‘Dat boi’ spotted rollin’ on campus

Jenny Caulfield
Guest Contributor

English professor Ben Dover is no stranger to disruptions in class, but never before has he had to make a formal complaint about a student’s abnormal behavior.

“I already have issues as it is keeping my students’ attention in class, so a kid acting out like this makes my job even harder,” Dover said.

Starting the first week of March, Dover has had a student riding into his Communications class on a unicycle wearing a bright green frog suit identifying as the popular meme, “Dat Boi.”

Dover can recall students dressing up around campus in panda suits, wearing food hats and other cheesy costumes over the years, so a student wearing a frog costume isn’t that out of the ordinary to him.

“Working at Hudson Valley means seeing kids dress up and do crazy things all the time, so the first time he came into my class dressed up, I thought nothing of it,” he said.

These students, however, typically dropped their act after a day or two, Dover said.

“You would not believe the sleepless nights I’ve had over this student,” Dover stated. “The first week he would ride in, saying, ‘Here comes ‘Dat Boi,’ and I started having dreams about groups of frogs on unicycles following me around yelling that same phrase. It’s terrible.”

Individual studies major Jack Goff is the man that is Dat Boi.

The 20-year-old Goff is in his first year at Hudson Valley, and he has a passion for memes, especially “Dat Boi.”

“I’ve been riding a unicycle for five years now, so it was really only a matter of time before I transformed into Dat Boi,” Goff explained.

Goff started riding his unicycle to Hudson Valley last semester in order to avoid trying to find a parking spot. Some students around campus noticed him riding onto campus and started yelling things like, “Here come dat boi” and “Watch him rollin’, watch him go” at Goff as he rode around.

“I liked the attention I was getting from students, so I decided to dress up as Dat Boi for my Communications class to get back at my professor,” Goff said. “He called a paper I wrote last month about memes a joke, but I take memes very seriously.”

Although Dover has a hatred for Dat Boi, other students in class and around campus seem to be delighted by the actions of Goff.

“Jack Goff is a hero to the freshman class,” said liberal arts major Dixie Normous.

“He’s started coming into our Communications class everyday this week, singing, ‘He be rolling down the street, he be rolling to the beat,’ over and over — it’s hilarious,” she said.

Thomas “Bees” Fister is another liberal arts student who has witnessed Goff’s behavior.

“I’ve seen that dude riding around campus as a frog, and I’ve seen other students yell things at him, and it’s so heckin’ funny,” Fister said. “If I was a professor and he was doing that in my class, I feel like I’d probably get pissed after awhile.”

Dover tried multiple times after class to ask Goff not to ride into class and wear the frog suit, but Goff continued to distract his class.

“I tried everything I could to just ignore him, but eventually I had to draw the line,” Dover explained.

On Monday, March 12, Goff rode into his 4 p.m. class at 4:20 p.m., screaming, “Oh shit, what up?” as loud as he could multiple times.

“I don’t like students being late to my classes, and I also don’t allow profanity in my classrooms, so it was time to put an end to Dat Boi,” Dover said.

After reporting Goff for distracting his class, Dover had a meeting with Goff and President Matonak about his behavior, which became eye-opening.

“I didn’t realize the boy was trying to turn into a frog,” Matonak said. “You don’t get a lot of that around here, with people being frogs,” he said.

Goff had started feeling more comfortable on his unicycle wearing his frog suit, so he decided he wanted to officially transition into becoming Dat Boi. According to Goff, he continued to roll into his Communications class disregarding his warnings from Dover, due to how he felt after he started dressing up.

“I thought he was just ignoring me when I asked him all those times to knock it off,” Dover said. “I didn’t realize it was something so serious to him and who he wanted to be.”

According to Matonak, Goff can continue to ride his unicycle around campus and wear his frog suit as long as he doesn’t use anymore profanity. Goff was, and still is, overjoyed about the decision.

“I just want to be accepted for who I am and how I feel inside,” Goff said. “I ask that all students who are watching me rollin’ are respectful of that,” he said.