Over the past year, The Pressure, known on Instagram as @osuthepressure, has turned heads through posting satires of The Daily Barometer articles and Oregon State University communications, which students heavily re-share on their Instagram stories.
Their initial satirical post was poking fun at Oregon State’s “Believe it” campaign, which raised enough money to cover tuition for all, but decided to spend the money elsewhere. Since then, they have gained over 900 followers and post more in-depth stories based on student submissions.
The Pressure, it seems, has found a way to engage the community in a unique manner.
The Instagram account and its corresponding website creates satirical content on everything from the bear that was seen last month on campus (“College of Forestry to Hire Bear as Associate Professor”) to Counseling and Psychological Services’s long waitlist (“Oregon State University to Replace CAPS Therapists with ChatGPT”).
The students behind The Pressure have asked to remain anonymous as they are not ready to reveal who is behind the account. According to The Pressure, there are a couple of students who regularly submit story ideas and a few who are more heavily involved with managing the Instagram account.
Inspired by their love for The Onion, an online news outlet that publishes satirical content surrounding national and global events, the students behind The Pressure saw an opportunity in the headlines of The Daily Barometer that “had seemed ripe for satire,” contributors to The Pressure wrote in an email.
A year into their account, The Pressure has been thinking about working on deeper coverage of events.
Recently, they published an Instagram post covering the history of ‘The Crane’, a construction crane used in the building of the Student Experience Center in 2014 that gained a bit of a cult following during its time on campus.
The Pressure also made their first non-satire post over the past few weeks, creating a post surrounding ASOSU’s senate resolution calling for the university to divest from Israel-affiliated companies, the encampment and ASOSU’s forums following the resolution.
Of course, with the account’s initial creation stemming from The Daily Barometer headlines, The Pressure has not escaped the attention of the student-run newspaper.
“I like their Instagram account, their headlines are funny and have actually made me laugh out loud,” said Alexander Banks, assistant editor for The Daily Barometer. “They also seem to get really good engagement for their amount of followers.”
The editor-in-chief of The Daily Barometer declined to comment.
In addition to getting ideas from The Daily Barometer headlines, the students also get many of their story ideas from what they observe on campus, Reddit posts and through looking at satire pages from other colleges, such as the University of Maryland College Park’s The Hare or Stanford Flipside.
About half of their current posts stem from student suggestions, and many of their posts address concerns and frustrations students have with the university.
“It is no secret that much of our satire has a political slant to it,” contributors to The Pressure wrote in an email. “We believe satire is an incredibly useful political tool, and so many of our posts cover or satirize political events.”
Many students, such as Sam Felstad, a first-year electrical and computer engineering major, feel that the “alternative” nature of The Pressure makes for more entertaining content than traditional news, bringing in audiences that may otherwise not pay attention.
“I think (The Pressure) brings attention to events and issues to a wider range of students,” Felstad said.
Felstad said he only follows The Daily Barometer on Instagram, reading only the content of their posts, saying he pays more attention to The Pressure.
“I find satire much more engaging as a medium,” Felstad said.
Even with the satirical nature, some students find that there is an air of truth to the posts.
“Even though it’s not ‘real news’ they talk about things happening at OSU and express opinions that many students share, even if it’s in a joking, satirical way,” said Alexia Follet, third-year mechanical engineering major.
Follet said that as a satire account, she thinks their posts and articles shouldn’t be taken too seriously, but like Felstad, finds value in their satire as a form of entertainment.
To submit a story suggestion, DM @osuthepressure on Instagram.
