Editor’s note: The following is a satirical article for The DisreGuardian, a series of articles published annually for The Guardian’s April Fool’s issue. Features will resume publishing normal content next week.
Having chosen to stay on campus this spring break, I’ve had a lot of time to think — big thoughts on topics such as finding community on campus, masculinity, American imperialism, and other rich themes. I’ve also been eating a good amount of Taco Bell.
It was during one of those personal Taco Bell nights last week when I was interrupted, mid-chalupa, by a man named Tony Zhang. He told me that I looked like someone who would be interested in “competitive financial modeling,” and that he and a couple of friends were running a Microsoft Excel championship at 2 a.m.
I came back to Price Center that night, standing at a locked automatic door, thinking I’d been got. Luckily, I’d just met second-year student Pranav Bhatia, a business psychology major and one of the event organizers. He was notably wearing a black t-shirt with the phrase “$GOON” proudly printed across his chest.
Bhatia said that this was actually his team’s second time hosting an event like this, and that he and Zhang had run a similar function in Fall 2025.
“I can see this becoming, like, a staple of student life, you know?” he said, smiling. “Like Sun God, Costco Chicken Day, that kind of stuff. All these events, and people say we’re socially dead.”
The two of us eventually made our way in. The rest of his team had pulled the tables outside Burger King into two neat rows, each ending with their own cheap vinyl banner with slogans reading “MONEY IS DEAD, BUY $GOON” and “IF YOU’RE SEEING $GOON ADS ON CAMPUS, IT’S TIME TO BUY.” There it was, that name again.
Sat neatly in those rows were six people aggressively typing at computers. I noticed a single MacBook placed on the floor between the two rows, displaying a timer and a list of tasks. Bhatia explained that these contestants were racing to solve logic and modeling problems in short, intense rounds. He also told me about a $50 parlay he had placed on this lanky, freckled man named Thomas Miles Bonsignore, who he was hoping to win big on that night.
“There you are, I was worried you wouldn’t show up,” Zhang said, walking over with outstretched hands. I hadn’t gotten a good look at the guy until then, on account of my chalupa-induced haze earlier that night. I am by no means a small man — I stand 6 feet tall and have a reasonable shoulder width — but in his presence, I felt so frame mogged that I may as well have been 5-foot-11.
I decided to finally ask about $GOON.
“Oh, yeah, that,” he said. “We’re still waiting for A.S. funding right now, but yeah, it doesn’t matter because some crypto guy wanted to sponsor us. It’s like a digital currency. …” He paused before continuing. “Yeah, I don’t really know how to explain it, but its value is like … based on the value of OnlyFans and the current price of copper or something — some complicated math.”
When pressed further, Zhang said, “The guy said that we’re nearing the end of Western hegemony and that the dollar is just kinda [f—–], but porn? Yeah — [f—] — porn is forever.” No mention of copper.
The rest of the night went by quickly. Bonsignore won the most rounds, Bhatia won his parlay, and I saw — past spreadsheets and alternative assets — the beginnings of a new tight-knit community. By the end of the night, I realized that maybe these finance bros and I weren’t so different after all. I learned a lot of things that night about community, living in the moment, and investing in new and emerging financial opportunities — but man, Tony Zhang is The Scariest Guy I’ve Ever Seen in my life.
