
AMS executive candidates Shane, Tanner, and Dylan, known on Instagram as Team STD, know what students really care about.
Running on a platform for alcohol affordability, access to contraception, and resolving Queen’s budget deficit, the team has amassed 430 followers on social media since its debut on Feb. 1 and have drawn “fans” from all faculties.
Hailing from Queen’s two Smith schools, Team STD’s own experiences inspired their platform. Supporters of “free love—especially on Tindal Field” and promising to “cut those balding admin who need to save money for their wedding with their third wife,” the team’s campaign is resonating with students.
For Shane, Sci ’25, resolving the budget is a priority so students can focus on “what really matters”—partying every weekend. Tanner, Comm ’24, is a self-declared trendsetter and decided to run with his first year situationship Ashley.
Rounding out the team is Dylan, whose qualifications include a multi-billionaire-CEO dad and a promise to single handedly cover up “allegations” of gentian violet use.
What isn’t at the forefront of Team STD’s campaign are the people behind Shane, Tanner, and Dylan. Students Amelia Martin, Anna Galanis, ArtSci ’24, and Matthew Barlowe, Sci ’24, brought the fictional team to life to bring students’ attention to their own governance.
“We follow Queen’s politics quite closely, but we know most people don’t. Student engagement with student politics is at a low point, so we created this account to let students know what’s going on in their community, and to poke fun at the existentially depressing situations that are happening right now,” Barlowe said in a statement to The Journal.
Barlowe equated announcing a $100 million donation the same year as a $48 million budget deficit to Queen’s own “FYRE festival” and wanted to encourage students to vote for next year’s AMS executive, all jokes aside.
The team believes students do care about their community but are recovering iPad kids and are inundated with negative news.
While they aren’t running themselves, Barlowe said the team decided to use satire to help students typically beyond the reach of student government realize the problems at Queen’s are real, valid, and should be heard of at the ballot box.
“We’re aware that taking AMS politics advice from a team named STD is like taking budget advice from ArtSci Dean Barbara Crow,” Galanis added.
Galanis encourages students to get critical of the University and think about issues impacting them and their peers such as hazing, discrimination, and budget cuts.
“Students should care about their classmates and professors whose lives are being turned upside down, and we want to (satirically) remind people these kinds of problems are not normal,” she said.
Students are engaging. Martin claimed Team STD’s Instagram profile has reached both groups of Queen’s students; the ones who are “studious and slaying that academic game (without sleeping with your TA)” and those who are “partying hard (enough to land in the COR)”. The team hopes they’ll see an impact and students will not only like Team STD’s social media posts but get out and vote in student elections.
According to its creators, Team STD would endorse AMS executive candidates truly wanting to make a difference, specifically “anyone on ComSoc who isn’t a nepo hire […] and whoever designed the hellscape that is Mack-Corry.”
Tags
AMS executive, elections 2024, satire
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