As someone who tries to write about breaking news in Champaign-Urbana, a lot of times I’m left twiddling my thumbs until the U of I fires someone or another development is announced. There isn’t that much breaking news here, for better or worse.
This Sunday, however, WCIA-3 ran perhaps the most important news segment of the year (dare I say, of the past decade), about a person from Arcola whose license plate application was denied because it read “Go Purp,” which apparently is enough of a drug reference to be banned by the State of Illinois. The woman is an avid Arcola Purple Riders fan.
There are multiple layers of hilarity here, of course, the most important being that WCIA dedicated more than three-and-a-half minutes to a segment about a license plate denial.
Some other things of note to come out of the riveting story are:
1 – Amazingly, most people don’t know what the word “purp” means in a modern context.
2 – To support their story, WCIA ran an entire interview devoted to a couple who love the color purple simply because they like the color purple (you know, for relevance)
3 – This screen cap:
Gotta love it. Go Purp, indeed. Never change, WCIA. Stream the full segment below: