Due to a plague spreading through my household, I decided to provide an excerpt from my novel. It explains why I am not the biggest fan of conferences. Enjoy or don’t. I don’t care.

I was always told in graduate school that I needed to attend conferences to bolster my marketability. Naturally, when a mentor tells you that attending these academic events is essential, you follow orders and try to show up for as many as you can afford. Unfortunately, opportunities to make appearances are slim when living on a teaching assistant budget, which consists of a monthly stipend of navel lint and mice droppings. Graduate students will do practically anything to attend these shindigs, including sharing a hotel room with fifteen other impoverished souls looking for the chance to network with established professors. Between sleeping on floors and living on a diet of free treats from various graduate program tables, the academic conference is the apex predator in stealing the last traces of dignity from exploited aspiring scholars.

Just so we are clear with my stance on academic conferences, I despise them. None of the following rantings is baseless. I made the mistake of serving on leadership committees within a division or two in my time. So, I have no problem stating that I have found academic conferences to be a massive waste of time. I will stand by that statement until I am cold in my casket. If I was ever convicted of a crime and had a choice to serve a year in prison or spend four days at an academic conference, I would start shopping for the proper toiletries to share with my bunkmates in the one hundred square foot iron bar Hilton.

The worst offender of this type of ordeal comes from the National Association of Nimrods. I would use their real name, but the organization knows exactly who they are and what they are guilty of. I attended these bizarre navel-gazing affairs primarily to network with fellow scholars, which soon evolved into service with several conference divisions. Initially, I would go because I was told I needed to be there. I had to schmooze. I had to contribute to the academic conversation. This environment taught me a lot, but those lessons revealed a darker side to academic conferences.

I never fully heeded any advice my father gave me while growing up. My father used to tell me to be honest with myself and follow my instincts. Never try to impersonate something you are not, and never try to please everybody. You have to sleep with yourself at night with the deeds you did that day. This is also the same man who told me at the age of thirteen that he didn’t care if I drank alcohol, did drugs, or had sex so long as I didn’t leave the house. But if he ever caught me smoking a cigarette, he would kick my ass up to my shoulders. This was coming from a man who smoked two packs a day at least. He was such a prolific smoker that his tobacco brand would send him two free packs of cigarettes for his birthday every year. I guess it was a thank you from the company for not dying in the past year. As you can probably tell, I had to be skeptical about the parenting he gave me.

I kept that level of skepticism until I started going to the National Association of Nimrods annual conference. At first, I was thrilled to talk to other scholars who might have insight into the research questions that I was working on. We could iron out the academic puzzles that stumped humanity. Conversation and dialogue would be the call of the day, and the whole scene would play out like The School of Athens painting. This was not the case in any way, shape, or form. It was an excuse for faculty to leave their campuses, air discontent about their administrative leadership, and get drunk under the guise of pursuing academic enlightenment. I learned quickly that this was not a scholarly environment for me.

At my first conference, I quickly learned that three types of people attended these assemblies of nitwittery. The first group consists of academic rockstars. These established professors probably got tenure three days after being hired because they decided to pace themselves with a day off. I mean, even God rested one day after creation. These people are the influencers. They could blow their nose, and that handkerchief would get accepted into a journal with only minor revisions. Most of these people know what they mean to their field of study. They understand the game, and they play it very well. Some of them are so good that they rewrite the game’s rules when bored. As far as I am concerned, they are the game. They are the end game. They are living the dream of every other scholar at this conference.

The second group of people is those individuals who aspire to be scholars. These are the graduate students who are attending with the intention of networking and making a name for themselves. They are hungry and naïve. They are virtually destitute, and yet they are coming to this event wearing their best Sunday clothes and the goal of becoming the rockstars. It saddens me to think they saved up all their birthday and Christmas money to come to this mockery of meaningful dialogue. They spend those hard-earned pennies on food and fancy clothing that will do nothing to benefit them in this circus of faux-chic academia. I feel genuinely bad for this lot because they still have ambitions and goals. The academic hazing of graduate school has yet to crush their souls, especially when they start looking into the marketplace. I admire their zeal for the intellectual game, but they are probably in way over their heads. I have no resentment toward them. They are almost too innocent to know any better. However, I sometimes have to fight my overwhelming urges to shake some sense into a couple of them while they are talking to me.

