You Cheater
We know what you did last decade.
I have been obsessed with Kevin on TikTok for ages and I made the mistake of trying to assign a straight man who’s not on TikTok to write about it and he was like “???” Anyway, here is a great interview with Kevin from TikTok; his feed is one of the only places on the entire internet that feels good! —Choire Sicha
IT HAPPENED TODAY
You Take the Good
You take the bad.
Eric Adams hates the weather this spring (and isn’t afraid to say it). He also claims he met with a group called “Gays for Hamas.”
RFK Jr. wants to stop drenching our wheat in poisons, one of his actually “non-nutty” positions, and now Donald Trump wants to shut him up?
Also, RFK Jr. admits that we should not be taking medical advice from him.
LUNCHTIME POLL
Your Best Cheating Stories
A bunch of rascals.
We are right to be worried about how our children are learning, or possibly not learning, due to how they use the new AI tools. But also? We all have shortcuts. Last week, we asked you how you’ve cheated, and a lot of you said “I’m cheating on my husband right now.” That’s revealing and mildly concerning, but lots of your other cheating is charming and didn’t make you a permanently deformed person. The jury is out on whether ChatGPT will destroy an entire generation, haha yikes, but sounds like your nefarious escapades didn’t wreck you.
The Winner and Champion
➼ In high school, I had math class late in the day and would leave my binder in my locker with my perfect completed homework for an absolute CROWD of people to come by and copy throughout the day. Absolutely no one ever caught us and I felt no remorse!!! My parents were math teachers and I have no ability to do math but they helped me and I let everyone cheat because why the hell not?! Later I was voted “Class Sweetheart” and yes I bought those votes with math homework baybeee. — Class Sweetheart
Is It Even Cheating If It’s Brilliant?
➼ I’m a ghostwriter who has been outsourcing ghostwriting for ages! An inception of ghosts! — Boo Badley
➼ Once in middle school, I simply did not complete a science project and thus, never turned it in. When everyone else’s projects were being handed back to them, I was like “hello?? Where is my project that I worked so hard on for weeks??” And the teacher fully bought it ESPECIALLY since the uncontested coolest girl in class backed me up … I still have no idea why she did this. We were not friends, I was a huge nerd, she had never spoken to me before in my life, but she swore up and down she had seen me turn in my project. Absolute queen behavior. (I don’t know why I didn’t do the project, this is not a place for judgment, I am a more responsible adult than I was a preteen, ok?) — Bad Nerd
➼ Is minor theft a kind of cheating? Cheating my way through grad-school-induced poverty to still enjoy the finer treats of life? If so, I was a little cheater-thief on more than one occasion. A snooty rich girl in grad school flaunting her weed stash while the rest of us were cleaning resin out of pipes and re-rolling roaches? I'll drop a handful of those buds in my pocket while you're in the bathroom, m'lady. A leering/harassing dude drops his coke bag on the bar patio and doesn't notice when I cover it with my shoe until he goes for another drink? Instant karma was my thought at the time. I never cheated on an assignment for school, but I did take some less than honest shortcuts, no two ways about it. — Beek Jeans (Put your cheeks in a Beek)
But It Makes Sense
➼ I've cheated on my boyfriend because I like men with smaller-sized dicks and my boyfriend has a big one. I know, it seems upside-down, but it's true. — Sabrina D
➼ The drug test that I took in 2010 to secure my 911 dispatcher job that I've worked at ever since. I just need the weed every day, it helps me so much with being a functioning human being and not having panic attacks or murdering people every day lol. I could not quit smoking long enough to have clean urine 😬 and yes, I never stopped and still smoke to this day. Nowadays, the cannabis helps to mask the horrible things I've heard while doing this job. I wouldn't have imagined the PTSD or things that come along with it. Now, I'm saving lives one joint and one phone call at a time! don't get it twisted though, literally and figuratively, as I never imbibe on my THC while on duty. Only on days off or after a long-ass shift. Cheers! — Shayla*
➼ I cheat on Wordle and Connections all the time just to maintain my streaks. My husband thinks I’m just a genius and who am I to challenge him? — Got it in two
➼ Falsified school records using Photoshop (claimed to be a full time master’s degree student) in order to get a paid internship that I then used as experience to *actually* apply to grad school, all so I could get the illustrious and high-paying job of: Librarian. It's been almost eight years since then, and I don't regret a thing. — Small j.
