Yale SOM's Brave New World: Is Anyone Actually Surprised?
Okay, so Satoshi Suga '26, a student at Yale's School of Management, decided to share his coming out story during National Coming Out Day. Big deal. Let's be real, in 2025, is this really earth-shattering news? It's October, not 1950.
Yale SOM, located at 165 Whitney Avenue, New Haven, CT – yeah, I can Google too – is hardly some backwater institution. They've got Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook, YouTube, and even Threads. Threads! Give me a break. If they didn't support a student coming out, now that would be news.
But I guess they need content, right? Gotta keep those social media feeds churning, gotta show how "inclusive" they are. It's all performative, isn't it? I mean, congrats to Suga for having the guts to be himself, but let's not pretend this is some act of revolutionary defiance. It's a carefully orchestrated PR moment, designed to make Yale look good. And honestly, it probably works. You can read the original announcement in Heritage & Awareness: Coming Out with Satoshi Suga ’26 - Yale School of Management.
And it's not that I'm against people sharing their stories. It's just… does everything have to be content now? Can't someone just be without it being packaged and sold for clicks and likes? I guess not.
It reminds me of when my local coffee shop started putting "inclusivity" stickers on their windows. Did their coffee suddenly taste better? Did they start paying their baristas more? Nope. It was just a way to signal virtue without actually doing anything meaningful. Just like Yale SOM patting themselves on the back for… what, exactly? Being a halfway decent institution in the 21st century?
The Age of Authenticity (As a Marketing Strategy)
The silence, the void of public and fan reaction listed in this fact sheet, speaks volumes. It's not that people are against it, it's that people expect it. There's no controversy, no outrage, just a collective shrug. We've reached peak wokeness, where even the most personal stories are just fuel for the content machine.
And I'm not even sure who's to blame here. Are the universities pushing this narrative, or are the students themselves complicit? I suppose it's a bit of both. Everyone wants to be seen, everyone wants to be heard, and in the age of social media, the easiest way to do that is to align yourself with a cause. But at what cost?
Am I being too cynical? Maybe. Maybe I'm just a grumpy old man yelling at clouds. But I can't shake the feeling that something is fundamentally wrong when even our most intimate moments are commodified and sold as "authenticity."
So What's the Real Story?
It's all just a bunch of carefully curated noise. It's all designed to distract us from the real issues, like the crushing student debt, the exploitative labor practices, and the utter meaninglessness of most corporate jobs. Suga's story is a shiny object, meant to keep us from looking too closely at the rot beneath the surface. Give me a break.
