March 17, 2025 by Ava Tatum (‘25)
The other day someone emailed me “I love your articles, please don’t die”. Most people think this is funny, but I took it very seriously. I know I’m going to die one day; the question is, who will replace me? After careful consideration, I’ve decided to leave it up to my good friend and Editor-in-Chief for this very paper, Olivia Clemmensen, to search for my replacement once I kick the bucket. Below is a condensed guide on how to become me when the fateful day comes (the original is 994 pages, and I’m “legally” not allowed to publish it).
The signature “Ava Tatum look” isn’t hard to achieve, you just have to be drop dead gorgeous. The mentality is harder, which is why I’ve broken it down into the acronym: D.A.M.P.E.N.S. It stands for Drama, Audacity, Manipulation, Persistence, Ego/Narcissism, and Shame.
- Drama: Being the center of attention doesn’t just come naturally; I work hard to achieve this level of stardom. On the first day of school, I asked out an entire friend group and then I added them to a group chat called “My Minions”. Then the next day I started a rumor about myself, what that rumor might be is up to you.
- Audacity: If I was a font, I’d be the boldest one. I like to first, middle and last name people in the hallways just to get a rise out of them. This step is fairly simple, just think of something that would make somebody gasp and say, “the audacity!”.
- Manipulation: An important part of becoming Ava is loving yourself, but you have to make other people think they love you more. How? Invite yourself to events, create a torrid backstory and then use it to guilt trip people into believing it, constantly change the topic (they can’t persecute you if they don’t know what you’re talking about), and make intense eye contact with everyone (I PROMISE you, it works).
- Persistence: I think that everyone should want to be my friend and/or have my hand in marriage. For some reason, the general public tends to disagree, the only way to change their mind is to keep on asking. I don’t believe in “third times a charm”, I think that the saying should be “I’m going to keep asking until it works”.
- Ego/Narcissism: Another key trait is to be completely full of yourself. When I wake up in the morning, not only do I give myself daily affirmations, but I also make my friends give me daily affirmations. One of my favorite things to say in the mirror is “today you will rule the world and become the greatest dictator in history”.
- Shame: Surprisingly, being me comes with a lot of embarrassment. I leave every interaction with what I call “anti-affirmations” . They sound a lot like “wow that was awful, have you ever thought about crawling into a hole?” I say these both in my head and under my breath. I tend to care so much about what people think about me that I’m physically shaking in self-consciousness, my body is oozing discomfort CONSTANTLY.
I hope my replacement is just as good as the original (this is a lie, you can never be me, the original is always better). Since March is women’s history month, I expect everyone reading this to approach me in person and give me all the accolades. As per usual, you can find me in the hallways, shaking hands and signing autographs.