I am a joke

Happy April Fools’ Day! You are reading an article written for our April Fools’ edition of the newspaper, The Deceiver. This is a work of satire.

I am a joke, a goddamn joke. My life is a lie. I am just smiling stupidly as I ignore crisis after crisis that piles up around me. I have, like, three different essays to finish this week. I started one maybe? I cannot even remember. Jesus.

What the hell do I even think I am doing with my life? I’m trying to get a degree in philosophy, for fuck’s sake. That is a meme degree, as in there are literal memes about how lame philosophy degrees are. What do I think I will do for work? Quote Sartre in exchange for food? I could maybe go all Diogenes and live in a barrel, yelling at random people about how fake society is. That might work.

No, there’s no way I could pull that off.

This is saying nothing about the money I already owe. I am quite literally drowning in student debt. When I get out of this hellhole I will owe what, six figures? That is money I do not have, and likely will never have. Besides, it will hardly matter. I doubt bankruptcy will get me before some climate disaster or dystopian fascist mob gets me.

What is even the goddamn point of it all? Why am I here, just going through the motions, pretending everything is fine when it very clearly is not fine? Why am I acting like I have a future to prepare for? Why? Why I am I here if there’s no future for me, for anyone?

Bah, this angsty pessimism is self-indulgent and stupid. There’s nothing tragically romantic about burning out in college. If the world really is crumbling around us this nonsense is less of a swan song and more of an anticlimax. We aren’t going gentle into that good night, we’re watching anime while the world burns.

Well, at least the anime is pretty good, but that’s beside the point.

So, I guess the flavor of the day is “hanging on in quiet desperation.” No sense in trying to fight that, just work it. Make memes about how screwed we all are. Write self-aware satirical articles about how much a joke I am. Submit that article, like, a week late.

It does not really make the dread or angst go away, but it certainly makes it easier to play off. Get a couple of laughs in. Folks can use it for validation, either as “#relatable” content or by smugly writing a comment about how the stupid lefty opinions writer thinks ecological collapse will kill him, as if your goofy ass doesn’t think the rapture is coming or that universal healthcare will kill democracy or something.

I am a goddamn joke, no matter which way I play it. Hell, who isn’t? This is the condition of the entire damn generation, really. Either we play into the desperate twenty-something tropes or we push back against it, becoming the butt of someone else’s memes. And trust me, everyone is the butt of someone else’s memes.