The Story of the Flat Earth Poster
The Flat Earth Movement has really had some fantastic past couple years. The concept of a flat earth has become much more widespread, and more and more people are claiming to side with the flat-earthers. Unfortunately for everyone else however, I feel as if the supply of jokes for making fun of these people hasn’t grown accordingly to meet the new surge in relevancy.
Click here for more details on the poster this story is about
- Wikipedia: The Not-So-Phantom Menace
- Attack Of The Satire
- The Revenge of The Principal
- Mr. Calculus: A New Hope
Wikipedia: The Not-So-Phantom Menace
The graph below demonstrates my point well: the common go-to for stealing jokes, a quick Google search, has not nearly kept pace with the plain search terms of “flat earth”.
Now one might think this should disappoint me as I generally feel like with all good things, the quantity of ridicule should match the -quote, unquote- “real” content. In reality, I am not saddened by this data at all; I attribute the scarcity of Google searches not to a lack of interest, but really a lack of demand. What I am saying is that no one needs to Google for flat earth jokes, as the jokes practically write themselves.
See for example the Wikipedia pages Modern flat earth societies and Why Wikipedia cannot claim the earth is not flat. Not only are these comical just in their existence, but they also contain wonderfully blunt and seemingly sarcastic statements such as the following:
The best part about this subject however, or at the very least my favorite part, is the fact that both sides of the argument seem to just want to be angry with each other. No matter who you are with, the topic always comes to present strong opinions from both factions. And along with strong opinions, generally comes strong emotions.
Attack Of The Satire
Duncan, the man to whom I owe full credit to for the joke, fascinated our calculus class everyday with his sarcastic renditions of all the bizarre, outlandish, and ridiculous forms of evidence that obviously prove the flat earth theory, along with the wonderfully convenient excuses as to why the rest of the world’s population are all mindless, blindly faithful globies (pronounced “globe-ies”). This proof ranged anywhere from how the Earth is accelerating upwards at 9.81 m/s^2, to how NASA has never actually gone to space, or to how flooding is actually impossible with a spherical shape. These were all in good fun of course, with other students and even Mr. Calculus joining in. Those who didn’t quite get the sarcasm were infuriated, left to think they were the only sane people in the classroom.
The poster that I eventually created was a continuation of this joke. The original idea was that between all the thirty-some students in our class, we would be able to pool together enough money to bulk order a couple hundred prints of the poster, to then plaster them all over the school as a last-ditch effort grad prank. We got damn near close too, but I’m sad to say it never quite came to fruition.
The Revenge of The Principal
Word eventually got out, as would be assumed when 30+ kids are all suspiciously shuffling money around during the school day. I was first told by Mr. Principal that the mess was a concern, as the janitors should not be responsible for all the posters that would eventually be lying around. A few text messages and a lunch break later, I came back to him with a promise to remove all the posters the evening after the planned attack, signed by around twenty students. He sat on it for a while longer, and then there were a few more back and forths between us. Long story short, after waiting 5 grueling hours, our proud and faithful group of flat-earthers were shot down in flames.
I responded with the only appropriate thing I could muster at that point: A eulogy for our dear friend the poster.
To: Mr. Calculus
BCC: Mr. Principal
Here lies the remnants of the 2017 Flat Earth Grad Prank.
His loss was most unfortunate, vetoed by none other than the dreaded Mr. Principal himself. Though he died young, aspiring to be one of the greatest pranks to have ever lived, we remember him as an exhilarating individual, full of clever wit and humor. His conception was long winded but out of love; his design, like no other. Wiped out in one fell swoop, we mourn his death but understand that unearthly powers have a certain way of making things for the better.
Do with his remains as you see fit.
May he forever rest in peace.
Attached: flatearth.png
Mr. Calculus: A New Hope
We all finished our classes, saddened by the lack of grad pranks and the lack of flat earths. In spite this, I went and bought a 33” tall print of the poster so I could at least egotistically bask in its glory. Now I don’t know how, but it for some reason ended up in Mr. Calculus’s room, taped up on the whiteboard.
Most of our exams came and went, and one of the last was the calculus final. As I finished up the last questions on the exam, I noticed the last page. Turns out Mr. Calculus had a similar idea to me; attached to the back of every students’ test was a copy of the flat earth poster.
With regards the large one I printed, well, last I heard, it’s still there, infuriating every single new student who walks through Mr. Calculus’s doors.
