Good news: I survived school today!

I’m not saying that because it was a bad day—it was an average day, and my week was a good one overall. I say that because some attention-seeking brats decided to use TikTok, the greatest social media platform there is, to spread false rumors of nationwide school violence today in the aftermath of the horrendous Oxford, Michigan massacre. I guess the human race still needs to prove how senseless it can be. It blows my mind how someone could look upon such cold blooded slaughter and then capitalize on it by spreading useless, irrational fear capable of unsettling people young and old across the nation. We are already bombarded with an overload of subliminal fear-mongering in our day to day lives; we don’t need a new generation of coddled edgelords continuing the grift. If I’ve learned anything by watching the twenty-first century news cycle, it’s that

• my university of choice is going to be overrun by this gang of frothy-mouthed militants
• my hometown is going to be Hiroshima’ed by that warmongering country
• my few hopes and dreams are going to be stolen by this capsized group and
• my entire life is in the hands of that secret-but-not-secret cabal of all-powerful baby-slurping ‘liberals’

messages that only encourage the populous to withdraw, to mistrust others, to get a gun and keep it loaded. Make sure it’s military grade, too; and never keep it locked up—you never know when you’ll need it.

Luckily none of my peers felt that need today, as the school day went without disruption. I wore a discreet Safe As Milk pin on my shirt because the other thing weighing heavy on my mind was that today marks the eleventh year since Don Van Vliet—better known as Captain Beefheart—died. A quote of his hangs attached to my bedroom mirror—“The stars are matter; we’re matter; but it doesn’t matter.” Offbeat, yet eloquent. Maybe if we chose people like Beefheart over the fear-mongers in power, we’d be a better species.