Taking on Jeremy

This article was originally published in the August 16, 2006 issue of CANTA magazine.

“If even one person reads our posters, our message will be made”, joked Toby, as he taped down one of his white posters to the glass doors of the UCSA as others scattered posters throughout the building. Toby, a third-year Computer Science student who did not want his full name printed, only discovered the groups behind the campaign mid-Monday, and racked his brains to find a way to have fun with it. “It’s too much of a good opportunity to pass off … to make a joke.”

Three weeks ago, attention on campus turned to a determined, yet mysterious new campaign: Do you agree with Jeremy? On Tuesday, August 1, Jeremy met his opposition. Under cover of darkness, seven students weaved between buildings and slid across lawns; in less than three hours, the concrete billboards of campus buildings were covered in their messages: “I’m available for childrens parties”—Jeremy

Jeremy Waldin. (Photo: Alexey Blinov)
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Jeremy Waldin, a fourth-year civil engineering student from a sheep and beef farm in central Hawke’s Bay (“the middle of nowhere”)—easily fits the description of your average university student. It wasn’t until the end of his first year that he became interested in the Christian club Student Life. “A lot of my mates challenged me with a lot of questions and I really challenged myself to say, do I believe? Who is Jesus? Who was he? And actually went about searching.”

When Student Life leadership suggested the idea of running the campaign earlier this year, Jeremy was enthusiastic about the idea, “assuming, of course, it wasn’t going to be me that was going to be on the shirts.” Not until a few weeks later, when challenged with the idea of being that person did he seriously consider it, before accepting.

The effort wasn’t purely a Student Life effort either: Christian Union, the Catholic Society, and International Christian Fellowship all pledged their support. Teams were organised to take up the chalking and poster campaigns, Jeremy’s flatmate took up the banner campaign. Half-hour training for members was held to advise them on what to say and how to react to people asking about their shirts.

After a week of chalking, over 200 people starting adorning their lime-green t-shirts on 31 July, mobilising their chalk message: “I agree with Jeremy”

What was Jeremy’s message? “A short statement of what he believes to be true about God and how to have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ”, describes Justin O’Malley, president of Student Life. “Really the main goal was not that Jeremy be made famous, even though he is a great guy, but that everyone who would desire to would have an opportunity to hear about a relationship with Jesus Christ.”

[Student Life is] the kind of club that definitely wants to do big things and get out there on campus; and I think whatever you do … there will always be a group of people who really don’t like us

—Jeremy

However, the idea for the campaign didn’t originate at Canterbury. An information pack put out by a group called “Campus Crusade for Christ International” titled, the ”‘I agree with’ evangelistic campaign” details how campus groups can run an “I agree with” campaign. The information pack describes the first such campaign in 1999 at Humboldt State University in Northern California, and spread across the United States until in 2000, a group at the University of California, Berkeley decided to detail their efforts in the information pack.

The pack sets out an exact schedule for distributing flyers, wearing t-shirts, and having the “figurehead talk on a main area of campus around the busiest time,” on Thursday in week two. Everything from co-ordinating positions, the responses to give to other students’ questions and media, everything down to the colour of the shirts to wear is prescribed. At Canterbury, Jeremy easily meets the six guidelines laid out for choosing a “figurehead”, and his bullet-pointed message closely matches the six-points the pack describes as “the main truths he would want to cover”.

It is clear from reading the 44-page document that this is a well-planned and thoroughly organised campaign, with three months of recommended planning—hardly a spontaneous or student-organised event. However, at the time of writing, Justin O’Malley did not return my requests for comment on whether Student Life used this document in planning their campaign.

The campaign’s climactic rally outside the Central Library. (Photo: Alexey Blinov)
Figure two

What the document doesn’t discuss, however, is how to handle student backlash.

As with any chalk message or campaign that shows up on campus, there will be an opposition to it; and Jeremy was no exception. A few white posters featuring satirical quotes claiming to be from Jeremy appeared in selected places on Monday, but it wasn’t until Tuesday night that it took off. “I didn’t like them, they weren’t the nicest things, but to be completely honest, they weren’t unexpected,” admits Jeremy, “if you do anything huge on campus, especially something spiritual … you get stuff like that.”

Toby estimates that over 700 posters were put up, but by morning, over half had been “decimated”.

Posters taped up inside the Computer Science labs.
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“We’ve got nothing against Christians whatsoever, we saw a gap in their campaign and went for it … we saw a market for a laugh”, says Toby describing the motivation for his campaign. There was no religious targeting in his choice of campaign and made it clear that it wasn’t designed to offend, “just to take the wind out of their sails a little bit, not offend.”

