbia Daily Spectator’s Biggest Competition,” and they've nearly hit their goal of 400 million dollars—it’s unethical.

As GOON Editor (General of Operations and Official Notetaker), I’ve been trying my best to tame the fury that you guys have caused amongst the other Bweditors. Lucky for you, I’m not gonna let anyone release the unredacted emails linking The Feditors to those dinners with Brian Greene. 

As a show of good faith, I’m willing to tell you where all our money is really going: obviously, dinners at Din Tai Fung with Lee C. Bolinger and Katrina A. Armstrong (you HAVE to hear PrezBo’s Jamaican accent); yacht outings with Eric Adams in the South of France (or as Daddy Addy calls it, the Bushwick of Western Europe); and it wouldn’t be a proper work week if we didn’t get a table at The Box with Hillary Clinton on Friday nights. (She says it reminds her of the Situation Room in a way that feels happy, free, confused, and lonely at the same time.) The best part of it all is that incoming President JenniferMnookin has been so enticed by our reputation that she joined us last week for two-for-one lady’s night shots at U Bar and Grill and contracted long-covid from hitting the hookah in the backrooms. Safe to say we’ve got funding secured for the next 13 months, at the very least.

Also, I just want to make it clear that we did NOT hire those Newsboys to deliver our magazines to dorms on campus and The Blue and White rejects any and all culpability in the tragedy that happened to those visiting high school students. If it’s of any help, we DID hear a rumor that they are a part of Claire Shipman’s newest surveillance task force. A loose-lipped Spec reporter told us that Shipman was overheard telling a band of undercover cops to dress as “FIJI boozers,” and they heard “Newsie cruisers.”

Speaking of Spec, fuck ‘em, amiright? No, for real, they’ve been getting a little too comfortable up in their penthouse boardrooms at Riverside Church. They’ve even started dodging the buckets of red paint we make our new writers throw at them when they come up the escalator from NoCo Joe’s. And do you wanna hear something nasty? Ex-EDITOR-IN-CHIEF, Shea  Vance, BC ’26, was recently overheard saying something along the lines of, The Fed is starting to sound soooooooooo Gen-Alpha brainrot-core that not even JoJo Siwa would laugh at their jokes. So, what do you say, Feditors, how about one last joint Spec takedown for old time’s sake! We’ve already got the blueprints to the underground tunnel system connecting campus and Spec HQ, and enough laughing gas to put Shaquille O’Neale to sleep for weeks—Shaq has a perfectly healthy body, by the way. 

Here’s hoping that together we can put this little tiff behind us and get back to our usual dynamic where you guys make fart noises and we pretend to laugh. Love ya! 

Negative by Iris Eisenman

I’ll be honest. What you said about us hurt. It’s not every day you get outed as a broke bitch. However, a wise man once said, “get your money up, not your funny up.” Y’all took that to heart! It all comes down to priorities, people. So bringing this back to me, I would like to note that the Bwudget is nobody’s business. But if you must know, we really took a hit when the Architecture majors staged a coup of the Design Center after we had successfully colonized it for our hand-screenprinted merch line. But don’t fret, dear readers, the Uniqlo X Blue and White collab fall line merch drop will be available for pre-order with our April issue! (Releasing in May.) T-shirts, tote bags, and custom Bwundies on the way! DM @theblueandwhitemag on Instagram to let us know which masthead staff portrait you want on the ass. Members of our mailing list can also join a raffle for the one of a kind Blue and White plastic tarp corset nearly worn by Margot Robbie in Emerald Fennel’s “Wuthering Heights!”

I’ve chatted it up plenty with our sympathetic GOON, but his arguments just did not convince me. The other Bweditors feel that you took things too far this time. While they were concerned with the ideological implications of a student journalists’ civil war within an already fraught campus community or some woke shit like that, I’d prefer to focus on YOU. That’s right, this is strictly ad hominem. As the magazine’s resident Community Human Undergraduate Director (CHUD), I feel the responsibility to deliberate on the indiscretions of all campus publications. I’ve made my decision: WE’RE DONE! In fact, I’m currently using your February issue as a table wedge in Diana Center Cafe. Sometimes when I look at a copy of the Fed, I wish I had a hamster to feed it to. I can’t think of much other use for all that pulp. Seriously, in order to make room for the three (3) copies of The Blue and White we set out on distro days, I have to clear out mountains of URF (Unread Fed). Certain members of your “publication” are spreading the sentiment that The Blue and White should not be writing satire. Considering the fact that you have to pretend to be a different newspaper in order to get readership for April, it could be argued that you should not be writing anything. You might save some printing money by just publishing the headlines, since nobody has ever read past them. But don’t worry that none of your staff writers can be funny for more than one sentence! I’ve heard short-form content is so in. 

But it’s not just your articles that this CHUD is concerned with. You people sicken me. You know, the Fed X Philolexian Society overlap comes to no surprise. Standing at a podium with a captive audience is often necessary to convince people to listen to your jokes. A certain Andrew Barth, CC ’29 tried and failed to popularize the “FedoPhile” moniker to capture this intersection of campus eccentrics. But nobody embodies the label better than your very own Head Copy Editor. While I was tearing down posters for 4X4 recruitment—if I can’t join, nobody can!—and posting one (1) Blue and White poster for the whole building in the elevator bay of the Barnard Quad, a flash of a ginger mane caught the corner of my eye. That’s right, I saw you! You, lurking and preying on freshwomxn to join your sorry excuse for a copy editing team. These young ladies no longer have protection from sordid figures like yourself. You saw that empty entryway desk and sprinted up the stairs to whisper sweet nothings into the one inch gaps between the Sulz bathroom stalls. One impartial student, Neda Ravandi, BC ’29, reported waking up in the night with a looming figure standing above her head, whispering, “our syntax is so monotonous…help me, fair maiden…” Haven't these girls—sorry, womxn. Ally! I’m an ally, ladies! Haven’t they dealt with enough?