From a8407b83f5da3bce46c4c6e65f1bcc6bb89bd1ec Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Frederick Yin Date: Sat, 6 Jul 2024 23:00:57 +0800 Subject: New post: shitpost/if_academia_worked_like_music --- docs/shitpost/if_academia_worked_like_music.md | 87 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++ docs/shitpost/index.md | 1 + 2 files changed, 88 insertions(+) create mode 100644 docs/shitpost/if_academia_worked_like_music.md (limited to 'docs') diff --git a/docs/shitpost/if_academia_worked_like_music.md b/docs/shitpost/if_academia_worked_like_music.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..9a8054d --- /dev/null +++ b/docs/shitpost/if_academia_worked_like_music.md @@ -0,0 +1,87 @@ +# If Academia Worked Like Music + +You are an associate professor at the Fakeland University of Common +Knowledge (FUCK). After years of hard work with your best friends Ethan +and Albert (they go by Et and Al), you have 12 manuscripts you call +"demos". + +You rent a lab space, larger and more professional than the one in your +basement. The staff help you with cameras and stuff. + +After a two-week-long lab session, you take everything to your producer +Oliver Leaf, who has every tool imaginable for LaTeX typesetting. He has +the ability to get Nature to accept a CVS receipt. + +Over the duration of three months you sit together with Et, Al and Oliver +to discuss what looks best in print. Sometimes it feels like torture. You +commission artist Tik Zeichner to create a striking book cover. + +At the printing press, the .tex files are compiled to .pdf, printed out, +and bound into a hardcover. You and your friends each take a copy and +shoot some promotional photos. + +For the paper videos, you and Et Al do experiments in the most random +places: on a frozen lake, in bed, on top of a skyscraper, etc. Contrary to +what the video shows, the blowtorch doesn't actually melt quartz glass. At +the end you smash a few Erlenmeyer flasks in slomo just cause you can. + +The opening paper is released along with its paper video. It's a smash hit +(pun intended), although you had to cut the discussion entirely for the +radio mix. One month later, you drop a more opinionated paper. It sparks +controversy among your fanbase, which is needed for hype. + +The marketing team is working hard to plaster every billboard in every +city with your abstract. Soon it becomes impossible to end a conversation +without mentioning your name. + +On the day the book drops, you announce a world tour, which would be quite +accurate if North America and Europe were the only two continents. But +hey, Mexico technically counts as "Latin America" right? + +You show up at a surprise book signing party at a parking lot, before the +police show up and cancel it. Your 20,000 fans are disappointed and soon +riot. You narrowly escape. + +After a dozen interviews and promotional photoshoots, you read on the news +that your book is "generally favorable". It's only been ten days but +there's at least a hundred videos reproducing your reactions (called +"reaction videos"), or cover a part thereof ("covers"). Most are cringe. + +Like everything else, ticket prices skyrocketed over the pandemic. +A general admission ticket that used to cost 50 now costs 187. Your fans +are complaining how TicketPastor® monopolizes live research. + +Opening for you on the tour are undergrads who work in the lab next door. +But they specialize in wireless communication, a topic you doubt your +audience is interested in. Their antenna had grounding issues and there +was a constant hum. + +The crew help the undergrads clean up their workbench and leave. Then you +enter the stage. Thunderous cheering. Et and Al walk on stage. More +cheering. Neon signs that read "Your Research Saved My Life". You know +that isn't true; they saved themselves. + +Your setlist opens with the opening chapter in the book, which segues into +chapter 2. You then perform experiments from your previous books. The +sixth paper requires a pot of beewax, so you move through the crowd to the +Bee stage. The crowd cheers as you pass, trying to touch you without +consent. + +The crew shove a portable table into the mosh pit for them to hold up. Al +leaps off and surfs to the table, where he dilutes stock solutions into +0.001M phosphate buffered saline. At the end, he throws one empty test +tube into the pit. That's gotta sell for a hundred bucks on ebay. + +The show is over and you are exhausted. Some diehard fans, who you recall +seeing just the night before, have waited two hours at the crew exit. +Sure, instagram, tiktok, whatever. You crawl back into your touring van +and basically just sleep there. + +Eleven months later, just as the tour is over, the RIAA (Research Industry +Association of Anywhere) informs you that your book has been certified +gold, which means it has sold 500k copies, where 150 library checkouts +counts as one copy. It would have been way sooner if there wasn't so many +Sci-Hubbers out there, but then you remember Sci-Hub saving your ass as an +undergrad, so you can't really blame them. + +Time for more manuscripts. diff --git a/docs/shitpost/index.md b/docs/shitpost/index.md index acc4825..6f4e299 100644 --- a/docs/shitpost/index.md +++ b/docs/shitpost/index.md @@ -13,3 +13,4 @@ precious time you could've spent more wisely elsewhere: - [Haiku collection 2](haiku_2.md) - [Writing A Blogpost Without Using Backspace](no_backspace.md) - [Cringiest song I've ever heard](cringiest_song.md) +- [If Academia Worked Like Music](if_academia_worked_like_music.md) -- cgit v1.2.3