Slumping into finals season with Hate Grams

Stay Young Beautiful and Unique, Head Meowsandrist — April 22, 2025

(Illustrated by Trevonté DeShawnington III)

Though April usually brings to mind crisp breezes and fresh flowers, the miserable denizens of Oxford Academy are more inclined towards a bleak, sleep-deprived finals season. To combat the lethal pressure of cramming for AP tests, Oxford Associated Student Bruzz (ASB) has introduced the brand-new Hate Grams for the month of April to boost Patriots' morale through what they love to do most: spreading hate and malevolence.

The wrathful sister fundraiser to the Valentine's-exclusive Love Grams, Hate Grams encourage students to share their spite with a recipient of their choice for a small price — or a hefty one, depending on their dedication. The most basic tier at $5 includes a choking hazard-sized note for students to pour their malice into, an assortment of individually wrapped tomato-lettuce packages from the lunch share cart, and a copy of the recipient's most recently failed test.

For $10, students receive all of the detriments of the standard Hate Gram plus an unwashed XXS loaner P.E. shirt circa 2008 that still reeks of middle school odor. Their traditional backpack will also be forcefully replaced with a galaxy rolling backpack.

With the highest form of the Hate Gram at a whopping $20, students can reward their public enemy #1 a phone call from their most recent situationship and mandatory Saturday Academy attendance. Most coveted of all, this tier invites ASB members to publicly deliver a beating to the lucky Hate Gram recipient during one of their class periods.

The idea for Hate Grams spawned from lonely Patriots whose crushes always happened to be either into their friends or incredibly socially inept. Many students expressed their disdain, especially, for happy couples who spent money on gestures like Love Grams.

"The most annoying thing during the school year was to see happy people receive a rose in front of everyone during class. Like, way to ruin my February," senior T.S. Pmorgan said. "But class getting interrupted because my classmate's getting beat up? I'd pay for that. That's what they get for disagreeing with my Socratic seminars in English."

As per its namesake, Hate Grams was met with overwhelming distaste, in character with Oxford students' general propensity for complaining. Despite the mass contempt, Hate Grams sold out its supply within the first lunch period of sales. ASB was forced to recruit students from the Strength/Conditioning course to keep up with the staggering demand for $20 beatdowns.

"It felt great to know my enemy also happened to be somebody else's public enemy #1. I got to cancel my Chuze membership this month because of all the great cardio I was getting from Hate Grams. Who's laughing now, Cowl?" ASB senior Kanye Arora said.

"I would send Kanye a Hate Gram back, but I already spent the last of my savings on Dubai chocolate," senior Cowl Fan, after taking a violent thrashing in his AP Physics class, said. "It's chill, though. She was getting so into it they had to take me to the nurse's office, and I got to skip my waves test. A win is a win."