Inside The Alternate Universe: The students behind the satire

The Alternate Universe is known for its quippy jokes and dry humor that pokes fun at Provo culture, but the behind-the-scenes of the satire news organizations is a well-kept secret.

Stephen Fortuna started The Alternate Universe in 2017 in a dorm room at Brigham Young University. At the beginning, it was just him.

Id publish like maybe one article a week and just kind of throw it into a bunch of random ward Facebook pages, Fortuna said. I would just do something I thought was funny and then post it and watch it travel around the internet.

Fortuna took his pieces inspired by The Onion and made a website modeled after the Daily Universe. He made it look pixel-perfect, down to copying the advertisements that the Daily Universe used.

The Daily Universe actually emailed me, and was like, Yeah, our advertisers are not very happy that you have copied over exactly what theyre running onto your site, Fortuna said.

Early on in the process, The Alternate Universe had discussions on whether they should turn the organization into an official BYU club. However, they decided against it in fear of censorship.

It would probably preserve the longevity a little bit better, Fortuna said. But we didnt want to go with that, because we knew that there could be some situations where we would want to publish things that would be more controversial.

In his senior year, Fortuna worked on creating a succession model to keep the organization running. Now, almost nine years from their start, The Alternate Universe has continued Fortunas vision: To poke fun at the BYU and Provo culture.

Ultimately, that is why current editors, Sarah Seaman and Max Andros, joined the satire team.

When I first came to Provo, I thought I was going insane. Like it shouldnt have been a culture shock or anything, but it kind of was, Andros said. I was like, Why is everybody here like this, and the Alternate Universe just kind of validated that, whereas a lot of other people dont see anything wrong or anything weird about Provo.

With the pen-name Don Cheadle, Andros started writing for the Alternate Universe a little over a year and a half ago. Seaman, or Marceline Abadeer, also had a similar origin story.

After hearing about the satire newspaper in high school, Seaman decided to apply to be a writer upon seeing an opening online.

I ended up, you know, coming to BYU, and I was following the account. I just saw that they sent out an application, and I was like, Oh, this would be funny to apply for, and I feel like I have silly ideas, Seaman said.

The Alternate Universe gets applications from BYU students every semester. Becoming a part of the satire team involves a vibe-check."

To apply for the team, students must submit five headlines and one article. The staff currently consists of seven students, and despite the time and effort required, the work is entirely volunteer-based.

Its just all for the love of the game, like everyone wants to be there and everyone kind of respects it as a kind of a passion project, Seaman said.

Once a week, the staff will get together in a random location to brainstorm ideas. Most of the ideas that are pitched are considered, and they refrain from constraining creative liberty.

However, Alternate Universe founder Fortuna says the current staff takes some risks that he wouldnt have taken.

The Alternate Universe certainly publishes things that I wouldnt have published or approved to be published when I was running it, Fortuna said.

The Alternate Universe stated that they occasionally get backlash from trolls who regularly police their content.

If a post does really well, and it reaches an audience thats not our followers or media literate, they will get mad. So weve had a few articles like that in just the last few months, Andros said.

However, Fortuna stated that this backlash is inevitable. While some posts may be risky, this creative liberty is what makes The Alternate Universe powerful.

On the flipside of that, occasionally Ill see a headline thats super funny I would have never thought about and is a good creative risk that we would not have taken seven years ago, he said.

Fortuna also recalled that, upon creation, The Alternate Universe was never supposed to have an Instagram page. However, as the organization has grown in popularity, most people only know about it through Instagram. But the current staff wishes more students knew about their website with full-length articles.

I do kind of wish people knew that, because sometimes theres like really good jokes hidden in the articles, Seaman said.

While the organization continues to grow in popularity, they remember what theyre doing it all for. Behind all the jokes and biting headlines are BYU students trying to make sense of the Provo environment.

Contrary to popular belief, we are not some supernatural entity. Were just students, and thats why we can see everything firsthand, Andros said. And so thats what we write about.

To see their work, visit their website and check out their Instagram.