If you are reading this, you’re probably a little bit of a weirdo. That, or whoever gave you this magazine most definitely is.
I referenced Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland in my application to be Street’s editor–in–chief last December. A caterpillar asks Alice, “Who are you?” to which Alice responds, “I—I hardly know, sir, just at present—at least I know who I was when I got up this morning, but I think I must have been changed several times since then.”
I was trying to come up with some cohesive definition of Street, and quoting a children’s book seemed to be the closest I could get. Over the past year, I have stammered and blanked when trying to explain what exactly it is that I spend most of my time on campus doing. An arts and culture magazine? Sure, whatever that means. An alt–weekly? Get me a walkman. The “New Yorker of Penn”? Aspirationally.
Rumor has it, there was a point in the early aughts when Street as an institution was blacklisted from almost every campus party. We name–dropped some people doing coke at a frat party. You know, the real muckraking stuff. Street was a really close–knit group of people back then—call it trauma bonding. Around that time, Street invented the word sceney—which is perhaps the biggest indicator that we were anything but. After all, you only create new adjectives to describe something you are not.
If I were to honestly define Street, I would describe it as the light that draws the amorphous collection of freakazoids and nerds and losers like moths to a flame. You know, the people who watch over a hundred movies a year because they have nothing better to do. People who love MJ Lenderman, but deep down know he’ll never be the Dave Matthews of our generation. People who want to co–parent a rat. People who hear about their friends recruiting, and instead of trying to graduate with some form of employment, choose to write about it instead. People who go to parties and secretly review them in their head instead of getting wasted like a normal person (or the exact problem is that their inebriated instinct is to become a curmudgeon reviewer).
Street seems to bend the rules of behavioral economics. This is a group of people who dedicate investment–banking hours with no compensation and benefits to create a magazine that I’m convinced maybe a few dozen people read. It’s that passion that makes us freaks. And it’s that passion that makes me love these people and this community so much. Street is far from a utopia—in fact, there were moments this past year when I was convinced some higher power was testing me. But it is a special place, and it is the place that made me who I am during my time at Penn. For me, it is far more meaningful to graduate from Street, I think, than anything else.
This is the last issue of Street that will have the names of me, Jules, and Insia on the masthead. The last issue I will be obliged to pass out during rush hour on Locust Walk. And while I’m excited to have back at least 60 hours a week, there’s no doubt I will miss my misfits. If I ever complained about Street, former editor–in–chief Walden Green (C ’24) would tell me: You will never have another chance to create something so meaningful with your friends and put it out in the world. Perhaps the same can be said about any a cappella or sketch comedy group, members of which I’m sure might read this and declare that they, too, dedicate far more time than is reasonable to their chosen futile pursuit. Maybe the Wharton School is wrong. Maybe there are no rules of rational behavior, and deep down, we all just want to embarrass ourselves for the sake of creating something meaningful.
