For many years, Leesville Road High School’s Mycenaean staff have been providing devoted readers with factual, relevant and entertaining information. But on a dark November 2, 2011, that sanctuary of trust was breached when one contributor blatantly lied via an article about the new NBC show, The Sing Off.
The writer in question, Brendan Marks, brutally refers to the show as “the worst in recent memory,” and verbally abuses host Nick Lachey by attributing him as the factor that “brings the show down.”
Marks also gives the acts themselves a piece of his mind, declaring the vocals “pedestrian” and the choreography “cheesy” and “embarrassing.” In Marks’s eye, the only stand-out performers were a group called “Urban Method,” who create “rap a pella,” which, unfortunately, is exactly what it sounds like.
Not one month after Marks’ acidic review was published to the online Mycenaean by universally adored online editor, Virginia Reed, his classmates noticed him doing something peculiar. The strange boy was on YouTube, watching clips of – you guessed it – The Sing Off.
Bewildered, fellow Mycenaean-ers questioned his strange behavior. Hailey Stephenson, the staff’s resident red-head, looked sideways at Marks’s grinning face and recognized the truth. Jumping out of her desk, she pointed her finger accusingly and announced to the class, “He’s listening to The Sing Off! And enjoying it!”
Head hung low, Marks admitted his obsession. He had fallen head-over-heels for a group called “Pentatonix,” which remixed hit pop songs into multiple harmonies and beat boxing, and came out on top as the winners of the show’s third season. Marks also confessed to watching reruns of the show every morning before going to school, in an effort to “start his day off right.”
On one fateful, bleak December day, Marks drove the Mycenaean Editor-in-Chief to the point of insanity. “Brendan,” Katy Huis began quietly, slowly rising from her rolling chair. “If you make me listen to one more remix of E.T., I will come at you with white hot rage unparalleled with that of a tunnel full of spider monkeys. Spider monkeys, Brendan.”
Fearing the glares of frenemies alike, Marks began to hide his obsession. But he could not hide his passions for long. Before the endless stream of videos had ended it resurfaced in the daily newsroom routine, much to the dismay of the staff.
“It’s horrible what he’s doing to us,” sobbed Marks’s classmate, Matt Conrad. “We see him take a laptop from the cart and know that at some point during class, he will force the people around him to watch at least one video of Pentatonix. I’m personally worried for his health and upset that he would so blatantly lie to his followers, but most importantly… to me.”
And so, dear Mycenaean groupies, we offer our most humble apologies to you for publishing misinformed opinions and harmful information. Please do not let Marks’s horrid irresponsibility sully your image of our beloved newspaper, or of The Sing Off.
Virginia Reed is a superb writer and an even better friend. She enjoys unhealthy foods and writing sarcastic articles. Virginia is the Online Editor for the 2011-12 school year and was a Managing Editor for the 2010-11 year but has not forgotten her humble beginnings as a staff writer when she was a wee sophomore. Her goals for the future are to get an A in newspaper and to apply to college in a timely fashion.
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