Editor’s note: The following is a satirical article for The DisreGuardian, a series of articles published annually for The Guardian’s April Fool’s issue. Features will resume publishing normal content next week.
When ninth-year graduate student Gully Bull arrived home after a grueling day of signing petitions on Library Walk during finals week, they were shocked to see what topics they had advocated for.
On March 20, Bull received an email from the company SignOurPetitionOrDie alleging they had signed a petition in support of microchips in influenza vaccines at Student Health Services. Bewildered and sickened, Bull reached out to their similarly people-pleaser friend, first-year Teribithia Joseph — who had also signed the petitions that day — to see if she had received the same email. To Joseph’s surprise, her petition rallied for mandatory ketamine injections at the beginning of every quarter for students.
“When I checked my inbox, I thought it was a phishing email because the subject line just said, ‘You Just Made an Amazing Contribution to Democracy,’” Bull said.
This discovery begs the question of just how many students unknowingly signed off on similar campaigns.
“I mean, I couldn’t just walk past them,” Bull said. “I heard from a friend that these petitioners genuinely believe in the issues they are platforming, and it made me feel for them — until I realized what was actually on their forms.”
The company’s website consists solely of sample text boxes from Squarespace templates and clearly AI-generated employee profiles. Their CEO, Eve Elle Laydee, refused to comment on the petitions or the unfinished website in an email response to The UCSD Guardian.
“Leave me alone,” Laydee wrote. “Stop harassing me. Please take up this issue with my supervisors.” There are currently no supervisors above Laydee at SignOurPetitionOrDie.
When asked about the lack of clarity in their petitions, SignOurPetitionOrDie petitioners on Library Walk had various comments about the issues they were gathering signatures for.
“I don’t know,” fourth-year Steven Skeleton said, pausing to hit his vape. “I honestly just get wired the money at the end of the day and scooter home. I don’t actually care about the issues.”
Another petitioner agreed to a more extensive interview with The Guardian.
“Wait, use a cool fake name for me,” the second-year student said. “I’m exposing serious company secrets here.”
McLovin alleged that the company is an information-collecting scheme to steal students’ identities. Fortunately, the operation has so far been unsuccessful due to the CEO’s “incompetence.” According to the student, Laydee keeps all student information in a Google Sheet, which she has accidentally deleted four times over the past year. These persistent mistakes, alongside The Guardian’s concurrent investigation into the company’s legitimacy, led them to discontinue operations at UCSD, as students were reportedly “smarter than they first assumed.”
“I’m honestly relieved, because I’m kind of in a situationship with an older coworker at the company — that’s how I got the job in the first place,” McLovin said. “And once I get laid off, I won’t have to see her ever again.”
When asked for clarification as to how he came to work at SignOurPetitionOrDie, McLovin said, “Yeah, I mean, it’s pretty exclusive. Like, you won’t find the company on Glassdoor or anything, you know? It’s the kind of job you get just because you know a guy, or a cougar in my case.”
The company’s unclear intentions and subsequent discontinuation of activities on campus led to mixed reactions among students on the r/UCSD subreddit. Some wished that they could receive ketamine at the beginning of every quarter, and others were confused, thinking that they had already received the microchip injection from the Student Health Center.
“At the end of the day, this is just embarrassing for me,” Bull said. “But hey, it’s not every day that I can say I got interviewed by a newspaper. What’s your paper’s name again?”
