You know me. You’ve known me your whole life. The soundwaves of my voice have lovingly caressed the velvety stretch of your inner ear, my raspy tones echoing in the sudden quiet. There’s always been a tension between us, a crackle, a spark, when our fingers brush along a passed handout or a borrowed pen. Your friends all know my name. I am, of course, a lord of chaos, a master of deceit, an inspiration to you all: I am the Idiot.
My kind are known across the land. In days of yore, we dwelled in villages, piercing holes in buckets and making love to our neighbors’ wives. Humanity’s greatest wonders were those of our visions: the Leaning Tower of Pisa, the 2004 Toyota Corolla, toilet paper inserted the wrong way. I am the descendant of a lineage that has weaponized the shortcomings of the world for immense profit. I am a genius. I am a fool. Bezos wants my charisma. Zuckerberg desires me carnally.
In the depths of the tunnels shrouded in darkness and clad in scavenged 2013 Mel Weekend sweatshirts, the Order of the Idiot awaits. Those who desire our services have ways of finding us: swiping a water-type Pokémon card at Starbucks, trying to skip a rock against the outer glass walls of Goergen Hall, or poking the kid lying prostrate on the floor of your chemistry workshop three times and whispering “HELP.” Few can afford to pay the price (2 lbs. of 24-carat gold, or one of Jaeger’s exclusive “Clinton wants what I have” NFTs). Nonetheless, if you persist, we will provide you the ultimate honor: We will ask your questions. We will ask everything you want, and more importantly, everything you don’t. Need a professor stuck in a shouting match stalemate about why we can’t just print more money for the full lecture so there’s less content on the exam? Done. Want office hours monopolized by someone not even taking the class so your lukewarm take on Kant’s lack of relatability can shine by comparison? We got you. Require a confident stranger to piss off your TA beyond belief so recitation ends early? That’s our job.
The mechanics of such an operation are sprawling and complex. All members either come from generational wealth or whore themselves out for the cause, enabling us to put our dads’ and daddies’ dollars to good use. This chapter began with a grant from iZone, made out to “Dum B. Ath Society” for community service projects. Our troop of proud citizens heartily hoisted the lucky employee across the Quad in a burlap sack, singing our anthem “Stupid Hoe” by Queen Nikki, and set them down by the Meliora monkey lab to let nature take its course. The money was never traced back to us, and legend has it that the behaviorists frequently marvel at the developmental skills of one monkey concubine, who mimics the Queen’s English and draws stick-like, hooded figures on their cell walls with curious, furless digits.
To preserve the shame and indignity of our illustrious brotherhood, great measures have been taken. An army of fact-checkers sequestered in the stacks do our bidding, verifying every idiocy that will leave our mouths to avoid accidental moments of insight. After all, a fool’s reputation can never be recovered. One connection between dick jokes and political struggles, and you’re done — looking at you, Shakespeare. Our former grand vizier struck a blood pact with CETL to ensure them endless business in return for the creation of CASC 318 — Intro to Unpaid Internships — which allows us to harvest informants from the hoards of students clamoring to get leadership experience for their barren, Canva-designed, shitty resumes.
My brethren’s contributions have been maint. Yet it is I, our glorious leader, who has ushered in a new era of mindlessly idle, stupid luxury. I bartered pre-strung rackets with the squash team for the use of their house to launder my buckets of hard-earned cash. I spent weeks crawling through vents above the fume hoods in Hutch to place my tiny, acetone-resistant microphones to pick up on the naughty, naughty research publishing talk (heed my words: Whoever’s name goes first is never alphabetical). I hacked the Yellowjacket mascot’s computer, found their in-character sex tape, and threatened to leak it, unless they took up the sweat-soaked hood on my behalf.
Some say that the Order is a cult, worshiping at the altar of Chaos and marveling at the despair and destruction we leave in our wake. They are not entirely wrong. To be an Idiot is to close your mind and sign away your soul to a higher purpose, basking in the glow of death stares and mockery, preying on over-caffeinated scholars in empty libraries past midnight, and taking shifts chanting in fake Latin in hope of summoning Cthulhu (we’re running up on two years going and are still very optimistic). We are stronger than you have ever been and ever will be, and we’re only getting started. Do you know the power it takes to disrupt a 400-person lecture with a single, half-inaudible sentence? I am your hell. I am your salvation.
There is no one coming to save you. Your prayers were heard and turned away. In truth, there was never a God. There is only me.
