Old Owls and Older Owls,
I write to you with Old Owl roosting in his terrible mountain fortress, having quarantined together since last March. Instead of flying to New Haven as he’s done every year since 1872, Old Owl has remained at his mountain lair and been participating in all owl-related activities over Zoom, well provisioned with moles and Cutty Sark brand blended Scots whisky.
But many of the Record Alumni have been curious about what The Yale Record and our Record Alums have been up to in this year of pandemic. Last year we couldn’t meet in person but we managed to have a few Zoom events including:
2 Stand Stand Up Nights: Yale Club of New York and the New England Society of Brooklyn
Interviews with Alums: David Litt and River Clegg
3 Student/Alumni Game Nights over Zoom
Thank You for Donating
For those of you who could donate this year, thank you for giving to the YRC in these difficult times. As you can imagine, the COVID-19 pandemic has dried up the already anemic New Haven ad market, hindered staff recruitment, and made it impossible for The Yale Record staff to meet in person. Without alumni support, these impacts could have hindered the students for years. Thank you for coming through with your support this year.
In addition to directly supporting the student magazine, the YRC also preserves The Yale Record archives, administers prizes, and organizes alumni gatherings (including digital events).
If you haven't donated recently, or if you'd like to up your pledge, please Give a Hoot and support The Yale Record at https://www.yalerecordcorporation.org/donate where you can make a one-time or recurring donation.
An Update from Sam Leone 2021-2022 Chair of the Yale Record
Over the last year, the Record has continued to do what it does best—be very old. We also write humor. And as it turns out, this coronavirus business has made writing humor pretty complicated. Despite constant, off-the-charts funny jokes, Zoom has made even our meetings a little awkward. Our most important times of year—Harvard-Yale, Bulldog Days, and the First Year Club Fair—were all either canceled or had to be completely revamped.
In the virtual format, threats of violence were useless for recruiting. But we were still able to bring in quite a few first-year heelers (who completed all the staff requirements!) to the Record. In a virtual initiation, our heelers attended "orientation" as interns at the CIA during its plot to overthrow the pope in Vatican City. The new staff members wrote Mission Report Mad Libs, interrogated potential moles, and told two truths and a lie about themselves. We at the CIA, of course, were able to supply them the truths and lies. And what about our future heelers? We also held our online Bulldog Days event—“Pizza with the Yale Record." Although it was "bring your own pizza" (COVID beat us on this one), it was a big hit with members of the class of 2025, who helped write staff pieces for the soon-to-be-released First-Year Issue. All in all, we gained nearly 20 prospective writers from this event alone!
Speaking of print issues, coronavirus has forced us to essentially stop distribution of hard copies. Few of our staff members were on campus at any given moment, and apparently, it’s hard to drop magazines off at dining halls when you’re locked out of the whole residential college. But if you’re not tired of the internet yet, all of our issues are freely available at this link. And for the first time, we’ve made individual articles from issues easily accessible on the website. One might notice this feature if they were to peruse the freshly released Poetry Book and Class Warfare Issue. If we had a press, these would be hot off the press! Here are some highlights!
We also recently put out this year’s 24-Hour Issue! Typically, the writing staff gets together and writes the issue, from beginning to end, over the course of 24 hours (normally in a buttery or game room, or in 2019, an alumni-funded retreat!). This year, we outdid ourselves in the online format, and churned the 24-Hour Issue in just over 3 months.
The Record has also been upping its online presence over the last year! Not only have we still been churning out Record-exclusive online features, but we’ve been booming on social media! Over 1,000 followers on Instagram were gained from social media posts this year. Check out our recent content on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. If you haven't already, follow us too!
So this year was certainly different from others. But different doesn’t necessarily mean worse. It does here though! We here at the Record are pretty sick of COVID and are super excited to get back into action this Fall! We have a brand new Eboard! And they’re hard at work on our annual First-Year Issue as well as the Yale Record Goes to Therapy Issue. So stay tuned for jokes as we enter a very exciting year. Exciting how, you ask? This year is the 150th anniversary of the Record! Time sure does fly. We can't wait to celebrate with you all, at what I assume will be Madison Square Garden or some similar venue. Looking forward to yet another year of funny business!
Hoot,
Sam Leone
Chair
A Yale Record Prank Hits the Front Page of the New York Times
