Local Spotlight: The Eggplant FSU

By Nicole Minski on October 27, 2014

If you have been on the Internet in the past few months (which you definitely have), you may have noticed some questionable articles relating to Florida State and the surrounding Tallahassee area. No, I’m not referring to the always-present trash talking of Florida State’s precious Seminoles but rather something more eye-catching than that. You can thank FSU junior Aubrey Burrough and senior Houston Barber for adding some local color and humor to the monotonous dribble that encompasses a Facebook news feed. This comedy duo is responsible for Florida State’s first and only satirical online news source, The Eggplant.

The Eggplant can be seen as the younger, hotter sister to the nationally-known satirical news source, the Onion, although the two actually have no connection. It turns out this vegetable title was actually discovered by chance while browsing through emojis, finding the eggplant to be the most amusing.

“Originally I don’t think it had much to do with copying The Onion, we just thought that the eggplant was funny and decided to call it that. But then it sort of worked because [the Eggplant] is like the Onion as well,” Barber admitted. Burrough also added that it was important for them to be able to have an emoji that would represent their name.

The idea of starting the Eggplant was mutually shared between the pair. Fortunately, they were able to see their dream through. During the early stages of development, they noticed that not only was there no satirical news source for the Tallahassee region, nothing like this existed anywhere in the South. This factor lead to some doubts.

“We didn’t really expect this,” said Barber. “We didn’t think anyone would want to read it at all, that it would just be a fun thing for us to do but then people started to read it and enjoyed what we were doing. It grew really fast.”

And fast did it grow. The Eggplant was officially founded in February 2014, where it began as a Tumblr page under the same name. It wasn’t until this current semester that The Eggplant made the transition from Tumblr to Facebook, where their following grew from 50 readers to over 5,000. Some other national satirical sites have even dubbed The Eggplant as the future of online satire writing, “setting the bar for college satire.” Followers, particularly Florida State students, have been extremely supportive.

Shockingly, the star and focus of the news source, Florida State University, has yet to make any sort of recognition or comment about the articles published.

“We try to definitely be critical of Florida State because I think that’s a voice that’s not around campus, especially from students a lot,” said Barber. “We always want to be counter to what the mainstream line of thinking is.”

With article titles such as, ‘FSU Suspends Jameis Winston for the First Half of Clemson Game in Attempt to Keep Stadium Full Entire Time’ and ‘Interim President Garnett Stokes Runs on Strong Platform of Not Being John Thraser,’ it’s easy to see that the pair is just in it for the laughs.

Having a school that is constantly being put in both the local and national spotlights definitely makes Burrough and Barber’s jobs easier, aiding their effective usage of proximity and comedy to appeal to readers.

“I could kiss Jameis Winston on the face for everything,” Burrough jokes.

Even though it’s all about jokes, she continues, everything is grounded in facts. It is important to the team that they are backing up their comedy with true statements and claims.

In addition to remaining truthful, both of the Eggplant founders stress the importance of keeping any personal bias or political agenda out of every article. Instead of pushing a particular or personal side of an issue, the writers stress the importance of presenting an opposite point of view from what people are thinking.

“Our job is to make people laugh, it’s not to push a political agenda,” Burrough notes. “We’re not going to stick to one side, we’re going to make fun of everyone.”

Both Burrough and Barber have a history in making people laugh. The two met one another working as writers for Florida State’s own variety, comedy sketch show called Seminole Night Life, an ode to NBC’s Saturday Night Live. This past experience, in junction with both of their English majors, stemmed the idea and desire to provide the students of FSU with this satirical news source. Additionally, several of the sketch writers from Seminole Night Life made the transition as well from script writing to satire writing.

The Eggplant continues to grow and expand its reach. “We’ve talked about maybe me and one other person going on the road and trying to start an Eggplant UF or Eggplant Clemson,” Barber said. While the possibilities are endless, Barber notes that the reason why the site became as successful as it has is because it is so FSU-oriented. Burrough chimes in, “Maybe different vegetable for each school, like the UF Artichoke.” Aubrey Burrough and Huston Barber have a nation rich in news to plant their satirical seeds, its only a matter of time before they grow a garden of comedy.

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