BOULDER, CO (TN)— On Monday, November 3rd, Evan Shrinner was preparing for his honors defense when he inadvertently collapsed the CU Boulder’s IT department. Shrinner volunteers at the CU Rapid Alert system and is an honors student at the university. In a panic, Shrinner opened his browser and hastily typed “Do they check your browser history?” smacking the enter key.
According to witnesses, Shrinner had been pacing outside the defense room “like a man awaiting trial,” clutching a stack of printed pages that appeared to be arranged according to a complex color-coding system no one else understood. At approximately 9:12 a.m., after muttering the phrase “today determines my whole future” seven times, he opened what he believed was his browser to quickly confirm a concern that had begun spiraling in his mind.
“I wanted to know,” Shrinner said, “They look at everything else, wouldn’t they check browser history?”
Shrinner typed the words and smacked the enter key before realizing he was in fact typing a message into the Rapid Alert message disbursement. His panic-typed question—in forty-point font, accompanied by the default “SEVERE THREAT” warning icon—was instantly blasted to every student, faculty member, staff inbox, smartboard, and electronic highway sign within the CU Boulder network. 40,000 phones simultaneously began vibrating across the campus.
Some students shrugged off the event, but a surprising number of students and faculty immediately opened their laptops. All of them are trying to access the internet in unison to clear their browser history. The combined traffic overloaded the IT office’s capabilities, crashing the internet.
As Shrinner, full of false confidence, stepped into his defense—smoke alarms began to go off around the campus from fraternity members stabbing lithium batteries in their laptops.
Matt Riffe, Sigma Pi member, was reportedly screaming, “It’s not what you think!” through a cloud of toxic smoke and choked tears. Professor Pass was last seen clearing cars across the parking lot like a Kentucky Derby horse. Pass has yet to be located. One student was even seen lobbing Molotovs into the Case Computer Lab.
CUPD arrived on the scene, describing it as a riot on par with Saint Louis under the Obama administration.
Boulder Fire Department spokesperson said, “We simply don’t have the resources to fight this many fires.”
Shrinner’s defense went largely unaffected. He passed his defense with minor edits from the committee. Upon exiting his defense and greeting the chaos, Shrinner gracefully exited campus and has since declined to comment any further.
