Hey everyone! At the time you are reading this (at 10:03 pm as God intended), results are in from the AMS election! I’m sure you’ll be able to find results from The Ubyssey, if you weren’t there yourself. Hopefully nothing too crazy happened! Anyways, let’s get into it. I’m just gonna throw some general thoughts about these past few weeks at you.

General Thoughts

I figured I’d jot down some of my thoughts on this election season and the Barry “Bee” Buzzword campaign in general. Really just sort of random thoughts I’ve had through all of this.

I Really Don’t Like Reddit

I mean, I’m sure having burner accounts downvote everything en mass didn’t help. But just in general, I don’t think I vibe that hard with Redditting frequently. Happy to lurk, but I’m not about that posting every day life. Also media literacy is so rough.

I Really Like the Newsletter

I feel so incredibly old evangelizing newsletters and RSS feeds in the age of social media and algorithms. But I think that now more than ever, being able to connect with people without a tech billionaire deciding what’s worth your attention is so incredibly important. People replying to the newsletter and reaching out to me has felt better than… basically any social media interaction I’ve ever had.

I think I’ve got a whole Main Story in me about newsletters and blogs, but for now: I think all you nerds should unironically start personal newsletters. It really is a great time (but maybe don’t commit to daily emails. It’s been like… a major commitment and stressor for me these past couple weeks haha).

People Are Cool

I’ve met and interacted with so many wonderful people this campaign. The fantastic people at The Ubyssey, so many candidates who all seem like great people, and—of course—my stage wife /u/sasamats. Y’all have made this a real great time. Truly such a fun two weeks. I’m so grateful for everyone who is following along with these emails, has talked to me, or sent me a message about the campaign.

What’s Next

Well, I’m writing this under the assumption that either Drédyn or Riley wins the presidential race. And if that isn’t the case… who the fuck knows. Feel free to ignore everything I’ve ever written.

The Website (ubussy.ca, if you don’t remember)

I’m going to try to leave it up for a while, but eventually, I’ll archive the site. Once that happens, I’ll set ubussy.ca up to redirect to ubyssey.ca (unless Sam Low has a really funny idea for the ubussy.ca domain name). For all pages on my site that are linked to by The Ubyssey, I’ll try to set up a page letting folks know about the archive and letting them go either to the archive or to ubyssey.ca. I don’t know if I’ll actually be able to get that to work, but I’ll try.

I’m also going to do my best to get the AMS archives to at least accept the source code for my website (I think maybe the archivist assistant is on this mailing list???). Something that has really annoyed me recently is that there is very little preservation of campaign materials, so it can be difficult to reference claims people made while campaigning (outside of Ubyssey coverage). So I’ll try to change that—at least for my campaign. We’ll see what I’m able to do on that front.

This Newsletter

As I said before, I’ve been a big fan of the newsletter action that’s been happening. I think it’d be nice to continue it—though certainly not at the current daily pace. I’m going to take this weekend off and will be back with an email on Monday (at 10:03 pm, as is customary). I haven’t yet decided on the frequency or whether or not there will even be a schedule. But I don’t think there’s a world in which I plan to regularly publish more than twice a week. I’ll update y’all Monday.

The AMS

I’d like to take this chance to congratulate [INSERT WINNER] on their election as AMS President—pending council approval, of course. I hope that this next year of the AMS is calmer, for all our sakes. Also, [INSERT WINNER], you should up the council food. Maybe add some Blue Chip cookies for dessert, that’s all I’m saying.

Other News

Reddit

I’m freeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee. I’m so glad not to have the expectation (from myself lmao) to engage on that website.

Not To Be Gay On Main…

But uhhhh… the demo version of “Fantastic” from Arcane released today. I’m pretty excited, personally. Those two lesbians have such a special place in my heart.

That’s All

It’s been a pleasure everyone. Just a real joy these past couple weeks. As a reminder, this newsletter will be off the next two days, but we’ll be back on Monday. Maybe a little Ubyssey date recap? (As I’m writing this, I think maybe they’ll turn me down because of their silly little “journalistic integrity.” But I think it’s been well established this year that “dating the AMS President” doesn’t count as a conflict of interest for any purpose, so we’ll see what happens). Or maybe something else!

Until Monday at 10:03 pm, buzz on, my busy bees!