This weekend, the events of Homecoming came to a screeching halt for one Cornell student, who was escorted out of Schoellkopf Stadium with what was thought to be a classic case of extreme boredom. First respondent Breaux Baxter was able to discuss his initial observations of the student saying, “We try to warn our students every year of the dangers of boredom. This isn’t Alabama VS Auburn; spectators should know that.” Upon further examination, however, Gannett’s on-call physician made the discovery that this was a very serious case of a new, deadly condition called FOMO.
In scientific terms, FOMO is defined as “the Fear Of Missing Out,” and is most commonly seen in young adults. Its origins can be traced back to the Illuminati. For our anonymous patient, FOMO was triggered after she saw an Instagram of her sorority sisters dartying while she was stuck at the game watching her boyfriend ride the bench and awkwardly chatting with his parents. A specialist on FOMO was called in to comment on the severity of the condition, saying ”This is by far the worst case of FOMO I’ve ever seen. When combined with boredom this can cause some serious injuries. In one case I had a patient who missed out on ‘Saturdays Are For The Boys’ festivities and was bedridden for 3 days with heavy doses of NFL, Pardon My Take, and Call of Duty.”
Cornell Health Services is working very hard to understand this new phenomenon of FOMO. In an effort to make sure something of this nature will NEVER happen again, a campus wide investigation has been launched. The goal of the investigation is to help prevent cases of boredom and FOMO for Cornell Football fans. While searching, the investigation found that most students have the same question: How do I let everyone know I went to the game without actually sitting through the whole thing? Through focus groups and 17.38 million dollars of funding that was reallocated from the Slope Escalator Installation Initiative, Gannet has recently released an official statement on the subject: “While we do not yet fully understand this new disease, we have worked to create a five step program to help students who are beginning to feel the initial symptoms of FOMO”. These steps include:
1Snapchat Excessively Prior To The Game
It is vital to channel your inner DJ Khaled. This allows students to give the illusion that they are attending the game. Our focus group concluded that this has a 75% success rate in making students’ peers believe they saw that one great play in the fourth quarter. These odds increase to 90% if Touchdown is included in the picture.
2Instagram Kickoff
This is slightly more difficult to complete because it requires actual game attendance. However, the reward is cashing in on valuable Instagram likes–especially if the caption is on fleek.
3Excessive Talk About The Game
This requires some planning, but if students can find a way to unnecessarily talk about how excited they are for the game, then they may not have to do any work on game day. To ensure success, we recommend looking up useless facts about the team and telling them to separate friend groups all day.
4Wear a Player’s Jersey
This may be the most difficult because it requires actually knowing someone on the team. Be prepared with a backstory about how the two of you are “boys.”
5Blame It On the Pregame
If you need an excuse as to why you couldn’t make it to the game but don’t want people to think you’re lame, just tell them you pregamed too hard. This is a foolproof excuse and serves the dual purpose of making sure everyone at least thinks you go hard. Our study has found that exaggerating the number of drinks you had by 25% is most convincing because it’s impressive, but also believable.
While we can not guarantee complete safety from these issues, hopefully these tips will help. Because God forbid you’re honest.
