If you’re considering running for student body president, pay close attention. We’ve collected some tried and true tips that will send you quickly on your way to the top of the food chain and save you from a loss in the schoolwide popularity contest that would cement your social inadequacy for the rest of your sorry lifetime.
1: Be conservative with the information you share with your peers: the success of a politician stems entirely from their ability to manipulate facts for a positive self-image. For example, when debate night rolls around and your broken family is sitting in the front row under the scrutiny of your judgy friends, be sure to address your mother’s absence in a dignified manner. Tell them she passed tragically in a car accident when you were eight years old, and her lasting legacy has made you more strong. They don’t need to know your mother abandoned you as a child to live with openly homosexual global sensation Ricky Martin.
2: Wear your finest clothes to school. Take your campaign headshots in your room where your 4 Canada Goose coats are visible from your open closet. It should distract from the pain in your eyes, the pain that no amount of luxurious goose down could ever repair. The royalties from 2007 smash hit Livin’ La Vida Loca have placed a bountiful fortune in your mother’s guilty hands, and it is only right that you milk it. Your classmates think money is cool, and maybe, for the first time, the exorbitant child support you’re receiving will actually be worth something.
3: When latin pop sensation Ricky Martin picks you up on the weekends, take the opportunity to snap some selfies with him to post to your Instagram and uphold the fabricated joyful reality you’ve created. Take one in his luxury convertible and crop out your father’s soft pale arms waving goodbye in the background. Take another in his studio, or on his music video set. And of course, take one in his 3,000-square-foot home. Just ensure your mother can never be seen. Remember, she’s dead.
4: Establish a personal connection with your future constituents and make them feel comfortable sharing their deepest traumas with you. They want to know you care. Sit down with them at lunch, listen to their stories, and validate their feelings. But resist the urge to share in return. Your secret is different in that it is pathetic and shameful. It must be harbored deep within your psyche, no matter how haunting it may be to remember your mother being ripped from your embrace by the most powerful gay sexual energy you’ve ever witnessed.
When all is said and done, and you have finally secured the presidency, you might feel like you’ve made it. You’ll think the hiding will be over, the tension of your inner turmoil will dissipate, and you can go back to living a normal life. But popularity is a small comfort. You will still have to look into your father’s cuckold eyes when he drops you off at school and walk in with a smile on your face. Ricky Martin stole your mom. But you’re the most popular girl in school. And isn’t that all that matters?
— AV ’22
