As more and more students test positive for the flu, and the temperature gets even colder, student health and well-being is a top concern for SHAC, Dean Livingston and a select few professors. Recently, SHAC took it upon themselves to send out an email last week providing students with advice for how to cope with the cold and the contagious illnesses that often follow it. Their email provided lots of solid advice, such as “wear a scarf,” “cover your nose,” “barricade your coughing friend in their dorm for 7 days and 7 nights,” “don’t skimp out on sleep” and more. However, there was one strange idea: in what can only be assumed to have been a typo, SHAC recommended that students “masc up” to protect themselves from illness. And typo or not, this advice has spread like the flu, changing the face of Carleton’s campus perhaps forever.
When sophomore Chlo Seted received the email, she said, “I knew this was my true calling immediately. I’ve had a carabiner in my desk draw ready to go for months, I was just waiting for a sign. And you best believe I’ll be investing in a denim overshirt to do Adrianne Lenker denim suit looks. For my health.” Seted declined to comment on her identity or any changes to it, and she’s not the only one — the bookstore has started selling Carleton carabiners, due to high demand. However, this change isn’t being celebrated by everyone; Penelope Steffen ’27, who has been a proud belt-loop-carabiner wearer since freshman Fall, accuses those ‘mascing up’ of “stealing the valor of myself and my fellow true carabiner wearers,” asking, “how many of these people have even booked across the bay?”
However, the “masc up” campaign has also had some effects that are being celebrated campus-wide. Many members of the group informally known as “indie f*ckboys,” worried that the flu would derail their promiscuous activities, have donated their Phoebe Bridgers vinyls, Doc Martens and flared jeans, instead donning gray sweatpants and Nikes. They are finding these changes to be a challenge in and of themselves; junior Miso Geniste complained “I’ve had to post gym photos and Kendrick songs to keep my health, but I’m just not getting the same story likes I did on my chapel sunset with Lana song stories. It’s rough, y’know, those story likes are how I build my roster — I mean, of course — how I keep a positive self-image. It’s just been really hard for me. You’re not gonna print that, are you?” While students such as Geniste are finding this hard, Shreya Mehta ’27 is quite enthusiastic, “I feel like I’ve finally found inner peace,” she shares, “and I feel so much freer and safer now that the record libe is a female-dominated space again. It’s like a headache I didn’t even know I had has dissipated. Unfortunately, though, a bunch of guys have quit my acapella troupe, so if you’re a tenor, check us out.”
While SHAC later sent out a correctional email advising that students in fact “mask up,” it was too little too late. As students across campus masc-ed up, hundreds of individuals dapped each other up, clapped each other on the back, shared DNA-filled beanies and baseball caps and alternated sets on the lateral pull-down machine without wiping the seat. In fact, masc-ing up seems to have caused a greater flu, Covid and black plague outbreak across campus, which SHAC is not working to solve. A representative of the organization denied any intention on their part, stating, “why would we want students to be sick?” and “no, I swear I wasn’t winking, I just have something in my eye.”