With the coronavirus shutting down universities all over the country, many have had to find alternate means to carry on business. While I’m a big fan of Zoom classes, because I don’t have to put on pants, many other things are not as easily transferred online. For example, college sports have been postponed, leaving athletes stranded.

“Yeah, we thought about putting two of our wrestlers in these experimental VR suits we got from the Department of Defense, and making them play ‘Mortal Kombat’ in virtual reality,” said WSU wrestling coach Tarya Hedoff. Hedoff has been strategizing with other staff on how to provide alternative sports for students.

“But when one of our guys came out with his spine snapped in half and one of them came out frozen into a block of ice, we figured we’d cut our losses,” Hedoff said.

Graduation has been another point of contention among WSU staff and students. How do you transfer something online that is, by its very nature, deeply personal?

“We tried a test run of a Minecraft graduation,” said WSU President Bill Edrock. “Players kept blowing up the stage, and some 12-year-old in voice chat called me a ‘sh-t eating p-ssbaby’ for not having diamond armor. Serves us right for making a public server, I suppose.”

Students everywhere have taken up arms to protest the school’s mishandling of the graduation fiasco.

“They haven’t told us what it is, where it is, what school I go to, what my major is,” said seventh-year business major Ira Te. “Man, it’s like I’m living in communist Vietnam, dude.”

When informed Vietnam was not a communist country, Te stared at the wall for a solid 10 minutes, and then left the interview room.

Members of the WSU elite have offered their services for alternate graduation locations, including the son of a rich English landowner, attending WSU on a Fulbright scholarship. 

“My father, Sir Edward Wesleyberg, the Lord of the Isle of Wight, offers to fly the graduating class to his private South Pacific island,” said Edmund Wesleyberg, a junior philosophy major. “There will be ceremonies, feasting and games … the most dangerous game! Ahaha! Hahaha! And may the most cruel, the most vicious, the most violent of all the seniors take their place as WSU’s victor!”

Wesleyberg continued to monologue for about 30 minutes, none of which is printable here, due to the high volume of antiquated racism, and threats to the “filthy Irish.”

Succinctly, Wesleyberg’s potential cover for an island-based manhunt was struck down by both administration and students, due to its “high cost” and “general weird vibe.”

“We don’t hunt students anymore,” Edrock said. “It’s just not cost-effective.”

Regardless of student complaints and admin ineptitude, a player from the past has stepped up to fill in the gap and pick up the slack. A Serbian company, Online Having Fun Zone, has purchased the late 2000s website for kids, “Club Penguin,” and retrofitted it to allow massive amounts of players to attend their school’s graduation.

Online Having Fun Zone, a post-Balkans war slush fund, acquired the Club Penguin domain name for $100 in February of 2020. The company’s CEO, Wojakslaw Milovanovic, an Eastern European financial guru, said his decision was motivated by the coronavirus’s impact on in-person activities.

“Yes, is massive good business decision,” Milovanovic said. “clubpenguin.com is no longer use, we buy URL and make big ton of money! Big time American man, ‘Wolf Of Wall Street’, yes!”

In a post-modern world, we require post-modern solutions. So, class of 2020, grab your laptops and your mortarboards, because it’s time for Graduating Class Penguin.

Jacob Hersh is a political science major from Anchorage, Alaska. He can be contacted at 335-1140 or at [email protected]. The views expressed in this column do not necessarily represent the views of The Daily Evergreen, its editors or publishers.