The front page of the latest edition of “Fang Fortnightly” reads “Places to Poop,” a review of the top bathrooms on campus with the Johnson Student Center bathroom ranking 10/10. These are the matters covered by “The Fang,” a satire magazine and one of the oldest clubs on Occidental College’s campus according to its president, Lillian Calvert (junior).
Calvert said that “The Fang” publishes a full zine semesterly but has recently started to release a newspaper edition called “Fang Fortnightly,” roughly every two weeks. According to Calvert, these editions will give younger members a chance to find their voices in comedy writing.
“It’s nice having Fortnightly because if something happens, we’re able to immediately comment on it instead of having to wait like four months to release our full [zine],” Calvert said.
Calvert said “The Fang” does a lot of satire about Occidental as a way of challenging the power structures in a nonconventional way.
“I don’t think it’s anything groundbreaking, but I think it’s making people laugh,” Calvert said. “It’s sort of pushing a little bit against Oxy and some of the decisions of [administration] and just giving a voice to students. It’s critical in a way that’s not trying to be negative.”
According to Calvert, this year’s club membership for “The Fang” rose to around 20 members from six to eight in previous years, with many first years becoming involved.
Fiona Dosanjh (first year) is a new member who wrote an article in the “Fang Fortnightly” called “Stories from Hicksville.” In the article, Dosanjh tells the tale of what parties are like in rural areas, where pick-up trucks and flannel shirts dominate the scene. Dosanjh said she’s never written for a magazine before, but that she is currently trying to write a movie and enjoys coming up with sketch comedy ideas.
“I grew up in a very small town, like 3,000 people, so I just thought it was funny — the comparison between there and here,” Dosanjh said.
Charlotte Cattaneo (senior) serves as vice president of the club and said “The Fang” is working on finalizing roles for people within the club. Dosanjh said she thinks the editing process for “Fortnightly” was more rushed than the semesterly zine, and only about 35 copies were printed as part of the soft launch.
“I’m really excited this year because we have a lot of new members who are passionate about the work and want to work, and that’s definitely new for us,” Cattaneo said. “The fact that we even got out a Fortnightly, and we’re already working on our second one feels like a miracle.”
Calvert said “The Fang” likes to comment on the social life and parties at Occidental or the lack thereof. She said there is something inherently satirical about being an Occidental student.
At a recent club meeting for “The Fang,” Calvert said that members started discussing their least favorite doors on campus. The result? An article for “Fang Fortnightly” titled “Door Vendettas,” which included grievances about the handleless Writing Center doors in the Academic Commons.
“It’s kind of spitballing, going off each other’s ideas and building on each other’s experiences,” Calvert said.
According to Calvert, the theme for the zine that will be published later this semester is “Vices.” Recently, the club decided on a theme for next semester’s zine which, according to Cattaneo, will be “The Man.”
“We tried to choose words, or a series of words, that can be interpreted really generally and taken multiple ways,” Calvert said.
According to Cattaneo, “The Fang” was not technically a club in 2021 when she joined, so it did not receive any funding.
“We did a bunch of fundraisers for $1. Most of them were things that people should not have charged money for at all, like we did xylophone serenades and there were two kids in our club who just brought a bouncy ball,” Cattaneo said. “For $1 you could play with the bouncy ball and it popped within the first 20 minutes.”
According to Cattaneo, “The Fang” now does a bracelet fundraiser every year where they make beaded bracelets with silly phrases on them. She said that the rest of the funding outside of fundraising comes from ASOC.
Calvert said that in the early days of “The Fang,” comedy was often at the expense of other people, specifically minority groups. “The Fang” was originally founded in 1946. According to Calvert, when she joined “The Fang” during the 2021-2022 school year, there was a debate about changing the name to avoid being associated with that kind of humor. Cattaneo said that rather than ignoring that history, they felt it was more important to turn “The Fang” into something positive.
“Being one of the oldest publications on campus, it obviously had older humor, and also the kind of humor that you would expect from a white expensive college,” Cattaneo said. “We talk a lot about how to do humor consciously, how to do it with purpose, trying to make sure that none of our jokes are targeted at a group of people.”
Cattaneo said “The Fang” tries to avoid falling back on comedy that relies on shock value. If members of the club are uncomfortable with certain jokes, they always have discussions about them, as she said they have many months to plan the larger zines. Cattaneo said “The Fang” usually ends up printing and distributing the zine the semester after they work on it, and the zines tend to be around 30 pages based on the amount of content they receive.
According to Calvert, “The Fang” takes open submissions for content (illustrations and articles) for both the semesterly zine and the “Fang Fortnightly.” As Calvert signed off the latest edition of “Fortnightly,” “Get ready to see a lot more of FANG.”
Contact Ava LaLonde at lalonde@oxy.edu
