It is with great excitement that we announce today that The Haystack is nearing a deal to purchase The Williams Record. As long standing friendly rivals with great respect, admiration, and--in the words of the editor-in-chief of The Record--“burning passion in [our] loins” for each other, it is high time that the two publications become one.
Allow us to be a little more precise. The Haystack and the Record will be “becoming one” in very much the same way that a great white shark and a baby seal “become one.” The Haystack will be absorbing the Record. Violently. And we are thoroughly excited to do so!
A few minor details of the deal are still being negotiated, but there is general agreement between the two sides that the The Record will change hands in exchange for a package centered around six guest swipes and a Haystack writer to be named later. Record leadership responded to our initial offer (full text provided below for full transparency) with a few tweaks to the fine print of the deal, but with excitement that we would be taking on the responsibility of running their newspaper for them, and hopefully doing so a little more effectively than they have been. In his initial response, after calling us poor and threatening to imprison our writer Isaac Wilkins ‘22 in a storage closet, Mr. The Record expressed a desire to ensure that the deal would not place too much of a financial strain on The Haystack, and extreme eagerness to hear back from us with next steps.
Barring extreme cowardice and disregard for promises on the part of Record leadership, the deal will be finalized within a fortnight. We plan to update our many fans when the deal is complete, but you will also be able to tell by the fact that you’ll see a sudden, enormous improvement in the quality of the content in The Record.
Transcript of original offer:
Dear Mr. The Record,
We write to you on this fine afternoon with a proposition of business! Contrary to popular belief (largely driven by our public actions and statements), we are avid fans of your publication. However, we cannot help but notice that as we have worked tirelessly to improve The Haystack this year, you have seemed content to allow The Record to rot from the inside out.
Enough with the niceties: we at The Haystack would like to purchase The Williams Record. Should you accept our offer, you will retain full control over the content and daily operations of The Record, and all Record staff will retain their jobs (we know how tough the job market is for journalists these days). The Record will no longer have to prostitute itself for ad money with vulgar clickbait such as “In Defense of a Slutty Bitch,” “Hot Takes From a White Guy,” and “Faculty Vote to Change Weight of A+ to 4.00,” and instead will be completely funded by Haystack Incorporated. The Record will be given a premium Wix subscription to match that of The Haystack and replace the current, embarrassing, Record website.
Our offer, in exchange for your “newspaper,” is five dollars, six guest swipes, and Isaac Wilkins. We are prepared to make this payment in one installment, immediately upon your acceptance of our offer. We would like to warn you in advance that any complaints about this being an insufficiently large sum of money will be taken as an anti-semitic claim that we (two Jewish men) are “cheap.” Tread lightly.
You have until the end of the day to decide. If you don’t say yes by the end of the day, we will make this offer again tomorrow.
Regards,
Sam and Noah, CEOs of Haystack Inc.
Record Response:
Dearest Sam and Noah,
Well, well, what a pleasant surprise is this. For years upon years, I have been wilting away in the dearth of the iconic Haystack's attention. Today, as I awoke from a troubled slumber, I couldn't help but think, does the Haystack care about me? Does it even know I exist? Will it ever feel the same burning passion in its loins that I feel in mine?
Now I must wait no longer, for you have arrived to rescue me from financial ruin like a Prince Charming saving a maiden from her #1 Forbes-ranked ivory tower. I can see the magnificence displayed on your website before me, including but not limited to 7 Bugs We Would Fuck Before Fucking Joseph Gordon-Levitt (10 views) and Brave: This Girl Applied to Be A WOOLF Leader Despite Having No Stickers On her Nalgene (9 views). I feel further obliged to point out that at least five of those views belong to yours truly, your one and only secret admirer ;).
I will be the first to admit that the trappings of fame and responsibility have borne a heavy weight on my back, and with the Haystack's purchase of the Record, our newspaper's resulting irrelevance would be a dream come true. After all, why should we publish stories describing the fundamental reworking of student government when we could instead complain about how "My Boob fell out during This Chemistry Final" and lap up the nine resulting views like milk from a saucer? With the five dollars you provide us, we may even be able to accompany that text with a picture that isn't a Dreamstime.com shutterstock image.
Sadly, we must decline your offer, as we have no interest at all in Isaac Wilkins. For one, I don't know where we would put him except in our storage closet, which is already filled with 300 copies of FAST's bylaws and all my spare lube. In addition, I cannot in good conscience accept your five dollars -- given the current state of your website, it would be likely to bankrupt you. This breaks my heart, as I'm sure it breaks yours, and I eagerly await hearing your response six months from now, when you release your next original content.
Best,
Sam The Record (Mr. The Record is my father's name)
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