Are we really supposed to believe that UniLad (you know, the one who made a rape joke) care about sexual assault?

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Are we really supposed to believe that UniLad (you know, the one who made a rape joke) care about sexual assault?

Women are not that stupid

Four years ago UniLad were forced to pull an article on their site on “sexual mathematics” which included the crass rape joke: “If the girl you’ve taken for a drink… won’t ‘spread for your head’, think about this mathematical statistic: 85 per cent of rape cases go unreported.

“That seems to be fairly good odds.”

It finished with the line: “Uni Lad does not condone rape without saying ‘surprise’.” When women complained about the article online, the publication asked one “are you a dyke? The fact that you’re getting so defensive sounds like you are one.”

UniLad are the publication which brought us jokes about smashing girls’ stomachs in with chairs when they have to take the morning after pill, and stories about a man smashing a woman’s face into a wall during sex “to knock some sense into her” (played for laughs of course).

They are the publication that appeared this morning on Sky news, talking about how one third of female students have been sexually harassed on a night out. No, really.

Liam Harrington, UniLad’s CEO and credited on Sky as “chief executive of trending content” (that’s a real job title), said: “We want our audience to consider whether they would still behave in the same way towards someone if they were sober.

“Drinking stops you thinking as clearly about social situations, including sexual harassment, and things your sober self would never consider all of a sudden seem a laugh or a good idea.”

UniLad were forced to apologise for their past mistakes, and no doubt if questioned they would defend their sudden change of heart and assure you that their u-turn from encouraging guys to get with “vulnerable” freshers to wringing their hands over the rates of sexual assault is a genuine one. That it’s not motivated by a desperation to look relevant to a generation of students who now find their lads mag image cringe and abhorrent. But their sudden bandwagon jump onto featherweight, marketable feminism is frankly bizarre.

They might want us to believe they’ve moved on from their humiliating 2012 jokes, but their Facebook page tells another story. A recent video poking fun of how girls use Instagram compared to how they act in real life is a hellscape of immature comments from their 18 million less than woke fans. One reads: “Y’all females games will surely be aired out eventually, we dudes will be presently watching and laughing.”

It’s true that they’ve made a real effort to overhaul their toxic brand, and even now their jokes are less aggressive attacks on “wenches” and “sluts” and the safer (albeit still cringe) “lol a dog video”, but they still wouldn’t be the first place people think of to white knight on behalf of poor, beleaguered female students. How the fuck are UniLad, the mouth-breathing brand of banter lads from your hometown and boys who have read The Game, on Sky news talking about rape?

WAAAAHHEYYYYY ENLIGHTMENTTTTTT

Obviously open discussion about sexual assault is a good thing. It’s a step in the right direction that it’s now so public and regardless of anything else, this survey is raising awareness. But if UniLad really think that people will buy into their latest cynical ploy, they’re wrong.

Feminism is more than “trending content”, it’s a real issue, and for me, nobody with sense would believe the top banter blokes at UniLad suddenly care about it for anything more than publicity.

@rosielanners