By Ishaan Gollamudi
In spite of being published in the Combat Zone, this article is entirely factual. Of course, so are all of the other articles published in the Combat Zone, more or less. The libelous allegations we’ve made against Greek life, the SUB, our Editor-in-Chief, and the campus administration, anyway, are pretty much true, which brings me to my reasons for resigning. In short, the Combat Zone has been out-Combat-Zoned by reality. All that time spent agonizing about being replaced by generative AI was all for naught: I’ve been replaced by real journalists. But, as they say: if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.
That’s why I’m proud to announce that I’m selling out! So long, losers – I’m abandoning the cause of generally-not-being-a-dick-to-humanity, and stepping into my “authoritarian regime propagandist” era. Coincidentally, that was also the name of my Spotify daylist. Now, I understand that some of you might view this as me blatantly compromising on the deeply-held principles of the Combat Zone. However, I would rather you view this as a logical next step in my career. Why waste precious minutes of my day trying to come up with a premise so absurd it could not be construed as anything but satire, when I could let the absurdity write itself? Efficiency (and bitcoin) is the currency of the day, and frankly, I’d like to see Musk’s maladjusted army of teenage losers come up with a solution as efficient as this.
In the interests of transparency, I should acknowledge that I’m as motivated by self-preservation as I am by efficiency. College students across the U.S. are under threat of arrest and deportation for having the breathtaking audacity to exercise their First Amendment rights. So far, at least 11 students have been detained or forced to flee: Mahmoud Khalil, Badar Khan Suri, Rümeysa Öztürk, Doğukan Günaydın, Rasha Alawieh, Momodou Taal, Alireza Doroudi, Leqaa Kordia, Yunseo Chung, Ranjani Srinivasan and Kseniia Petrova. As the age-old adage goes, “first, they came for the people who used free speech to advocate for the victims of genocide, then they came for the people who used free speech to complain about the T/P showers.” Squarely in the second camp, I hope a few years of ass-kissing during White House press briefings will guarantee my welfare.
You may be surprised to learn that I wasn’t always this comfortable with selling out. In fact, I used to be nauseated by it, until I found the cognitive Pepto-Bismol that allowed me to reframe the situation. I’m still free to say anything I want – and you are too – provided you can live with being incarcerated in an El Salvadorian prison without due process! It’s free speech, just not consequence-free speech.
Now, I will admit to being torn up about selling out to such losers. When I fantasized about selling out, I always imagined being forced to bend the knee and kiss the steel-toe boot. Ducking to avoid an errant chainsaw being swung by a ketamine-riddled deadbeat father did not feature in these dreams, but perhaps this is the first lesson of being an adult: you have to compromise on selling out.