student controversy, doxxes and insults

While administrative action led to the account’s memorialization, records of controversial actions still exist.

By: Aliferia Gonzalez

Days after the Aurora Borealis dance concluded on Feb. , , Discovery High School students began to circulate a series of controversial posts on Instagram from an account named @dhsbadshoes. The account criticized shoes students wore to the dance. After multiple days’ worth of controversy andbacklashfromstudents—someofwhichleadto situations where the account’s owner threw personalinsultsatstudentswhotalkedtothemand leaked their personal contact information—the accountwastakendown.

While no concrete record of the exact dates exists, the offending posts were made sometime between Monday, Feb. , and the dance’s conclusion. Variousstudentshadfoughtwiththeaccountinthe comment section of every post, as well as personal directmessages(DMs).

The account would not make any other posts after themorningofMonday,Feb. .However,itwould publish several Instagram Stories (hereby “Stories” or “Story” when singular), detailing the account owner’s thoughts and emotions as the backlash unfolded. The amount of Stories is unknown, as Discovery Digest currently only possesses records of the account’s last Story and interview recounts of another.

After intervention and personal discussion with Discovery High School principal Aaron Smith, @dhsbadshoeswoulddeleteallitspostsandmakea final Story before officially closing the account. However, the account page remains up and multiple screenshots exist of the account being online after the owner formally said goodbye. This could be due to the owner’s claim that they do not owntheaccount.

While much discussion by students was held over the rude nature of @dhsbadshoes, the account had performed worse actions by revealing the private email of a Discovery High School student publicly andwithouttheirconsentorpriorknowledge.

Simone Callan, a junior at Discovery High School, had submitted a copyright strike on one or more of @dhsbadshoes’ posts due to the fact that images she had taken and published were being used without her consent to make fun of her friends’ shoes. Callan expressed her opinion that copyright law in the U.S. permitted her to submittheclaim,whichledtothepostsbeingtakendown. The account’s owner then proceeded to screenshot the claim and post it to Instagram in the form of a Story. Within the details of the claim—which were included in the published photograph—Simone’s personal email was revealed, which she had not listed publicly on her Instagramaccount.@dhsbadshoes’actionsnotonlyrevealed potentially sensitive information but also gave viewers of the Story the means to contact Callan personally. Beyond the publishing of sensitive personal information, @dhsbadshoes also engaged in reportedly rude conversations with those who spoke out against the tone andimplicationsoftheirposts.“I’dsaythattheirrepliesto comments were worse than the original insults themselves,” said Story Hope, a frequent Instagram user and sophomore at Discovery High School. “@essaydespair you lucky I dident see yo ugly ass folded ankles cuh,” was @dhsbadshoes’initialresponsetooneofHope’scomments.

The response occurred before personal DMs were exchanged.

Reef Kjerting, a junior at Discovery High School and avid Instagram user, also interacted with @dhsbadshoes in the commentsectionoftheirposts.

“ThenatleastIcanmakehavingthisaccountasmuchofa non-pleasurable experience as possible,” Kjerting said when addressing their motivations for speaking out in the commentsectionsof@dhsbadshoes’posts.

“I still believe people were sensitive when looking at the account, at the end of the day it’s just shoes and nothing else matters,” the anonymous account owner, hereby referredtounderthealiasTennIshu,stated.

“No,aftertalkingtoMr.Smith,Ihavenofurtherplansfor [@dhsbadshoes],” Ishu stated later in the interview. “For now the account is just a resting site for what it was, until Irememberthepasswordanddeleteit.”

According to the owner, @dhsbadshoes’ first post was publishedonDec.9, .

“I originally created [the account] because there was a trend going around at the time of ‘school sleeping’ and ‘school bad parking’ accounts so I wanted to hop on the trend,” stated Ishu. “Some other classmates also did similar things with [@wtf_dhs] and some others. I thought bad shoeswouldbeagoodideasoIuseditanditwasgood.”

Café-Odd opens at Odyssey Middle School

Odyssey Middle School gets its own Café that is opened during lunches

By: Larken Grimes

At Odyssey Middle School (OMS), a new cafe opened, giving OMS their own student cafe similar to Discovery High School’s (DHS)—who had originally opened DiscoSales(theirstudentcafe)afewyearsprior.

“Café-OddistheOdysseycafe,wherewesellrefreshments, baked goods, popcorn, and other miscellaneous packaged items,” said Steiner-Bailey.Some students at DHS might rememberpopcornbeingsoldduringluncheslastyearat-

OMS, but there was never an area or cafe to purchase general items from during lunches until Café-Odd’s opening. “We got it off the ground last year when we bought a popcorn machine and started selling popcorn during lunch,” said Steiner-Bailey. “This year, Mrs. O’Rourke helped us take it to the next level through the purchase of various new items (register, cart, oven, and packagedgoods).”

At DHS, students have DiscoSales—a cafe providing snacks, drinks, and other items during lunch or in the morning. However, it's a club that is not run by DHS’ ASB.

“Café-Odd is operated by Odyssey ASB,” said Steiner-Bailey. “We use Café-Odd as a fundraising machine, so everything is purchased by ASB, with proceeds going directly back into ASB funds in order to fundvariousinitiatives.”

This gives OMS students a place to get snacks and various other items during their lunch time while having their money go towards projects and socials in thefuture.

Café-Odd is open during seventh and eighth grade lunchesandlocatedrightbythemainoffice. “Atitscore, Café-Odd is a PBL (project based learning) project, hitting on all seven of the essential project design elements; authenticity, student voice and choice, reflection, critique and revision, public product, challenging problem/question, and sustained inquiry,” saidSteiner-Bailey.

Running Café-Odd is not only helping students learn about OMS’ project principles but teaching them real-world problems and how to solve them. This, as Steiner-Bailey said, provides learning opportunities for project components and real-world components. If all goes well, Café-Odd should teach students the importanceofthosevalues.

A few have said they think it's a bit pointless, considering that DiscoSales is already open at DHS, and some of the middle school shares their lunch time with the high school’s lunch time. Others would like both schools to consider a merger between the two since bothstudentstoressellsimilaritems. The previous opinions were only obtained through a small percentage of students Digest asked about Café-Odd.Mostpeople Digest hadtalkedtodidn'tknow Café-Odd existed, leaving them without an opinion or generalimpression;thelatterofwhichwasthemajority response Digest hadgottenfromDiscoSalesmembers.