Point: Send Me a Push Counterpoint: Call Me Counter-Counterpoint: Enter a Passcode

By Izzy Ster

Point: Send Me a Push

By Megan Nelson

No one enjoys the Duo Mobile two-factor authentication—it’s time-consuming and just another example of how USC sets their students up for failure at a microlevel. It’s like trickle down economics, which we’re learning about in my ECON 351: Microeconomics for Business class, along with drawing Phillips curve, talking about the Metaverse, and making Ronald Reagan votive candles. 

It’s easy to make the best out of a bad situation if you just download the app and have it send you a push. This is the most economically-sound choice (and my ECON 351 Professor Nancy Reagan agrees). It’s guaranteed to reduce the amount of time you awkwardly stand in front of the McClintock Trojan Check area, waiting for it to log you into your account. You can even do it while you’re crossing the street, narrowly avoiding getting hit by a rogue biker because you’re distracted by the slow, white screen—it’s such a safer option! 

However tedious it may feel, I know it’s all worth protecting my myUSC account, which holds important information like my Google calendar, my incomplete Trojans Respect Consent modules, and, of course, my schedule with my 8 units of ECON 351 on it. Well, not 8, but you get the picture (or should I say, you get the NFT. Get it?). 

Counterpoint: Call Me

By Jason Howard

If you don’t use the call me option, what are you doing? Do you find pleasure in being an inferior human being? Every morning, when I’m faced with a red, blue, or green pill, I take the blue one: Call Me. 

I’m not a beta male, obviously. I thrive off of making (and faking) dramatic exits while mouthing “I’m on a call” during my classes. Despite my busy schedule, which includes a standing 3 a.m. gym reservation at the Lyon Center and 32 units, I still find the time to speak to the Duo two-factor authentication lady. My mood for the entire day depends on that nice, robot lady’s tone. Sometimes, she’s quick and needs to get to other people—she’s such a good Samaritan…such a catch. Her voice is so soothing, and she’s so hard-working. Yet, she’s playful, flirty even. She often plays hard to get, alternating how long I’m on hold, almost edging me. She’s a seductress. A modern day siren who feasts off of my lust (my mouth-breathing into my Android). She’s my everything. I breathe for her, I die for her, I weep for her. The east, the east! And the AI voice coming from my speaker is the sun! 

Every day is a new game, a new challenge I have to overcome in finally shackling her heart to my own. “Press 1,” she moans into the phone, urging me to submit to her. Will I? No, baby. That just reduces my precious, fleeting seconds I have with you. 

So, yeah. I prefer the Call Me function. 

Counter-Counterpoint: Enter a Passcode

By Theodore Cornelian 

I know you’re out there. I receive your messages and your tantalizing number puzzles. What does it mean? What message are you trying to send? Don’t you fret, I’m here to solve your riddler’s sudoku. I will solve it. You are not an omnipotent force. You will be stopped. I will decode the numbers you send to me and I will decipher its true meaning.

Perhaps it’s the coordinates to your secret lair, you sick bastard. Maybe it’s a palindrome for a game you’re playing with yourself. Am I merely a pawn to you? An agent to which you receive a hit of pleasure from? These numerical hieroglyphics will lead to your devastating downfall. I will discover your secrets and I will destroy you.

You think you’re so clever, having us copy and paste the numbers, but only being able to highlight the entire paragraph of numbers. I may end up pasting ten sets of codes into the tiny box, but anything is worth uncovering your true message. I’m coming for you, you modern-day Archimedes wannabe. I will find you, I will kill you, and I will force you to only send ONE new code per text!