The following piece is satire and should not be misconstrued as actual reporting. Any resemblance to a student, staff or faculty member is coincidental.
After failing to opt out of the Follett All-Access book plan, sophomore Bobby DeBobbo has been forced to sign up for Season 3 of Amazon Prime’s “Beast Games.”
“This really wasn’t what I had planned when I said I wanted a semester abroad,” DeBobbo said, while trying to be the last one to hang onto a metal wire while dangling over Mount Vesuvius. “But I really don’t see how else I can pay for it.”
The journey to “Beast Games” was an arduous one. When DeBobbo first discovered he was in the Follet All-Access program, he attempted to opt out through the user portal. In order to do that, he needed a two-factor authentication that could only be completed with a 1998 Windows desktop in a locked room in the basement of Hurst Hall. This desktop could only be accessed by retrieving the key from the President’s Office, which of course can only be obtained by confronting the bridge troll at the gate and answering his riddles three.
Unfortunately, American University’s longtime bridge troll, McGunderson, recently transferred to George Washington University because they were willing to offer him dental benefits. In McGunderson’s absence, an interim bridge troll was chosen by a bipartisan selection committee. However, when DeBobbo came to the interim bridge troll, Toadmuzzle, Jr., he was unable to remember all three questions. He therefore told DeBobbo that he had to ask his supervisor, the The Bridge troll (who patrols the on-campus coffee shop), who was unfortunately out of office.
At this point, the opt-out deadline had long passed and DeBobbo had wasted a lot of money trying to sway Toadmuzzle, Jr. by buying him Flamin’ Hot Twinkies. So, in an act of pure desperation, DeBobbo signed up for the third season of “Beast Games.”
Amazon founder Jeff Bezos seeks to harken back content to periods of historic entertainment, which is why in the new season, all closed captioning will be in hieroglyphics, there will be continual mentions to “bread and circuses” and MrBeast (who will be dubbed Emperor Beast) is constantly complaining about scheming eunuchs.
Competitors had to compete in numerous challenges for Emperor Beast, including going on grocery runs, doing his dry cleaning and evading his taxes. At one point, they also had to whitewash a fence, although they were told that it was actually really cool and fun.
DeBobbo thought he was doing pretty well in the challenge “Last Person To Take Hand Off of World’s Largest Data Center Keeps It,” but unfortunately Bobby momentarily lost contact when feeding a nearby orphan. Emperor Beast put his thumb down, and Bobby was then carried off by Chandler, Nolan and special guest Peter Thiel to his execution. The orphan turned out to be a paid actor by the Beast Corporation, 14-year-old Joseph Campbell-Soop, who would like readers to know he is SAG-AFTRA eligible.
“The worst part,” DeBobbo said. “Is that I only had one paperback book in the entire Follet system. The rest of my professors just asked us to buy their books separately because all of those books were written by the professors themselves.”
While awaiting the guillotine, DeBobbo submitted an appeal to financial aid given his struggle, to which they gave an automatic reply that simply said, “damn, that sucks dude, wish there was something I could do about it.” Coincidentally, this is actually the same automatic reply one gets when emailing the Title IX office.
Rest in peace, Robert “Bobby” DeBobbo. The total death toll of the games included him, 98 other contestants, and of course, thousands of scheming eunuchs.
Eric Steinberg is a junior in the Schools of Public Affairs and Communication, and a satire writer at The Eagle.
This article was edited by Jack Leary, Domenic DiPietro, Harry Walton and Gabrielle McNamee. Copy editing by Avery Grossman, Mattie Lupo, Jaden Maitland Anderson and Nicole Kariuki.
