The following content is purely satirical and entirely fictional.
Valentine’s Day brings a flood of strong emotions to campus, be it the romantic soft-and-fuzzies or the curdling feeling of penetrative loneliness. But in our highly-digitized age, V-Day also means one very important cultural phenomenon: the “hard launch.”
“Hard launches” occur when those eager to show off their special someone post social media content revealing to their friends the person they’ve been banging. Princeton students, snakey opportunistic forward-thinkers that they are, have proceeded to exploit Valentine’s Day as a chance to expose their friends to the mediocre situationships that have been sucking out their life force. A recent survey conducted by the Daily PrintsAnything confirmed that “life force” is what most Princeton students nicknamed their genitalia.
The reactions to this year’s most recent hard launches have been strong.
“It’s actually offensive how mid this man is,” says Helen Koshuta ’26 about the medium-ugly white guy featured next to her overjoyed-looking best friend on her Instagram feed. “My friends are all, like, stunning goddesses. When I listen to them cry over the same man for months, I picture this dashing Eros figure. To see this —” Koshuta, who intends to declare a major in classics, breaks off. In an interview, she asked for a moment to compose herself. “It’s really disappointing.”
Upon further scrutinization, The ‘Prints’ verified that the man currently rizzing up Koshuta’s best friend is indeed “a 3 at best.”
Hard launch perpetrator Fern Paola ’24 defended their questionable choices, citing Valentine’s Day as their reason for traumatizing their family and friends. “I get one day a year,” Paola said. “One. Day. Everyone knows Valentine’s Day is for shamelessly flaunting your much-better relationship to all your exes and single friends. Everyone.”
Fellow offender Ryan Barlowe ’27 delivered a similar explanation for the odd digital behavior. “I want everyone to know that I’m not only living a better life than them, but also getting some, while they are not.” His friends all agreed that the matching captions Barlowe and his friend-with-benefits included under their identical Instagram posts “really grossed them out.” They have asked to maintain anonymity.
More delusional hard launchers even go so far as to ask their social circles to forget the absolutely ridiculous treatment they have simultaneously tolerated and complained about within their situationships and “put aside their grievances” for the sake of making their new kind-of-significant other feel “accepted.”
In response to these requests, Koshuta says, “I do not accept. I’d honestly rather die. My friend is so pretty. Seriously. She’s perfect, from her incredible kindness right to her killer breasts, those wide hips that would bring Achilles to his knees, and her thighs. She’s my modern-day Venus. I don’t even want her. I promise I don’t want her. I don’t. I’m straight. I’m totally straight. It just makes me feel sick from an objective standpoint to think of her with some average-looking guy’s hands on her heavenly body.”
Koshuta then shared four minutes of additional details unprovoked, which the ‘Prints’ has opted not to include for the comfort of its readers.
When asked about her recent relationship and life choices, Koshuta’s friend said, “The thing most people don’t seem to understand about Pookie is that Pookie has a heart of gold. Pookie’s got a wonderful personality, even if sometimes his actions or face fail to reflect the person Pookie truly is and wants to be.”
“He reminds me of my dad, and he smells like my grandpa,” she continued. Koshuta notes that she is concerned about her friend’s better judgment and mental health.
The Daily PrintsAnything did not press further.
Mya Koffie ’27 is an associate Humor editor and devoted romantic who thinks chocolate in the shape of tiny hearts is generally a great idea. You will not catch her dead in a hard launch (this year), but you can reach her mya.koffie@princeton.edu.
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