(Demonstration of the correct technique for nodding at anything and everything because the very concepts of demurral, dissent and disagreement have been lost to time forever)
THE HEADS OF all those in attendance nodded enthusiastically as the title slide of the presentation, which read ‘YOU HAVE NO FUCKING IDEA WHY YOU ARE NODDING’, appeared. Prof. Sunil Ramdass of the Masachusetts Institute of Technology, lead author of the highly anticipated study, presented his findings in a slick, pulsating multimedia show made up of documented case studies to some of the finest minds in modern psychology.
The first study depicted a woman complaining to her husband about the callowness of a friend. The husband nodded knowingly, grunted his deep understanding of and empathy for her plight and consoled his distraught spouse by fixing her a drink. Yet a remote telescopic MRI conducted at the time recorded the man’s brain activity consisting primarily of constant replays of a detergent commercial jingle and considerations that he’d actually prefer it if Saturday’s golf game was cancelled.
Another clip showed a woman seated at a large table with a group of excitable individuals in what appeared to be some kind of ‘brainstorming’ session. Another woman, who was standing near a whiteboard, brandished a marker and said, ‘so if the brand strategy is to disrupt the dairy sector, what would the marketing objectives be?’ The woman seated at the table was smiling broadly and nodding with great gusto. At this exact time, however, the high-definition remote MRI developed for the study recorded her inner monologue as ‘the fuck is this shit, it’s yoghurt ferfucksakes, just put it in a brightly-coloured tub with a bouncy cartoon cow and stick it on the goddamn shelf ah man Christ almighty I wonder what time it is?’
Prof. Ramdass explained that this woman was an outlier who belonged to a tiny fraction of the survey population called ‘parallel processors’. These nod not out of agreement but out of ‘a hysterical sense of incredulity that what they are witnessing somehow constitutes an actual part of “real life” yet are simulataneously highly adept at deconstructing this seemingly absurd tableau and providing the appropriate responses’. The woman’s concept of ‘youthful abandon’ was subsequently adopted as the core strategic purpose of the brand.
Further study materials showed a powerful Wall Street investor telling his protegé that ‘when they finally figure out how to create a non-collapsible field, quantum computing will be a real game-changer’ with the latter grinning and nodding like an idiot while his interior monologue was recorded as ‘I have no fucking idea how this quantum shit works but if I nod strenuously enough he won’t suspect a thing’; a woman telling a man on a date that ‘only when the gender-normative tyranny of the patriarchy is obliterated can we even begin to talk about equality’ while the MRI revealed the avidly nodding man to be thinking ‘lord knows what she’s on about but maybe if I come across as a good listener she’ll peg me as a flag-waving feminist and suck my cock’ and a motivational speaker addressing an auditorium with the words ‘yesterday is history, tomorrow a mystery and today is a gift. That’s why we call it the present’ while the thoughts of the sea of knowingly nodding heads were recorded as a collective ‘O dear sweet Jesus what have I done to deserve this hell on earth? There’s gotta be somewhere around here I can get a drink.’
At the time of going to press, Prof. Ramdass was nearing a state of nervous exhaustion as his attempt to get even a single delegate in the auditorium to shake their head was met with abject failure.
