Unfortunately, the most offensive thing about the pisser isn’t how gross it is, or the act of urinating on campus, it’s how lazy it is.
On 21 July 356 BC, the day Alexander the Conqueror was born, the Second Temple of Artemis was destroyed. This was no act of god. A man, named Herostratus, had destroyed it. His reason? To immortalize his name.
The Greek authorities at the time reacted quickly. Execution, and a new punishment, damnatio memoriae. He was to be wiped from history. Clearly, over 2000 years later, it failed.
The spirit of Herostratus walks among us in every unoriginal, offensive, meme and trend, and in all those who seek their fifteen minutes of fame. The most recent Herostratic trend has reached our campus. Will any of us remember the uOttawa Pisser?
On Sept 17, a reel was posted to the Instagram account @theuottawapisser, showing someone ‘pissing’ on the Learning Crossroads sign. Within days, the ‘uOttawa Pisser’ had committed this act six times. It may be a reach to compare the University of Ottawa campus’ grey concrete terrain with the Temple of Artemis, but the facts remain. This Pisser, whoever it is, seeks infamy through the defilement of the common good; it is a lazier act than burning a temple.
And unfortunately, the most offensive thing about the Pisser isn’t how gross it is, or the act of urinating on campus, it’s how lazy it is.
University ‘pisser’ accounts have exploded across North America; dozens of campuses have their own variation semi-anonymously peeing on landmarks. Kansas’ Ottawa University, for which we are often mistaken, had its own variation of the pisser first. The Concordian, in an op-ed on their copy-cat pisser, claimed that the original pisser was started by a Boston College student. And that is what is so disappointing about this latest trend: it’s gross for the sake of being gross, and so deeply unoriginal.
It is almost not worth talking about the ‘uOttawa Pisser’ because there is no pisser. It is, in all likelihood, some first or second year with a water bottle, recording themselves spraying signs on campus while they giggle.
Of course, on some campus’ arrests have been made where students did actually engage in public urination and record themselves. Maybe our Pisser is brave enough to actually do it, but I doubt it.
By writing this article I am probably giving them what they want, but who cares. Trends will come and go; in my time at the University of Ottawa I have seen a dozen ‘uOttawa (insert trend here)’ accounts —from high school-esque confession accounts, to meme pages—rise and fall. I watched as university students flipped a car, and the outrage that followed, none of us remember their names.
The uOttawa Pisser will be a joke we laugh about for a couple of weeks and then bring up years later when they laugh at the vain inanity of youth. The uOttawa Pisser will join the ranks of a million copycats spread through the internet like some sort of virus.
Say what you want about Herostratus, but at least he was original.
