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VOLUME 148, ISSUE 21 | THURSDAY, APRIL 1, 2025
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SERVING THE UC DAVIS CAMPUS AND COMMUNITY SINCE 1915
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The California Aggie’s satire issue is an annual, collaborative effort from our entire staff that highlights humorous, fictionalized articles. The issue, including all articles, graphics and photos, is entirely satirical.
UC Davis alum Dhar Mann outdonates Maria Manetti Shrem University declares: “He’s the Mann!” BY MADISON SEEMAN meseeman@ucdavis.edu Breaking news: as of April 1, Dhar Mann has officially out-donated Maria Manetti Shrem. This move has the Art Department painting over Manetti Shrem’s newly printed signs — starting April 31, the Art Building will now be called the Dhar Mann Art Hall. The new donor is, for better or worse, one of the more famous UC Davis alumni. A man who the New York Times has nicknamed the “Moral Philosopher of Youtube,” Mr. Mann has a busy YouTube empire and an estimated $45 million net worth to his name. But, who is the Mann behind the money? Dhar Mann is a YouTuber, producer and influencer known for his
short films of modern-day after-school specials with increasingly specific morals, ranging anywhere from five minutes to half an hour long. These modern-day fables attack age-old issues like “Strange Kid Eats Rocks For School Lunch,” “Cheerleader and Anime Nerd Fight At School” and “Son Replaces Mom With Artificial Intelligence Robot” — just to name a few. And, it all started at UC Davis. Or at least, his real estate company did. Which then failed but led him to a luxury car service venture. Which also failed, but that led him to his own cannabis company. Which also failed. But UC Davis didn’t raise no quitter! In 2019, Mann posted his first video on YouTube and the rest is history. He’s the only UC Davis donor to have won a Nickelodeon Kids’ Choice Award and certainly the first alum to have had Charli D’Amelio on his podcast. Is he the only donor to have been charged with 13 felony counts? He has to at least be the only donor to
Freakbob and the Bobbers
JASON XIE / AGGIE Some think he may have ulterior motives. “I think it’s latent guilt,” one graduate student said. “I mean, the whole Manetti Shrem thing, sure, but have you heard he was literally charged with — allegedly — defrauding a city beautification program? This was, like, totally connected.” Motive aside, the university notes it is “incredibly grateful” for Mann’s generosity and expects to
“happily” acquiesce to his requests. The renovations, including the new signage, is expected to finish by the end of April, when the building can officially be found on Google Maps under the name “Dhar Mann Art Hall.” Disclaimer: (This article is humor and/or satire, and its content is purely fictional. The story and the names of “sources” are fictionalized.)
UC Davis Police Department taking down all lighting on campus
Chop off that hair BY ALLISON KELEHER adkeleher@ucdavis.edu
Police Department acknowledges they are petty for doing so LANHUI ZHEN / AGGIE
During this past quarter here at UC Davis, a craze has possessed the student body. Everyone is obsessed with a student band called “Freakbob and the Bobbers.” And, it’s not just students, everyone on social media is obsessed with the band. Their videos are blowing up on TikTok, with millions of people begging for even more content from the Bobbers. Now, you might be wondering why people are so obsessed with this freaky band. Between you and me, I don’t think they are very “swoonworthy.” The music is catchy and I wouldn’t mind listening to it in my local department store, but it isn’t revolutionary enough to justify this craze. After careful consideration, I’ve determined that it’s the bobs that make them popular. Each and every member of the band has a blunt bob, right at the chin. The unity amongst the band in aligning themselves with such a fabulous haircut is truly what makes them worthy of their fame. So far, this student band has only released an EP, but they are promising their devoted fans that an album is coming soon. One fan started a series on TikTok saying that she would cut off more of her hair for each day that the Bobbers don’t release an album. Tensions are running high, since she is getting close to bob territory — a buzz cut would look tragic on this diva. With all of her courage, this fan’s dedication has gotten some press, which has added to the Freakbob and the Bobbers craze. Now, thousands of fans are grabbing the scissors to chop off their hair in hopes of gathering the band’s attention. It’s a bob world now and we need to get with it.
have those counts expunged. And now, just this past Tuesday, Mann donated $44 million and $420 — the last number being an homage to his failed cannabis company — to the UC Davis Art Department. This donation not only outshines the recent generous donation from Maria Manetti Shrem, it’s just enough to outshine her total donations. Our sources speculate this was intentional and perhaps even targeted. With no official statement, rumors for Mann’s motive ran wild. “Isn’t that like…all of his net worth?” one baffled student asked. The only clue we have lies in Mann’s YouTube channel. Following the donation, Mann posted a Youtube short heavily implying he wanted the Art Building to be renamed in his honor, leaving the department and the university as a whole scrambling. “We just put up the new signs,” one faculty member said. “We worked really hard on that gradient.” We found another professor staring sadly up at the new sign inside of the Art Building with Maria Manetti Shrem’s face on it — now to be replaced. “I think I’ll miss her; I kind of liked seeing her face every day,” the professor said. “I just don’t know if looking at his face will feel the same.” The donation also sparked some jealousy from other departments. “The least he could do is donate to the film department,” one film professor said. “What does Dhar Mann know about art?” In the wake of the chaos his donation left, speculation on Mann’s motive has run rampant. What could he possibly have against Manetti Shrem?
