Room 404: Quirky Content, Personal Touch

Room 404 may not be the most recognizable student-run publication on campus, but its little-flaunted presence could be intentional. The publication’s distribution strategy, developed by the organization’s founders Moss Turpan ’14.5 and Dylan Redford ’14.5, does not rely on the typical grab-and-go allocation that other organizations utilize. For those who do not even know what Room 404 is, here is some background information on one of the College’s hidden gems.

The publication features poetry and prose with a purpose, creative graphics, comic quizzes and other ramblings that Turpan says “don’t have a place in any other campus publications.” All of the components are created, edited and designed by a team of contributors at meetings that occur “wheneverly.”

Although the idea for Room 404 sprouted during Turpan and Redford’s freshman year, the first publication did not come out until Winter 2013, but a Spring 2014 edition quickly followed, leading the club to run on a twice-a-year publishing basis. The Spring 2013 edition featured a Choose Your Own Friday Night Adventure at Middlebury, an erasure poem from a book by Freud, Unconventional Love Letters and a comedic Genealogy of Herbals (a family tree portraying personified and characterized herbs with Bay Laurel and Sage as the common ancestors). If the content itself did not make the publication unique enough, its distribution process is notable as well.

The members of Room 404 work hard to compile an email list of prospective contributors and interested readers to get their word out. Leading up to a new edition of Room 404, the staff organizes a non-exclusive release party. All attendees receive an issue of the most recent publication. However, that is not the only opportunity for students to get their hands on a copy. Posters are plastered around campus inciting people to request their own copy via email. A requester is entered into the email server and a personalized copy of the publication is delivered promptly to his or her mailbox.

This is a key feature that separates Room 404 from other student-run publications on campus like Blackbird, the literary magazine, or even the Campus issue you are reading right now. Publications can be as easy to leave behind or throw away as they are to obtain. Everybody has picked up a newspaper or magazine lying around and skimmed it during a spare minute, only to abandon it as quickly as they had found it. Turpan and his peers believe that requiring readers to order their copies, and then presonalizing each copy, increases the chances of students reading the publication thoroughly and also hanging onto it.

I experienced this myself during my interview with Turpan as he brought out the Spring 2013 edition of Room 404, and neatly wrote my name in block lettering along the black line that was preceded by “This Book Belongs To.” I immediately wanted to read every line and every post script and admire every drawing including a very well-constructed ring pop. And, indeed, I did just that as soon as I went back to my room.

The idea of receiving an aesthetically-pleasing and personalized gift in a mailbox that is more commonly designated for tutoring flyers and useless advertisements is tantalizing, and if nothing else, simply new. Although this tailored distribution of magazines is a factor in why Room 404 is less of a “big name” compared to Blackbird or the Campus, it arguably could produce a more dedicated and stronger readership.