On Friday, April 1, Earth Matters hosted its second environmental pillow fight, this one called ECO FIGHT NIGHT TWO: 2 FIGHT 2 NIGHT. Why the entire TU student body was not in attendance, I will never understand, because it was a great time. Last time, the event was more structured and included brackets and betting, but this time it was a free for all, although most participants still donated money to the Tulsa Urban Wilderness Coalition (TUWC).
There are certain integral parts of this event. The first is the donations to TUWC. The second is that the pillow fight is a battle between climate change deniers and climate scientists. Everyone chooses a hilarious, pun-based name. I was Ted Cruzin for a Bruisin. Which is objectively hilarious. Other standout names include: Dwayne “The Rocks are Cool Let’s Protect Them” Johnson, Sarah Impalin, and Jim Inhoffe.
No pun for Jim Inhoffe. His role in climate change is no laughing matter (see the time he threw a snowball on the senate floor to prove climate change is not real).
Aside from the pillow fight itself, there were great snacks, including the popular drinks Mountain Explosion and Dr. Topper. Those classic sodas.
The fight was an uncontrolled brawl in Sasha West (Earth Matters President) and Gracie Weiderhaft’s (Earth Matters’ President’s Roommate) apartment. They put a mattress on the floor, surrounded it with couches, and put a bunch of pillows out. It was also BYOP, bring your own pillow, but they had extra just in case.
The only rules I could determine were: no nunchuks, and no putting bricks in the pillowcases. I know those were rules because I asked.
The whole thing was live-streamed via Periscope, and had a total of twenty viewers with a 0% retention rate. Presumably those viewers were expecting a different kind of pillow fight than the one they got.
Of the fighters, Peer-Reviewed Science was almost definitely the winner, although it is debatable whether he cheated — it really depends on your definition of “pillow fighting.” Peer-Reviewed Science’s main strategy was to take the pillow and just slowly push people over with it, which seems like a strategy with a fairly tenuous relationship with pillow fighting in the classical sense. He was also prone to picking people up, which again, seems like a bit of a stretch. It works out, though, because he was Peer-Reviewed Science, so even if he wins with some shady strategies, at least the earth ends up saved.
Really, the whole event was like a giant metaphor. Like a bunch of people engaged in a pissing contest, and Peer-Reviewed Science comes in and just slowly takes them all out. Very realistic. Except that real people are much harder to knock down, even with Peer-Reviewed Science.