This trend has reached the UC Davis student body. Everywhere I look, I see another diva with a bob. It’s becoming so serious that there are more students with bobs than without bobs. When asked about this bob situation, a frat boy said: “Yeah dude, I’m jealous of the girls chopping off their hair. It will be months before my bob grows in.” Some local businesses in Davis have heard about the bob craze and are trying to get some money from it. One salon is advertising 50% off bob haircuts if your hair is twice the length of a bob. For journalistic purposes, I tried to get this deal, but the stylist told me that my hair was just under the required length. This upset me a lot because I’m starting to feel left out without a bob. I almost went home and cut my hair myself but was deterred by the memory of the last time I cut my own hair and ended up with micro bangs. Alejandra Mercado, a fourth-year linguistics major, became upset when asked about her bob because she “had her bob before it was popular.” It’s a bob-eat-bob world here at UC Davis, and we need to acknowledge that. This upcoming weekend, Freakbob and the Bobbers will be performing at the Mondavi Center, and fans with bobs get free admission. Go cut that hair!
Disclaimer: (This article is humor and/or satire, and its content is purely fictional. The story and the names of “sources” are fictionalized.)
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BY NOAH HARRIS features@theaggie.org Starting this past Monday, the UC Davis Police Department is taking down every single light on campus. The process will take around two weeks to complete and comes after the police department had expressed their frustration at a subpar showing for their annual lighting walk. On Jan. 22, 2025, the UC Davis Police Department, along with UC Davis Facilities Management, organized the annual lighting walk. For three hours, members from both organizations walked around the campus, educating those who attended the event on UC Davis lighting, as well as finding areas on campus that were not well-lit to be fixed later. The main issue from this lighting walk from the police
department’s perspective was that not enough people came to the event, according to the Police Chief Claire Enette. “There were maybe five people who attended,” Enette said. “That was the official headcount, but I’m pretty sure that two of the people counted were dogs, so it was probably three people.” As a result, the police department is now going to be what reportedly “could be interpreted as petty.” Soon, there will be no light whatsoever on campus except the sun during the day and the glow of the flesh-eating worms at night. UC Davis Facilities Management, who co-hosted the lighting walk, does not endorse the police department’s stance on taking down campus lighting, as Charlie Rouag, who works in a top-secret position with facilities, said.
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“They’re taking away all the lights on campus because they’re upset nobody came to the event,” Rouag said. “They’re forgetting that they scheduled the event from 11 p.m. to 2 a.m. on a Friday night.” Without the facility department’s help, the police department has resorted to running into light poles hundreds of times to knock it down. When that doesn’t work, students will hear the sound of a chainsaw cutting down lamp posts, which will only happen at four in the morning. Earplugs will not be provided to students or staff during this process. Lighting has already been taken down around Tercero, coincidentally coinciding with a two-week planned electricity outage in the area. The police department has released a statement, written by a person named Jibril
Z i v n y, who appears in a database for “My Little Pony” lovers. “Nobody lit up our lives by coming to the lighting walk, so we will extinguish your lights,” the statement reads. “When God created the world, he said, ‘Let there be light.’ “We say, ‘Let there not be light.’ Get it?” An emergency report was ordered by Andrew Peacock, a fourth-year electrical engineering major. Nobody listened to his order, so Peacock wrote the report. His findings were shocking. “With no lighting on the UC Davis campus, we can anticipate 19 deaths a year from instances such as electric scooters crashing into walls, accidentally stepping on cracks and
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breaking mother’s backs and walking into the llama enclosure at night,” Peacock’s statement reads. It is important to note that Peacock’s report was based on absolutely nothing and 19 is his lucky number. However, Keelsey Mayor, a friend of Justin Timberlake, produced a report based on classified data. In her report, she stated that as a result of removing all lighting on campus, it would be darker in some areas. From this finding, Mayor was given the Presidential Medal of Freedom by Jessica Pabla, a world expert on lighting. 52 police officers attended the lighting walk and walked around as a group with the three humans and two dogs. One of the attendees was Kile Sang, a fifth-year undeclared major. “I have an anatomy class that goes until 11 p.m. on Fridays,” Sang said. “As I was leaving class, I saw a group of 50 police officers and figured that I would talk to them to see if they could jail the person w h o scheduled m y anatomy class from 8 to 11 IE G G A NOVA MAI / p.m. on Friday.” Sang stayed to pet the dogs for three hours. It later turned out that those dogs were furries. After the lighting around UC Davis gets removed, the police department is rumored to be considering eliminating all lighting in the city of Davis. These are the first steps in the UC Davis Police Department eliminating all forms of lighting in California and potentially beyond, according to one anonymous source, contingent on whether more people show up to their lighting walk. Disclaimer: (This article is humor and/or satire, and its content is purely fictional. The story and the names of “sources” are fictionalized.)
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