S A T I R E
Shudipto Dip
In a recent study conducted by the Stonewall Observatory of Texas, scientists have come to a conclusion that hair dye, especially the ones with blue shades, have a direct link to neural conditioning. “Exposure to such synthetic dye colours, as many conspirators suspected, occurs through a process known as trichomonosis,” says Dr Grayson, “which leads the chemicals directly into the brain and cause a disturbance in the force.” As a matter of fact, these chemicals radiate around with such intensity that a person needn’t apply the colour twice before their preferences and life choices are determined by society.
Labelling this discovery as a potential ‘information hazard’, the scientists requested that anonymity be maintained, addressing each other with codenames. “All that we do has some evolutionary reasons. Take coughing or sneezing for example. They are not the bad parts in a fever. We cough to try and expel the germs causing the fever. So, coughing is not a result of the germ itself. Then there’s shivering. We vibrate our bodies efficiently to generate kinetic energy that keeps us warm. As for plants, chromoplasts make colorful flowers that attract birds that help them mate. Do you see where I’m going with this?” retorts Dr. G, “And our theory is that – like coughing, the desire follows the cause, and not the other way round. A pathological, or some might argue instinctual, want for superficiality is caused by a chemical found in the dye we didn’t know–” “And we named it T-oxicyanin, haha, no pun intended, haha,” interrupted the middle-aged blonde, codenamed Dr. K.
The research took the internet out by storm, as many have started to believe that all of their stereotyping just might have scientific bases because they “just feel innately right”. Memers and trolls are having a field day searching for crying soyjack templates they used in comment sections just over a day earlier. Self-proclaimed guardian of meme culture ‘Know Your Meme’ officially labelled the symptoms of the blue hair craze as ‘wokeism’ in a YouTube community post, and asked its followers to list down some of the symptoms. Some common ones we found are: having unpopular opinions etc. Half of the comment section was keyboard war. A relatively shorter thread caught our attention:
– They are usually egotistical lesbians who take pride in thinking they don’t need men. I know they love pegging.
– How many lesbians do you know?
– Uhh…wait a min. Are you saying if I see a considerable number of people do the same thing, it’s justifiable to stereotype!?
The other half of the comment section was just shocked that the wokes could take enough jokes to follow ‘Know Your Meme’.
For the lack of credible opinions, our team of diligent reporters dug a little deeper and reached out to a local gymnasium based club – Men Against Cyan Haired Omen (MACHO). They had a lot to say about the uncomfortably open minded views of these girls on having the liberty to use one’s own body. What exactly they said is unclear, as after censoring some of the profanity, we were left with unintelligible “gymbro” jargon and a bunch of Greek letters.
Next, we reached out to a discord based cult named Saint Freud’s Rad Obstinates. Their preferred mode of greeting was to have us follow their official social handles, including but not limited to their renowned fake ID ‘Patrick Bateman is literally me’. One of the members commented, “I have already seen two emos and 3 memes on Facebook. Their default insult is ‘men’. What do you make of people who use such gender-based insults? Those douchebags!” We asked him to humour us with the memes he saw. He shared the screen and along came to a pop-up ad “Grow 8cm in…” before he cut the call.
The cult leader joined in and said that they have been working on how the controlled and biased media manipulates us and how this incident is no different. They already sent an opinion article to a local newspaper. But when we asked for more details into the case study, we were met with screeches from the other end before he, too, cut the call. We were later informed that his extroverted friend was filming a prank video and suddenly came out of the closet to scare him, which, in turn, left him deeply offended.
Left with no choice, we went to the newspaper office in search of the article. It was a dive into the inaccurate portrayal of (hair) coloured women in films. The representation is namely ‘manic pixie dream girl’ trope that criticises the use of girls as plot devices for character development. According to the cult piece, it also romanticises craving for bold and beautiful and daring women, who, in reality, are nocturnal e-girls. According to him, if anything, the representation should be like in American Psycho.
Before leaving, we went to thank the editor for letting us read the article before publishing it. We saw him occupied with an obnoxious amount of paperwork. When we asked what it was about, he said, “Eh, nothing much. Just the daily addition of the doesn’t-represent-the-views-of-the-organisation footnote.”
The Department of Gender Studies of the town’s public university was nearby. We went in with the hopes of new perspectives from the male students there. But we were greeted with the sight of a hive mind — everyone preoccupied with their cellphones, playing Fruit Ninja (judging by the swiping motion), but in portrait mode for some reason. The app probably added an online multiplayer feature as one student was repeatedly expressing his frustration about not getting a match, before walking up to us. Upon asking for his opinion on the debate, he presented a solution, “Communism”. We waited for a few seconds before asking to elaborate. “Encourage them! Blue lives matter bro! Cause when everyone’s blue, we won’t have a clue who’s who,” he replied.
We sat down at the university cafeteria and had an argument on approaching the 50 y/o on the other bench about the issue. He saw us approaching him with a mic and exclaimed, “Look man, it was a long day…But do you know what else is long?”
We approached another man who said, “I am all supportive about the new wave, but I also want to prepare my daughter for the real world because the hate comes with it. She worked part-time at a restaurant. I felt really bad when she came home crying from her first day at work.
‘Some guy came with a coupon, ordered a chicken breast and I told him we’ve run out of the item. He started yelling that of course I don’t have breasts. That’s why I coloured my hair to stand out. Then he called me a kentucky fried c-word.’
She then hugged me and started bawling. Easier times make snowflake people, but I felt really bad for her. I consoled her and said, ‘Next time, don’t screw with my order.'”
Our detour to the university remained largely unsuccessful as students fed up with outsiders eating at their cafeteria forced us out. Hopeless, we brought out our camera to click some pictures and do another piece on migratory birds.
Shudipto Dip is a replicant with the emotional range of a labradoodle.