The Maneater, the award-winning student newspaper at the University of Missouri, has long been a place for talented and likely-to-be-successful journalists to collaborate with mediocre writers whose hearts will eventually be broken. Unfortunately for the paper, the name, which has been theirs for over 50 years has recently come under heavy fire from the Women’s Center. As a result of this, the paper was forced to change its name to The Personeater.
“The name implied that men were tastier and more nutritious than women,” Sandy Courts of the Women’s Center said. “That idea is sexist and not necessarily true.”
Of course, it’s confusing why the Women’s Center waited so long to make the move, especially given the fury with which they attacked the student-run publication. Courts, who lead the initiative, said that this just felt like the right time to strike. No other information about the timing was given.
Though the Women’s Center championed the movement for the name change, the de facto Men’s Center, otherwise known as “The Pump Room,” was excited about the decision to change the moniker.
“I wasn’t particularly a fan of being targeted for cannibalism,” Jordan Husk said. “I mean, cannibalism on its own is totally fine. I just don’t like the fact that men were being targeted. Equal opportunity and all that.”
Though the editorial staff of The Personeater unilaterally declined comment on the incident, an anonymous staff writer, who was in the office at the time of the deliberation, was frightened by the events that took place.
“It looked like someone had given our current congress machetes and cocaine and then just let them at it,” the writer said. “I’m not sure what the final vote tally was, but I know it was close, and I know there was an attempt to bring in Vice President Joe Biden in to make the final decision.”
Upon further research, it was discovered that Biden was busy working in a small town in eastern Wyoming, listening to cases for both Heads as well as Tails. That verdict is still unknown.
Though appeasing lobbying groups is the most important thing to any journalism organization this side of the damnation of Comic Sans MS, the general student body is not a demographic that can be forgotten in the aftermath of the redubbing fiasco.
According to a Campus Basement poll, 85% of the students “didn’t really care” and would still “probably take it if someone tried to hand it to me, and maybe look at the pictures and headlines too,” while 10% answered “She’s a man eater, make you work hard, make you sweat heard, make you want all her love,” and the remaining five suggested that Hall & Oates sue both of them and resolve to singing “that song from (500) Days of Summer.”
