In perhaps what was Thursday’s most impressive display of ambivalence, sophomore River Lee was reportedly “pretty much okay” with the fact that every other participant of his class had been replaced with cardboard cutouts.

Lee logged in to Zoom several minutes late, apparently unfazed by the uncanny silence or the stiff, unmoving faces staring back at him through the screen. Sources say he maintained a “peaceful smile” throughout the class despite the fact that the lecture essentially consisted of 90 minutes of unobstructed silence.

“I’m not sure why he didn’t just leave the moment he realized that he was sitting in class with a bunch of inanimate objects,” said sophomore Wally Spencer, Lee’s roommate. “He kept his notebook out and everything. I guess he just couldn’t be bothered to deal with the fact that everyone in his class had inexplicably been turned into cardboard.”

Although Lee, at one point, appeared confused at the lack of movement, he quickly “got over it,” spending the rest of the class “completely focused on the nonexistent lecture on the screen,” according to Spencer. Lee even made two attempts to communicate with the rest of the class, once at the beginning to say hello and a second time to jokingly comment that it was a “slow day” after receiving no response.

Lee reportedly only took about 50 seconds after signing on to process and accept that he was about to attend a section with several cardboard cutouts. According to Spencer, Lee only needed a sigh and a moment of reflection before “essentially getting back to business as usual.” Spencer added, “it was kind of scary how quickly he came to terms with the idea of everyone in his class being replaced with cardboard.”

Over the course of the lecture, four of Lee’s corrugated classmates collapsed, occurrences which he reacted to with mild sympathy. “He just said something about morning classes and moved on,” Spencer said, adding that the class started at 3:30 p.m.

“His notes were probably the most worrying part,” Spencer said. Lee’s notes were reportedly well-organized and on-topic, despite the fact that the class had been delivered — or rather not delivered — by a large piece of cardboard. “I guess he just treated it like a normal lecture.”

At press time, Lee was seen calmly watching as the classmates in his linguistics class slowly transformed into mannequins.

This is a satirical article written purely for entertainment purposes.