Cardinal staffers are easily some of the quirkiest and most talented people in existence. After all, we have folks who can do flawless dead person impressions on the rickety couches in the office during peak work hours and masterful orators who treat the small office space as a State of the Union address with their booming voices.
Samara Alphine was one such staffer, a freshman this past year who had joined the The Daily Cardinal as a staff writer in the fall semester. Known as someone who gave great advice such as “if you are feeling sad, just stop feeling sad and be happy instead” and “just snap out of it, easy as that!” we felt an aura of wisdom emanating from her on recruitment day. We knew we had to take her on board that instant.
She wrote about a variety of societal issues existing today with a lot of passion. By the end of the year, however, her attitude had changed.
“I am so SICK and TIRED of this. I have written about racism, homophobia and climate change but none of these issues have come to an end???!!!! I am FUMING. What more could I POSSIBLY do????” she shouted during a meeting on Zoom.
“I quit. I don’t want to do this anymore. I would rather devote my time to a more effective approach to ending these problems.”
She refused to divulge her plans at first, but upon further questioning, she revealed her master plan.
“I will now re-post others’ content on social media! I remember seeing at least 10 of my friends re-post the same material to pretty much the same audience on private Instagram stories when Notre Dame was on fire and all of a sudden, it was not on fire. I guess shouting in an echo chamber really is the way to go! ”
“This is clearly the right thing to do. What else could we possibly try? Organized discourse?? Grassroots movements? I mean when has all that EVER worked?? Peace out, nerds. Imma save the world.”
While this outburst is admirable and really makes us think about how we approach such issues in the future, we are now short on personnel and hope to find similar personalities to fill Samara’s boots in our office soon.
Anupras Mohapatra is a former opinion editor for The Daily Cardinal and currently serves on the Editorial Board. He is a senior double majoring in Computer Science and Journalism.
