Don’t hate me for being a promoter

I know our weekly visits to halls are a cause of great dismay to the masses. I am aware the collection of flyers shoved under your door are probably not always appreciated – sorry.

You may think we are mocking you and your flatmates when we sprawl a shit load of leaflets across the corridor outside your Taly flat – but we are just trying to spread the word about the biggest night out in Cardiff.

You might not realise it now but when you’re traipsing home soaked in jager and sweat you’ll be telepathically sending me your gratitude.

Another source of great distress to us promoters is the ignorance we get on our flyering shifts. I see you swiftly walking to the other side of the pavement pretending to be on the phone to your Mum when you make eye contact with me and my pile of flyers. This isn’t the Third Reich, I’m not Goebbels. I’m honestly not part of some insidious propaganda machine, please just take the flyer and smile – it’s easier for the both of us.

Social media is possibly the core of the “I hate promoters” stigma, but we are just doing what we are told. There’s some truth in that Nazi analogy now, isn’t there. Sometimes – God forbid – we even enjoy writing poems about our upcoming visit from an ex 90’s pop star.

Also, when you get invited to an event in Cardiff, note I didn’t specifically invite you to come down from Birmingham Polytechnic – we are just trying to reach a “wider audience”, including our distant family who live in a different continent.

You all know these types by now, those people in their logo’d hoodies running up and down the street attempting to herd people over to our club when you are already en route elsewhere.

I’m sorry you’ve already decided on a night at Retros, I really am, but we will give you a “free bottle of bubbly” if there are 5 of you or more – I promise. We aren’t actually as pretentious as we may come across with our slicked back hair and “I mean business” clipboards.

Perhaps people assume we are unaware of the controversy we cause but rest assured we are all fully aware of the hatred towards us. We get our fair share of “fuck offs” on our daily flyering rounds, once all of my flatmates even decided to delete me on Facebook until I limited my sharing habits.

It’s a tough life when your new pals already decide enough is enough on your third week of uni. This is especially true once the novelty of getting everyone VIP in freshers runs off, and the reality of branded posters placed in every corner of the kitchen becomes a thing.

Don’t get me wrong, there are definitely some perks to the job, such as money. It’s the reason we do it day in day out, like emotionless hitmen. We are all students at the end of the day – can you just be supportive of my job choice? I’ll be laughing when you are all living below the breadline and I’m stocking my shelves with (Lidl) smoked salmon.

The socials are also great – how many of you can say you were so drunk by 10pm that you ended up in a bush in Talybont wearing just two pillow cases and a plastic tablecloth.

Yes I know we are fucking annoying, yes I know you probably don’t want to talk to me and yes I know you have enough flyers to make a small shrine to DC, but please just cut us some slack. We live in a liberal democracy so stop persecuting us like EU migrants. Just like Romanians, we aren’t actually all that bad.