After three months of your boring internship and two weeks of your friends having to hear about it, school’s in full swing and Punch Bowl’s back to publishing journalism so profound its very presence in DRL newsstands makes it shine like a thousand suns. If you’re new to Punch Bowl, welcome! Did you have a nice summer? That sounds fun! If you’re a regular Punch Bowl reader, welcome back, blood relatives of Punch Bowl columnists! Whether you’re a confused freshman or my paternal grandmother, let me take this opportunity to introduce you to the inner workings of the Pennsylvania Punch Bowl.
Here at the Punch Bowl, we get down to the nitty-gritty and ask the hard-hitting questions (see actual Punch Bowl article, “Why I’m Marrying a South-Korean Pop Star”). We investigate the nature of the Penn community and tackle the big issues on campus (like “Things You Could Steal from Van Pelt”). Most importantly, we are motivated only by the truth and are completely unbiased (read this piece of premium journalism that I wrote last year called “Area Man Can Find the Size of Any Two-Dimensional Shape,” it really needs hits).
The Pennsylvania Punch Bowl operates using a two-pronged comedy distribution system. Comedy is mined at an offshore rig, refined, packaged and stored in the silo of Huntsman hall. During weekly meetings, the Wharton undergrad with the best haircut selects a package at random and tests it for purity. Once approved, the comedy is delivered in daily articles and seasonal magazines.
Articles
Daily articles take a variety of forms. A popular form for semiliterate humans is the listicle, a BuzzFeed creation where items are enumerated in order of how much you can’t wait to find out about them. The unfortunately-named listicle, like BuzzFeed, is unnecessary, cheap, and utterly uninspired material for the lowest common denominator. We at the Punch Bowl cannot do math, do not know what a denominator is, and therefore will post listicles frequently for your viewing pleasure.
Other articles will take up a journalistic tone in an attempt to juxtapose a ridiculous fictional news premise with the authority of real reporting. If this sounds familiar, it is because there is an entire farcical news source dedicated to this very style: the Onion. So far, we have achieved scallion-level reporting, and hope to work our way up the root vegetable ranking system of premier satirical news.
Other more free-form articles may venture into the “slightly-informative” domain, such as this one you’re reading. These articles are marked by their own distinct Punch Bowl style. One Punch Bowl classic is cramming in a simile that’s too long for the sentence just to make a weak joke, like that one guy who gets on the packed Rodin elevator who “thinks he can make it” but after the fifth time the elevator closes on his foot he finally squeezes in and then proceeds to hit the button for the second floor. Another Punch Bowl M.O. is a good pun; I’ve been sitting on “The ShakeShack Redemption” for about 10 months now. And surely a Punch Bowl columnists can’t resist a well-timed reference to an obscure and outdated political event (please laugh).
To read more articles, kindly visit: https://pennpunchbowl.com/
Or – to be inundated with a constant wave of low- to medium-quality comedy that will, at the very least, space out the autoplay videos in your newsfeed – “like” the Pennsylvania Punchbowl at: https://www.facebook.com/pennpunchbowl/
Have an idea for a funny article? Email us at thepunchbowl@gmail.com
Magazines
The renowned Pennsylvania Punchbowl Magazine is published seasonally or – given that Philadelphia weather consists solely of blistering heat and a cold, dreary, wet state that can only be described as “meh” – we print whenever we get around to it. For these magazines, the Punch Bowl staff devotes itself entirely to one particular subject and beats it down until there is not one iota of humor remaining. Examples range from the tasteful Winter 2009 issue, “The New! Great Depression” to the not-so-tasteful Spring 2005 issue, “Punch Bowl’s Traumatic Childhood” (oh, how far we’ve come).
Look out for the Fall 2016 issue under the button, inside a Commons hamburger, underneath the floorboards of the Palestra, sitting alone at Smokey Joe’s, nowhere within 100 feet of a public school or playground, floating in the Schuylkill, tanning on College Green, on the SEPTA, doing yoga in the Quad, or in a library near you.