The third group is the reason why I loathe even coming to conferences. They are the barnacles of academia, just like the ones you see on rocks, boats, and whales. They are the largest portion of the three types, and the biggest buzz kills to academic pursuit. The barnacle is divided into two species. There are the acolytes and the sycophants. Many barnacles can easily float between these categories depending on their mood. Regardless of which one you run into, you will want to pour some hemlock in your merlot if you run into one of them during a department party.

The acolytes are devout followers of a particular scholar or train of thought. They are those people who ask questions with little bearing on the paper session because they have to wedge their scholar-mentor into the conversation. They typically pronounce their question this way: I enjoyed listening to your presentation. It had some really great points, but why did you fail to consider Burpandfart in this argument? First of all, they clearly did not enjoy the paper because they would not ask such an asinine, self-serving question. Second, they do not really want to hear your explanation because they really want to grandstand and have people sit in awe of their majesty as they cite passages from Comengeaux that have absolutely no bearing on the research. These people are so insecure that they feel compelled to display their tightly focused academic knowledge as a form of validation. Just one time, I want to grab them by the collar as they are doing this and scream that their scholar deity is dead (even if they physically are not) and that their salvation does not hinge on how much missionary work you do for them. If their work applies to the research question, chances are the researcher found it. At least nuns and monks keep their mouths shut, so why can’t you?

The second group of bottom-feeding parasites is the sycophants. They are the deadlier breed of barnacle because they can easily disguise themselves as normally functioning human beings. However, once an academic rockstar comes into view, they become a drooling, blabbering fool. They rush toward the rockstar the same way hardcore fans of a heartthrob pop singer would. It is truly something to behold as they instantly flip the switch from a perfectly sane person into a completely gushing buffoon. Once they have cornered a rockstar, they begin to praise their achievements. They heap on the compliments about how incredible the rockstar’s work is and how it probably changed their lives. This is how all interactions begin between sycophants and rockstars, and then it takes a cringe-worthy turn.

Soon, the acclaim becomes a plea. The petition is always a request for some academic insight, to put it mildly. This tactic is a highly elaborate ruse with a lot of foreplay involved. It starts off with the topic of the research and will eventually (15 minutes later) get to the source of the inquisition. Sycophants believe that if they get an opportunity like this, they will have their answer bestowed upon them. After the sycophant has finally made their intentions known, they bite their lip in anticipation of the reply, which will solve their puzzle and give them clarity. Watching this unfold is akin to watching the woman who had the faith that if she would just touch the hem of Jesus’s garment, she would be healed. By touching the person, the paper will automatically write itself and be ready for submission when they return home.

Heaven forbid anyone actually tests the rockstar by questioning something that they had written in front of one of these academic bottom-feeders. Their face will curl up in disgust so that it looks like they are trying to imitate a Shar Pei. Then, if one of them happens to corner you after asking what they believe amounts to a “wholly inappropriate” question to the rockstar, they begin to chide you like you stole something. For all I know, I might have stolen some of their innocence by asking their hero a question of critique. These maniacs will rail on you for minutes, which feels like hours, because they cannot believe anyone could have the gall to ask taxing questions to a rockstar rather than shower them with adulation and praise. I’m sorry, I thought the whole idea of academic discourse was to challenge each other to build greater understanding. I had no idea that we were no longer in the business of seeking truth and validation through criticism. As scholars, I thought our role was to investigate traditions and interrogate the status quo.

The saddest part is that the barnacles are not just the aimless scholars trying to find career stability somewhere. It shockingly comes from tenured professors as well. The most obvious occurrence that took place involved my good friend’s mentors. They were established people in the hallowed halls of academia. They had tenure at a prestigious institution in the Midwest. They supposedly knew their stuff. They were also incredibly rude to my friend after finishing his Ph.D. and belittled him for his supposed lackluster performance in graduate school. However, when they were in the presence of one particular rockstar named Moses Cannon, they followed him with the excitable energy of a puppy. It was downright disgusting and disturbing. I felt terrible for them, but I feel bad for these saps. Other than the rockstars who pretty much control the academic game, everybody at the conference falls victim to the swagger and majesty of the national conference.