We Listen and We Judge: Exposing the Most Controversial Takes on Campus

Last Wednesday, the Excrement sat for three excruciating hours at a table on the Centennial Mall and asked passersby for their most controversial takes. We told people we were there to listen, not judge, and said next to nothing as we were fed some of the worst takes we’ve ever heard. Some were so rotten and malevolent that we cannot print them here, but more on that later.

The Excrement learned a lot — mostly that many of you have uninspiring, utterly mediocre takes or are sheeple. But we also learned that — much like people from the West Coast do every day — you can pretend like you’re not judging and then clown people behind their backs. So, April Fools, guys. Here are the most controversial takes on campus, complete with hateration from the opinion editor.

To start off, someone said LeBron is not the GOAT. Wrong. I don’t know anything about basketball, but I do know that LeBron loves to lie, is actively beefing with Stephen A. Smith and constantly lip-syncs songs he doesn't quite know the words to. What is not GOATed about that?

One person who just doesn’t get media said “Seinfeld” is a bad show. Oh… so what should we be watching instead? “Severance?” Sorry you don’t get what it’s like to be an awkward assh*le who fumbles every situation. Frigg me and Larry David’s stupid chungus lives.

Some students had takes so pedestrian, obvious and uncontroversial that we genuinely questioned if y’all ever go outside. These include: Recent architecture looks like shit. The tax system in America doesn’t entirely work. Summer is better than winter. The remodel of Romney is ugly. They need to stop taking away parking lots on campus to build more buildings.

How trite. Who is arguing about these en masse? Do better. Think harder and reach deeper.

We also received a lot of opinions on music. To everyone’s credit, most of these were actually controversial. One man said he hates the Red Hot Chili Peppers, the Gorillaz and Travis Scott. Travis Scott is special to the white men on this campus — he’s like their Lisan al Gaib — so I can’t imagine how long he’s had to hold onto that brave opinion in silence.

Another student said that Pink Floyd is severely overrated. Someone else said that “Free Bird” sucks. For my part, I’d like to use this platform to say that being an MF DOOM fan does not mean you have niche taste. All rap fans know who that man is and some of y’all need to stop basing your personality on liking artists who were only considered underground 15 years ago. RIP though.

Now, I’ll stop hating for a moment and list some actually controversial opinions we heard:

• I don’t like dogs. (Me neither, brave soul.)
• Chocolate is not good.
• Skiing does not make the winters here worth it.
• A hot dog is a sandwich.
• Beer tastes bad.
• Basketball is not cool — unless they’re in March Madness. (This is just objectively wrong.)
• There is no such thing as being a bad person.
• America is not a free country. (This is only a controversial take in a place like Montana.)
• Ranch is not good. (People gathered around to argue about this one.)
• All three of the top condiments — ketchup, mustard and ranch — make food taste objectively worse.
• All drugs should be legal and regulated. (Again, only controversial in this state.)
• If I could ethically eat human meat, I would. (Not me, reader, not me…)
• S’mores are a mid dessert.

Okay, we actually heard far more controversial takes than these. Some of them were politically motivated things that I frankly agree with. But we also heard opinions so questionable that there is no way we can give them a platform here, even for a joke edition. Someone talked about necrophilia. Someone else wondered if maybe one of the evilest men in history wasn’t entirely wrong. One man had questionable opinions on drunk drivers. I could go on, but I won’t.

So, keep a watchful eye on your fellow students — some of them believe some weird sh*t, and some of them can’t form a solid opinion at all. What are my truly controversial opinions, you ask? I can’t tell you that here… I’m not anonymous. Like a lot of the liberal arts students I know, I’d rather just stay on my high horse and judge everyone else.