Monday night's Union Council ended with a bang after UCDSU President Barry Murphy’s declaration that all future student councils will be streamed from his personal OnlyFans account. Murphy concluded Council with a brief speech outlining all that he has given up to be able to maximise student satisfaction with his role, including a luridly detailed statement of what his account has been used for in recent months.
“The Dublin rental situation has gotten rough” Murphy told student representatives. “The only way I could afford rent and pints was to turn to online ‘organisation porn’.” However, with the rise of Mari Kondo, even that well has dried up, and he has subsequently declared his account the official home of UCDSU media and promotions, likely hoping for an increase in audience numbers.
While Campaigns & Communications Officer Thomas Monaghan seemed relieved to now have even fewer duties, other members of the Council did not agree, with multiple freshman class representatives claiming that it was an abuse of power. Welfare Officer Melissa Plunkett, however, was only disappointed that Murphy did not feel safe enough to come forward about his night job sooner.
From the student perspective, the news fell on uninterested ears. "Ah here, will they ever stop" said Tomás Mac Raghnaill, a third year biomed student. "Don't they know at this stage no one cares what they get up to in there". Áine Kearns, final year Music and Archeology student agreed, saying “sure it’s not like they do anything anyway.” Both said that the only reason they were with the Union was because asking to leave was “too much of a hassle”.
As for more dedicated UCDSU fans, the tone turned from indifferent to ecstatic. “I can’t wait for it to start streaming!” said L&H member Laura O’Malley-O’Neil, on her fifth sugar free Red Bull of the day, “it’s so hard keeping up with the live tweets from the university papers, and you never know if you missed something!” (It should be noted that people are only capable of typing at optimum speed when they are not being inundated with notifications with people correcting a grammar mistake, and phones can only vibrate so much before they force close an app, Ms O’Malley-O’Neil.) Throbbing with excitement, she continued, “I mean, I do wish it was free though. I understand things are a bit tight in the societies corridor at the moment, what with 50-odd people running for sabbatical positions, but another subscription does just feel like too much. It’s like, what’s our student levy even going towards anymore?”
However, UCDSU die-hard Rosaleen Aljohmani could not disagree more. “That Brían one from the Observer drags me through the mud for pitching a known pyramid scheme from my SU email one time, but Murphy makes his personal OnlyFans the new press office and no one cares?!”
While this is a valid point, Murphy responded with the simple “I’ve been streaming most of my job anyway, and no one has seemed to notice so far.” When pressed on this point, he expanded, “through my previous organisation streams, which have been free-booted across study Tumblr, legal action pending, I’ve shared weeks worth of SU information since joining the site back in October, along with folders worth of confidential information. Honestly, I don’t know how anyone can say I haven’t been fully transparent, when all the information I needed to communicate is right there on my account for only €8.99 a month.”
The dubious morality of charging students for access to the content for their SU meetings aside, the biggest question is when will the account change hands to the next SU President. Monaghan has stated that the account will be transferred over handover, but when asked directly Murphy refused to comment, only reiterating that he has put “a substantial amount of time into gaining clout in the internet organisation community”, before he was quickly shushed and escorted to a press free zone.
For the remaining 300 words of this article, please see The Harpy’s OnlyFan’s account, DeeksIsMySugarDaddy.