COLUMBUS, OH—Following the sending of a lighthearted comment about homework, a groupchat of college age white liberals was in for a shock. This past Tuesday night, Ashlee Daleston, 19, sent a text to her floor’s GroupMe chat, complaining about an assignment she didn’t quite understand. The assignment in question was to compare the aspects of second-wave feminism with the feminism of today. “This is really difficult lol,” she wrote, referencing an
article she had to read about 1970s feminism. “I feel like there’s nothing I could say in discussion that wouldn’t sound like I was making fun of the women here. Can anyone help?”

Ashlee’s query was an innocent one: one of simple confusion and desire for clarification. She expected a half-hearted attempt to help and maybe a few comments along the lines of, “that sucks lmao” or “Aw shit wish I could help!” But what she didn’t anticipate – what no one anticipated – was a reply from one Jackson Charles, the self-proclaimed “truth-teller” of Smith-Steeb’s 9th Floor groupchat.

“Feminists could use a little making fun of,” he typed, proudly and without remorse. “They want equality, right???” The message, unbelievably, was followed by a few thinking face emojis.

For an unbearable four minutes, the chat went silent. Freshman and sophomores alike wondered what the correct response was in a situation as dire as this one. Roommates that were together at the time of the text shared a collective “uh-oh” look. One of the floors RAs, Nicole Caldwell, wondered if she should say something, as the authority figure. She figured that her fellow RA, Daniel Grover, would step up to the plate, as he lived three doors down from Jackson Charles. Unfortunately, no such help arrived, and the chat remained eerily quiet.

The silence was finally broken by Ashlee Daleston herself. “Hahaha uh I’ll figure something out,” she typed weakly. She, like many other women in the groupchat, longed to put Jackson Charles on the spot, but she couldn’t find the right words. Idly, she wondered if she was being overly sensitive until she received a text from her roommate that read “can you believe this dude lol”. A few others tried to comment on the situation without being too confrontational. Replies to Jackson Charles’ comment ranged from “Haha umm” to “@Jackson Charles do you watch South Park???” One brave student, who elected to remain anonymous, even sent a clown emoji. They are currently being hailed as a hero within the entire Smith-Steeb community.

“I didn’t know what to do,” one participant, Craig Jones, recalled with his head in his hands. “I mean, having grown up with three sisters, I consider myself a feminist, but I felt uncomfortable calling him out. I didn’t want to make it worse, y’know? I ended up sending that GIF of Homer Simpson merging into the bushes, but I think it just made things worse.”

Ashlee Daleston, like many others, wondered if there was something she could have done in the aftermath to cool things down, or if she should have approached Jackson Charles himself to talk about what happened. Jackson Charles’ own roommate was seen leaving his dorm room at an unusual hour the night of the incident, seemingly stressed out, though he refused to comment on the situation.

After such a social disaster, students found difficulty returning to the norm of sending memes and inviting each other out to floor dinners. To bystanders, the groupchat seemed to be back to normal by the next afternoon, but its participants could still feel the tension. One thing, however, is for sure: the Smith-Steeb 9th Floor groupchat will forever be haunted by a specter of misogyny that took the form of a Finance major.


Written by Madison Richards, Contributor