In a recent and completely unexpected turn of events, local uninterrupted eye contact fan and extremely outspoken male feminist Thomas Hercule has decided that he’s changed his mind.
“I’ve changed my mind,” Hercule said in the beginning of a 2200 character long, block text Instagram post featuring a picture of himself staring pensively at the camera in black and white.
The Instagram post, containing several justifications for the enduring 20% wage difference between men and women — as well as several completely unrelated but very valid self-help strategies for disconnected and emotionally isolated men — was a surprise to his 46 Instagram followers.
To quote another of his posts two months prior, “Gender is just a construct, anyone who has read bell hooks ‘Feminism is for Everyone’ realizes that the construct of masculinity hurts men as well as women,” Hercule wrote, invoking a famous feminist text in such a way to show that he at least attended the two lectures that covered the book he was quoting. He even remembered to not capitalize bell hooks — reminding everyone he was in the know.
Moderately confused as to how such a diametric change could occur in such a short period of time, the intrepid and streetwise reporters of The Badger Herald Banter section reached out to the man himself to see what was what.
“I stand by what I said on my Instagram post. Men have it really hard these days, just the other night when I was walking home alone by myself I stopped to think about how unfair the courts can be to male guardians in custody cases. Just the other day I heard some females holding hands say they don’t like men! Could you imagine having someone judge you ahead of time based on your gender?” Hercule questioned without actually saying much to explain what the hell was going on with him.
Fortunately, his roommate, occasional unpaid therapist and amateur professional wrestler Franky “The F Word1” Freding had never signed the confidentiality agreements required for professional therapists.
“The F Word has noticed that dude is down bad right now,” The F Word shouted in an exclusive interview with The Badger Herald.“Reporter-man I tell you what, he’s asked out like three girls in a row now and he’s either been left on read or never made it to date number two. Since The F Word is a complete muscle bound freak made of forged steel and sex appeal, he knows a thing or two about the ladies and let me tell you that dude has no idea he completely reeks of desperation and other things from two planets away.”
Hungry to put together the simultaneously tragic and hilarious story that must be this guy’s romantic life, The F Word gave us the numbers of all the women Thomas hit on, which he had obtained using the arcane art of simply talking to them casually for a few minutes.
Communications student and full time real girl Yan Weili was the first to respond to our reasonable inquiries about details from her personal life.
“Yeah I left him on read and I would do it again,” Yan said. “He seemed fun and cute at first but all he did was snapchat me the driest complaints about his day and very weird expressions of support for me as a Chinese-American female writer trying to make it in a patriarchal white supremacist system.”
Rose Ribas, similarly subjected to Hercule’s incomparable rizz2 had the unique honor of sharing a date with the man himself.
“Jesus”
Rose said, unaware that there is a time and a place to bring religion into a conversation.
“The dude literally was so nervous to be around me it went from cute to grating very fast,” Rose said. “That was before he thought it would be an intriguing line of conversation to talk about how nervous he was. Three polite head nods later and he’s literally thanking me for my entire existence. Dude just needs to get some sort of identity outside of trying to say what he thinks we want to hear, shit at least a hobby.”
We here at The Badger Herald banter section officially laugh at this dude for his lack of awareness and self-involvement, because it makes us feel better about our own personal shortcomings.
1The Badger Herald does not endorse the use of the word “frick”
2We use cool slang because we are the cool section
