“I could see the fear in that guy’s eyes,” explained Noser Staff Writer Sarah Hart, recalling the momentary panic she caused by offering him a copy of the new Noser issue. “Once they see the paper, it’s an uphill battle. You have to teach them to trust again.”

“Sometimes, if they still don’t get it, I’ll explain that we’re the funny one,” Hart added, noting that it takes some effort to sell students on taking a newspaper after they’ve been spooked. “That normally helps. If not, I’ll add on, ‘We’re like The Onion, but for Brown.’ After that, you can just see their whole body loosen up. They know they’re safe.”

“Last time, one guy saw the paper in my hands and straight up ran away,” Hart recalled, adding that some people are so startled that they struggle to form a sentence declining to take a copy. “But I think we’re making progress. More and more people are learning that we’re not the newspaper they need to be afraid of.”

At press time, an Indy distributor was seen calming a terrified passerby by saying, “No, we’re the quirky one.”