A Murderer Interviews His Victim

By Robert Langellier

I wouldn’t say a murderer, really. I mean, I gave life more than I took it. Specifically, from my and my friend Jimmy’s mutual uterus sprang 19-year-old Cassie Tipping.

I’m not going to tell you the story in full, because the topic has been exhausted in full by the blogosphere this week (you should read those to fill yourself in), but I will tell you the story in short. My friend Jimmy and I put in countless hours this past year creating a false Facebook persona, first to fool our friends Garrett and Molly, then later others like our friend Joel, and then finally just Garrett as people began to catch on.

It’s hard work keeping up an internet profile: adding a realistic amount of friends, maintaining an interests section, getting other people in on the joke, commenting on their walls, posting frequent statuses, writing Facebook notes, taking Facebook quizzes, and finding the Tumblr of a minor actress from “The Last Song” starring Miley Cyrus and uploading all of her down-to-earth photos we could find onto Facebook. All just to see if Garrett’s sappy lovey-dovey girlfriend would friend request her as she did with countless other Mizzou friends of Garrett. Lot of work for a small punchline.

But as everyone at Mizzou knows, she quickly grew larger than the joke, and we went to greater and greater efforts to make her seem realistic. She developed an extensive backstory of high school life in Oak Park, Illinois. She took part in her sorority ADPi’s events. She penned an article for Mizzou’s student newspaper, The Maneater. She guest rapped a verse on acclaimed local rap duo Twain Tokenz’ song, “fuckyou.docx.”

Many months later, the cat’s out of the bag, and it’s interesting to see the reactions of the people we ended up deceiving in our creepy little puppet trick. Joel made his stance clear in his blog, and it’s as important as the rest of this post, so I’d recommend reading it. I wanted to give something unique to the Cassie blogosphere, so I thought I’d interview the biggest butt of the joke, Garrett, and get his view on the subject. I edited a bunch of it out so it would fit; here are the important parts:

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Robert: Could you talk about your thoughts or opinions of Cassie as you started to hear more about her?

Garrett: She slowly became this hyperbolized “slut” character. I think there was one status that was like, “Apparently waking up in a random guy’s bed isn’t acceptable here. Whoops.” And then she started typing like Jimmy does via text, which I’m surprised I didn’t pick up on, spelling “like” l-y-k-e, and stuff like that.

Robert: Those were probably Jimmy’s.

Garrett: Yeah, I don’t know. I mean, I read Joel’s post, and I was obviously flattered because I was just getting compliments out of the blue, but I never was offended by it. I thought it was hilarious. Anyone who’s seen “Get Him to the Greek,” I just felt like I had been deeply mind-fucked, as I think I said that day, because literally I had never ever ever ever ever doubted that she was real, once. I don’t know why. Looking back and seeing how Brandon talked about his slipups, I remember him saying at the Maneater about how she moved in after first semester, which was completely contradictory to everything I thought about her. I never once suspected that she was fake.

*click*

Robert: Oops.

*ring*

Robert: Oops. Pressed “End.” Well, to give some context to the joke, we never thought it would be anywhere near as big as it did.  And then, eventually, one-by-one, the pins got knocked down, and you were the last one standing for a couple months, so for those last couple months…

Garrett: Wait, me and Joel were the last ones for a couple months?”

Robert: No, you were the last one for a couple months. Ashley blew the beans to Joel a couple months before you found out.

Garrett: Ohh my gosh, I thought Joel caught on a matter of hours before I did. That’s even worse! Oh my gosh. And the thing is, Joel was throwing out this conspiracy against his friends, but honestly, if I were in that position, and I had started the small joke and was completely killing you and Jimmy with it, of course I would’ve kept going for the whole year. That’s like, literally, you’ve been handed a golden ticket. You cannot waste that. That was like the ultimate joke, and to blow that by thinking I would be offended would be dumb.

Robert: Well there were some moral issues. But still, it was worth it.

Garrett: Oh yeah, of course if I was like, “wow, this feels like a betrayal of trust”… It’s not like that. I don’t care. You know what I mean? Like, whatever. It’s not like I found out you were sleeping with Molly when she was here, which I actually still have not verified.

Robert: Oh, no, I did.

Garrett: She gets this awkward blush whenever I say your name. I’m like, that’s awkward, why are you blushing? So, I don’t know. It’s one of those good experiences overall. I think Joel took it a little harder than I did.

Robert: Yeah, probably. I don’t think we were expecting Joel’s post. I would’ve expected you to be offended more than Joel. Not because that’s your personality, but just because you eventually became sort of a bigger target.

Garrett: The weird thing was, Joel was surprised I hadn’t blogged. For some reason, it literally never crossed my mind to blog about it.

Robert: At any point, did you Facebook stalk Cassie? Be honest.

Garrett: Oh, yeah, definitely.

Robert: Muahaha.

Garrett: Looking back, I really have no room to critique you guys, because I fell for it 100%, but there was this weird gap where she had no pictures that I remember thinking, “There are no pictures in here with a clear shot at her face that I could recognize.” For some reason I thought she was Kristen Herhold for a while. I thought that was Cassie Tipping.

Robert: That’s really funny also. That’s brand new news.

Garrett: Oh yeah, like, I didn’t know Kristen. She was in journalism classes, but we never hung out with each other. I never ate lunch with her, so I thought it could’ve possibly been her, but then I found out that was Kristen Herhold and I was like, “Okay, who is Cassie Tipping?” I’ve even seen “The Last Song.” I didn’t even know that girl was in “The Last Song.” Like, I couldn’t even recognize her.

Robert: Well, she did play a minor role.

Garrett: And then, the makeout pic, at the same time.

Robert: Yeah, that was Elizabeth Downy.

Garrett: She lent me tanning oil once.

Robert: That’s good. Do you think you will ever be able to trust again?

Garrett: No. I mean, ever? Yes, obviously I can trust again. Or actually, I can’t really answer that, because I don’t really know. How am I supposed to know if I can ever trust again after you guys fucking with me for literally an entire year? I guess yes, with a side of no. God, this is so frustrating!


NO REGRETS.