A year ago today, the Marcus Whitman statue woke up with hot sauce all over his face and Bible. He attempted to lick his big mess up, but he soon realized that his bronze frame would take millennia to bend down to do that. Suddenly he wished that he would’ve brought his mother along the Oregon Trail with him for things like this. Narcissa was always too busy spoon-feeding God to Cayuse children, and now all she did was pose gluttonously in Maxey Museum with chocolate cake all over her face. In any case, it was his favorite hot sauce, and now he looked like a total weirdo for all the public to see. This all made him very cranky. Besides, how could he instill fear into the souls of BiPOC folks while looking like he was blushing?

During the following the “Scrub-In” to cleanse him, students just talked about colonial history and stuff. How rude. Marc hated feeling all dirty and just wanted a bubble bath.

With campus activism declining in light of the COVID-19 pandemic, Marc has been flying high without resistance. Yet, this past Monday, he was caught totally off guard by the ploy of an anonymous cyber insurgence group. He had been defaced again: This time via new and technologically-advanced methods. These trolls started their attack by importing a photo of the statue into the tried and true software MS paint. By using the little pencil cursor and making it red by clicking that color in the color wheel thing, they made smears all around Marcus Whitman’s face and Bible. Finally, after doing a “save as” of the file and naming it something they could remember well, they put the file into an email and sent it to the community listserv. 

The image shocked many community members who have been so accustomed to seeing the statue without any drawings from MS paint on it. It was truly eye opening to many. Afterwards, a separate anonymous team posted it to @statueMarc’s tinder and Instagram. While we wait for a public statement or angsty IG story, The Wire has word from some of his Tinder matches that he’s been pouty and upset ever since.