➼ the sleep-away camp that I went to/worked at has a quiz bowl against a boys’ camp. when I was a counselor I may have looked up an answer on the test to be selected for the team and I may have overheard an answer, then used it when I was in the actual quiz bowl. I had an image to protect and the only facet of my image was my smartness! — counselor fudge
➼ I work for a Madison Ave. law firm. One of the partners is repping a huge housing development which will be undergoing renovation construction. There have been multiple meetings with the tenants, posted notifications everywhere in the development. In addition, management has placed notifications under each tenant’s door. So, with typical lawyer overkill, this partner brings me hundreds of individual letters, basically a duplication of everything noted above, and tells me to mail each one (there were easily 600 letters). I worked on about 50, then figured, Screw this nonsense. Waited for him to leave for the day and then fed the letters into the shredder. Easy-peasy, no repercussions, and a year later I’m still grinning. — Wink-Wink
Hey Kids? We Cheated Before ChatGPT
➼ In my first job out of college, in the 1980s, I was an underwriting assistant for an international insurance company ( okay, Cigna). They wanted to promote me after six months, but I had to take a written test first. They gave me the test booklet to study at home, along with the answers. I really hated the job and had no interest in being promoted, but I still needed to take the test since it was going to be at least several months before I quit. In the morning before I left for work, I wrote all the answers on my thigh with a Bic pen, then put on a skirt with sheer nylons. They put me in a private office to take the test, and once in, I simply pulled my skirt up as I took the test, copying the answers. Needless to say I got an A. A few months later I left to become an actor. — Mx. Thigh Master
➼ In my sophomore year of college, circa 1984, I took a computer science/math course that was crazy hard. The night before the final I was invited to a dorm room where someone had a stolen copy of the test. We spent the night figuring out the answers together, and in taking part, I inadvertently learned HOW to solve such math problems. The next day, the test turned out to have the same questions in the same order, but with different numbers. Since I now knew how to solve the problems, I just did the math and got a perfect score. My classmates who had instead memorized and input the answers from the stolen test with different numbers (clearly the professor's plant) all got F’s and academic probation. — accidental mathlete
➼ For a college statistics exam, I printed mathematical formulas (6 pt. font) and glued them onto the side of a white-out bottle. I also got a job as a canoe instructor simply by AskingJeeves the basics of canoeing. Theory met practice and it didn’t go over well. But they kept me on, anyway. — Lindsey Graham Cracker
➼ In college (mid ’90s) I had to write a paper on Uncle Tom's Cabin, by Harriet Beecher Stowe. This was mostly pre-internet so I bought a copy at the bookstore that included a professional literary review and summary. I read the book and copied, almost verbatim, the summary and critique of the novel. I got an A on the paper. Sorry, Prof. Brown. :( — Boaty McBoatface
➼ In high school I'd cheat on the majority of my math tests one year with a group of three friends. We were somehow able to pull it off sitting in the back corner of the classroom passing tiny slips of paper back and forth. Also, this isn't cheating, but I've made up random previous work scenarios on the spot when attempting to answer behavioral interview questions. Sometimes those questions are so specific I feel I have no choice but to lie!!
