The Creators of ASGossip
Brian Bender (Speech ‘98)
Matt Springer (CAS ‘98)

ASGossip Thanks:

Every one of our contributors, informants, reporters
and all of the candidates for getting involved!

• Karl-Dieter Crisman
  
  
• Adam Grayson
  
  
• Nelly Khidekel
  
  
• Roxanne Ong
  
  
• Chris Peterson
  
  

At last, the ASG election season is over. We can all resume our pathetic and empty lives. When the ASG campaigns were on the cusp of their beginnings, Brian and I thought long and hard to figure out some way to involve ourselves in the process. After working as co-campaign managers on Karl-Dieter Crisman’s Academic VP campaign last year, we had been bitten by the bug. We couldn’t sit idly while the parade passed us by; we had to get involved.

Hence, ASGossip was born. Why? We didn't know quite what would happen, that’s why. We were both fascinated by the idea of attempting to introduce a new variable into the ASG campaign process, and excited by the possibility of lighting some proverbial fires beneath the candidates’ behinds.

Did we accomplish these goals? Somewhat. Because we’re thick sometimes, we didn’t properly anticipate the sense of doubt with which our work would be greeted at first. We also underestimated the investigative abilities of The Daily, who tracked my involvement to the site very quickly. And we underestimated the intense nights of work drumming up stories, writing and doing HTML; we ended up spending as much time putting together this site as we had spent last year running an actual campaign. And we underestimated the ethical questions of deciding which stories to pursue and run, and which tidbits would be best left unsaid.

On the other hand, we’ve had a massive readership over the past two weeks, we’ve received a lot of compliments on our work, and we like to think we’ve added to the campaign process with our analysis of the debates, the websites, and various campaign details. So it went well (at least as well as Malaki’s presidential campaigns).

We’re both seniors, so neither of us will be around next year to poke around the elections again. But if anyone’s interested in taking up our mantle for next year’s elections, drop us a line and we’ll talk about it. And if you want to continue following our breathtaking creative efforts, don’t miss Pop-Culture-Corn Magazine! Our new issue debuts on May 1st.

That’s it for us. Thanks to all who read us and gave us one final burst of glory before we plod off into the depressingly real post-graduation world. Thanks to all those who contributed to the site…you each know what you did. Thanks especially to all those listed below, whose help went above and beyond the call of duty. Adam Grayson helped with some early web design issues, and went on to write as well. Karl-Dieter Crisman and Chris Peterson provided some essential campaign coverage. Nelly Khidekel spent more hours than were healthy for her studies talking campus politics with us, providing crucial insights and the occassional impersonation. And Roxanne Ong became a guiding star of sorts for our work here. Knowing that she appreciated and understood what we were trying to do from day one was a huge inspiration; the fact that someone whose work we respected a lot also respected our work gave us a constant incentive to put together the finest product we could. (Yeah, that’s schmaltzy, but it’s true. So sue me.)

As we ride off into the cold, dark night of NU obscurity, we bid each of you a fond farewell. We’ll see you at Pop-Culture-Corn, and if not, we’ll see you on the other side.

Sincerely,

P.S. Ariel—we knew about Janda.