When the dog bites and when the bee stings, sometimes all we need are a few words of wisdom to lift our spirits.

That’s the idea behind happyCUSE, a new project started by senior writing major Sara Freund.

Freund makes zines, little booklets that resemble mini magazines, and leaves them all around campus. The zines incorporate a “happy” theme and are filled with doodles and quotes about happiness and living life without worries.

“This is just a positive thing I want to do,” Freund said. “Sometimes it’s just so gloomy or snowy that you just need a pick-me-up.”

It all started when Freund learned about zines in one of her writing classes last week. Everyone in her class made zines and took them around campus to ‘shopdrop’ them, which means taking the zines and leaving them in places relevant to what they’re about.

“At first, I was stuck. I didn’t know what to do or write,” Freund said. “And then my professor asked me, ‘Where do you imagine putting this?’ and I said that I just want to make someone happy.”

Jason Luther, a graduate student in the composition and cultural rhetoric program, came into Freund’s class to teach the students about zines. He said that with DIY publishing, students can circulate their writing immediately and practice getting their writing out before they enter “the real world.”

“I was also imagining a lot of the zines would be critiques or criticisms, but it’s really cool to see Sara take this in such a positive tone,” he said.

After showing a few friends the zine she made in class, Freund decided she wanted to expand to a much larger scale. Wasting no time, she went to the copy center the next day, made 100 copies and folded each one herself.

Freund then went to every building on campus and placed at least five or six in each one.

“I even placed a couple extras in the Life Sciences building because I thought the students there might be a little more stressed,” she said, laughing.

On the back of the zines is the hashtag #happyCUSE, which Freund said she wrote so that people could share it once they found it. She also made a separate Twitter account to keep track of people’s responses.

“I put the zines out around 2 p.m. last Tuesday and only an hour later, I started getting several responses,” Freund said.

Though it may appear like happyCUSE was meant to be anonymous, Freund said that it didn’t really start that way. It became anonymous when a photocopy cut her initials off at the bottom, but Freund said she thought it was cool.

Freund added that she will continue making zines throughout the remainder of her time at SU, but isn’t sure if someone else is willing to continue what she began.

“That would be really cool if someone wanted to keep making these zines. I don’t have anyone in mind, but it would be great,” she said.

Carla Licata, a senior biology major and one of Freund’s close friends, said she was not surprised when she found out about happyCUSE. Licata shared that she and Freund’s sisters at Kappa Alpha Theta have a statistic that they like to “throw around.”

“We like to say that Sara is always 20 percent happier than the happiest person in the room,” Licata said. “She always lets the little things go and reminds us to focus on the bigger, more important things in life.”

Licata added that she was impressed at the success of happyCUSE so far, especially with the responses Freund has gotten on Twitter and Instagram.

Freshman public relations major Maria Ingaglio found a happyCUSE zine at the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications, coincidentally after the happyCUSE account followed her on Twitter. She tweeted a picture of the zine and tagged happyCUSE in it, saying that it brightened her day after exams and meetings.

“When I first saw the account, I thought, ‘Am I really ever going to see one of these on campus?’” she said. “But finding one was perfect, and it just made me smile.”

Ingaglio also said she thinks the entire concept is fun and cute, especially “if you’re not looking for them.”

Said Ingaglio: “Even if you don’t know what happyCUSE is, it’s a positive reminder that makes you happy even for at least a second.”

Published on March 31, 2014 at 1:30 am

Contact Clare: clramire@syr.edu