➼ In high school, I once paid the child genius in the grade below me to do my online math homework. I was going to art school and knew I wouldn't need to know pre-calc. She happily accepted. Win/Win. — Julianna
➼ I used to write out full essay-question answers to example questions the professor had given us inside the paperbacks we could bring to the final to use for quotations. The questions were the same or similar to the question we'd get on test day. I'd copy what I’d written into my blue books. — English Major
➼I plagiarized a paper for my physics final. —Shameless Student
➼ During my junior year of HS, circa 2014/2015, I used to email my AP Lang teacher blank Google docs when I hadn’t finished my homework & would play it off as a computer error. — Butter
➼ A bunch of US History tests in the 10th grade (circa 2002). Our dummy of a teacher didn't write his own tests. He got them from the back of our textbooks. Someone in our class figured out that you could get the answers on the textbook's website, and that was it. Everyone in the class started cheating. But instead of writing his own tests, our teacher yelled at us/threatened us (we were all getting straight 100s at that point) but didn't change anything he was doing. Dude deserved it, not sorry at all. — Rachel
➼ In fifth grade I incompetently tried to hide my textbook inside my desk for a grammar test about relative pronouns. I obviously got caught and got a 0. I still don’t remember what a relative pronoun is. I also would paraphrase the Grolier Encyclopedia CD-ROM (lol) for short essay assignments. — Anon
➼ Chat and other LLM are classic examples of "work smarter, not harder.” Saying not to use it is like saying we should get everywhere by foot because wheels are "cheating.” But I digress. I don't condone cheating where matters of integrity are concerned (from board games to relationships). But if it helps get from point A to B with less fuss and the same — if not a potentially better — result, then why fight it? I did my last year of high school online for personal reasons. I'd already completed all my core subjects and just needed to get the degree, so of course I used digital assistance when taking virtual tests. It would almost be foolish not to. — Ophelia
➼ Only one time, but on an exam in college for a philosophy course on … ethics. During the exam, I had hidden my notes under my shirt and went to the bathroom to refresh my recollection in a bathroom stall. In my defense, a valedictorian a few years above me at my high school apparently cheated on tests all the time before going on to clerk for SCOTUS. Crime pays? — Ethical Slut
➼ The ChatGPT hysteria is amazing and naïve. I spent my early and mid-20s writing every kind of essay, research paper, and even creative-writing assignment for anyone who could pay. Cheating but analogue? — Mr. Wickpeckette
Actually Just Life Hacks
➼ I cheated at life when I was born to rich parents. To be honest I've never really cheated at anything else, but it doesn't matter because economic security no matter what I do allows me to make choices with a totally different risk calculation than people who have a legitimate fear of debt/poverty. I guess I also run red lights on my bike to get places faster and that's cheating too. —Naught Clever
➼ Many, many, years ago I was dating a boring, lame dude my last couple years of college. I didn’t realize how lame and frankly awful he was until I found myself cheating on him with one of my former professors, and honestly? I don’t really regret it. — stephanie
➼ During my final semester of college I lived off campus and had to park in a commuter lot a million miles away from the one night class I was taking. So I made a fake parking permit with like Microsoft Word, and it worked like a charm. It was basically a red square with a white number in it … I couldn't have been the first person to think of it ... — Lazy in Chicago
THE CONVERSATION
Sufjan Stevens Speaks
And he’s turning 50? Wow.
This is the answer of someone who’s actually really thought about it and been through it.
Sufjan Stevens is, among other things, the ultimate case study for the old debate of M.F.A. v. NYC as he came to NYC for the M.F.A. and then simply didn’t really need either. While indulging in learning about literature, he already had the insanely good (sprawling, messy) A Sun Came album in hand. Perhaps, the answer to NYC v. M.F.A. was simply “no”?
Click Your Way Out
So the New Airbnb is basically services but also more experiences? Such as paying to eat Italian food with retired cops, paying to go to Avenue C with a lawyer and visit murder sites. Probably exactly what our age craves! No one knows what to do, ever. For $150 a head, I’ll take you all to Balthazar and make you write a blog post (plateaux de fruits de mer are non compris!).
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Yes, really funny! And so familiar ... especially the one with the answers for a test written on the legs ...
These are so funny. I think I like the druggie dispatcher the best.