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Culture War Roundup for the week of December 1, 2025

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The screenshots of Samantha’s essay I’ve seen so far are like moderate cringe porn, where I immediately want to tap out due to cringe. I was half expecting a “since the dawn of time” to pop-up somewhere. The basicness is endearing in a way.

The 25th percentile of OU admittees have an SAT score in the mid 1100s and the average mid 1200s. This is well above the overall average SAT score of mid 1000s, where SAT-takers are already positively selected for intelligence.

So if you (like me) are cringing at the erudition (or lack thereof) of Samantha’s essay—consider what the average person’s thoughts might look like in essay form, much less the average person from a low average IQ population group. Akin to how Scalabrine is closer to Lebron in basketball ability than he is to you, Samantha may very well be closer in intelligence to you than she is the average person, much less an average person of some lower-IQ population group.

Trans TA vs. thot undergrad: unstoppable force vs. immovable object. As a more than WOULDable chick (obligatory: I’d at least give her a D), Samantha has likely rarely received negative feedback all her teenaged and adult life, so a zero on a college essay would feel like a massive affront to her Wonderfulness. This was not part of her Princess Journey, so vassals and serfs from OU, TPUSA, Fox News, the Online Right must rally to defend her honor. Given the attention and simpery she’s been provided, I can only imagine her as the seething-mask-smirking-underneath wojak.

Speculation on Twitter is running wild, suggesting that Fulnecky intentionally submitted a poor essay to gain some conservative street-cred, that her lawyer mother is involved, and plenty of other mental gymnastics

If there is indeed material Online Right cope on that front, it’d be quite amusing if Samantha’s simps are going with the “no way is she that stupid, she must had only been pretending to be retarded as a form of 5D chess to pwn the libs” line of conjecture. If Mulder’s sister Samantha really was abducted by aliens, I suppose it’s possible OU Samantha could had been intentionally laying a trap card (perhaps “trap” in more ways than one).

However, a zero on such an essay is clearly punitive and vindictive to me and the trans TA should be removed from her/they/[their?] role as TA. The TA sounds like a caricature of “this is who is online calling you [racist/misogynistic /homophobic/transphobic].” Unfortunately, for every such TA relieved of their duties, many more will remain to do their thing.

Both the trans TA and the other graduate student instructor’s (“she/her/hers”) responses are its_all_so_tiresome.jpg inducing. Most self-aware bio-female social science graduate student: “In addition, your paper directly and harshly criticizes your peers and their opinions, which are just as valuable as yours.”

For essay grading, especially non-STEM grading for “reaction essays” at schools like OU, the left bound basically starts at 60% if you submit anything vaguely resembling a halfhearted effort that’s not clearly plagiarized, perhaps higher. If you can regurgitate some semblance of the professor’s passphrases, even without providing any suggestion that you have any comprehension of the passphrases, you’re likely already in 80%+ territory.

I mean, it's very plausible she didn't put a lot of effort into the essay. This was clearly intended as a political stunt. I suspect it worked better than it was supposed to- the goal was probably to testify about the need to give TPUSA actual legal authorities over state universities before the Oklahoma house.

You made me google her. Agreed on giving her the..I mean a…D