Over Monday and Tuesday Toby sought suggestions for quotes he could use, emphasising a desire for quotes that were funny, but not necessarily offensive or religious in nature. Then, at 7:30 on Tuesday night, he led six other students armed with hastily mixed glue in cut open coke bottles, a few pastry brushes, and a stack of posters around campus with a selection of quotes.

Toby described his strategy as: “nowhere destructive or anything, just so people will see them all the time.” “It was also good to have them beside Jeremy posters, so you could see one of ours and then below, a ‘Do you agree with Jeremy?’, it really re-enforces our joke.”

In less than three hours, they had posters on the MSCS Building, the Physical Sciences Library, the History Building, the doorways to S-Block lecture theatres, Engineering and Commerce departments, across the bridge and in the lobby of the UCSA, outside A-Block lecture theatres, covering the doors and windows of C-Block, with finishing touches outside the Central Library.

Toby estimates that over 700 posters were put up in total, but that by morning over half of them had been “decimated”. Of the 40 posters that had been put up outside the library on Tuesday night, none remained by 8:30 the next morning.

“Oh, definitely Student Life”, responds Toby, when asked who he believes was behind the takedown of his posters, joking that “there would have been some kind of memo going around.” “They would have perceived it as … being anti-their message, and it doesn’t help their message if it makes people crack-up”.

Justin O’Malley firmly affirms that “there was nothing organized by student life or any other club that I know of” on the take down of Toby’s posters. He believes that “everyone has the freedom to put up what they want on campus … just like we had the freedom to promote ‘I agree with Jeremy’ all week.”

Posters being pasted up outside the UCSA building.
Figure four

If they’re directly getting in your way a lot of the time, you kinda want to get in their way … it’s not so much Christians, it’s Student Life

—Toby

Even though the name “Jeremy” is tagged on all of the posters, Jeremy himself doesn’t feel targeted: “I think most of the people that know me wouldn’t write it, I see it as an attack of the whole… heaps of people were wearing green shirts, and let’s attack the name at the bottom”. Although he finds some of them “vulgar and sick”, they’ve been something he’s been able to put out of his mind. He agrees with O’Malley that Toby’s posters had the freedom to be put up, and re-iterates that there was no organised effort from Student Life leadership to take them down.

“I could say that I didn’t tear any down… If I saw other people, I’d probably actually suggest… don’t worry about it … It’s just a name getting up, everyone knows they’re just making stuff up,” says Jeremy.

Even though Student Life does not condone such activity by their members, people wearing the green “Jeremy” shirts were seen and photographed, tearing down the white satirical posters put up the previous night. Staff members from Facilities Management were also seen taking down powers outside the MSCS building.

This is not the first time rouge members of Student Life have been involved in the removal of posters on campus. Earlier this year, UniQ, a club supporting gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender students on campus, had advertising material for their Pride Week removed by members of Student Life, raising questions about intolerance in Student Life’s membership.

Torn down anti-Jeremy posters the following morning.
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[T]here was nothing organized by student life or any other club that I know of.

—Justin O'Malley

Tension between Student Life and the rest of the student body can become quite fervid at times. At the start of each year, there is a continuous stream of letters to CANTA from irate students confronted with surveys and pamphlets from various Christian groups, but Student Life always stands out. Last week, Robert Henderson blamed this tension on Student Life in a letter to CANTA: “Your organisation seems to have a very strong group mentality. This has created an ‘us vs. them’ attitude which was evident in your removal of anti-Jeremy material”.

Toby identified this as one of the motivations behind carrying out his campaign: “If they’re directly getting in your way a lot of the time, you kinda want to get in their way … its not so much Christians, it’s Student Life.”

Jeremy explains that “[Student Life is] the kind of club that definitely wants to do big things and get out there on campus; and I think whatever you do, there’s going to be something around that. … I’d say there will always be a group of people who really don’t like us” as would be the case with any other large society or club on campus that makes it’s views and ideas well known.

Student Life president, Justin O’Malley denies that there is any such “us vs. them” mentality, arguing that: “None of our activities are meant to be divisive so we really don’t get into any division.” “If there are any concerns addressed by students we always try and address them in a respectful way and try and learn if there are things we could be doing better.”

“The people who laugh at our joke aren’t going to be influenced by their [Student Life’s] message anyway,” says Toby. Both sides seem locked in their war of words, but this is the first time that an ad hoc group on campus has actively taken up organising a campaign against Student Life. Toby puts a challenge in his message to Student Life: “you’re gonna have to do something a lot more radical … than just attempting to get people to talk to you in a different way.” ❡

A complete set of photos are available on Flickr.