Idol Climb

There can be no more hiding from the truth: Beyoncé is a witch.

And she’s not just some hedgewitch performing charms at the crossroads in the forest for a day’s worth of cornmeal or the run-of-the-mill conjurewoman your grandma goes to after Sunday service on the hush-hush to get some “work” done – oh no! Beyoncé is a Grade A sorceress the likes of which the world hasn’t known since Merlin and Morgana le Fay.

Even Aleister Crowley’s toes would curl if he were alive to see the power the Queen of all Bees and Bey of all Queens wields!

Conveniently in time for spooky season but with no correlation to Halloween coming whatsoever, news broke that Beyoncé cursed her former drummer, who described the Bey Queen of using “extreme witchcraft” against her.

Nope. Not a publicity stunt at all.

That said, here are a bunch of [not randomly cobbled together] pieces of evidence that prove just below a shadow of a doubt that Beyoncé is a total witch.

Her Ascent into Super-Stardom

It can’t just be cultivated talent, smart business maneuvering on the part of her father, and hard work toward a single goal over the span of 3 decades that led Beyoncé to be the superstar she is – nope! It’s witchcraft.

She sells out arenas at every show, has an army that if mobilized could probably snuff out an actual country’s military, and still doesn’t miss a beat (or when she does misstep, it doesn’t count because it’s on beat).

That’s not great business dealing, high-level sponsorship, marketing and tightly-controlled public relations. It’s pure magic.

Also, what are the odds that having a success-hungry father, an entrepreneurial mother, and sacrificing oodles of time and energy to perfecting her natural talent at the expense of a typical kid’s social life would end up in the fame Beyonce has today? Why would partnering with mega-corporations and media conglomerates, working hard on tour after tour, and making a name for herself during and after her stint with her band be anything but witchcraft in the highest degree?

That’s what I thought.

The Basketball Game Head Bob

She’s also a witch because she was bored out of her mind during a basketball game and was caught marching to the beat of her own drum – no, humming to the beat of the music she would soon release – NO! ACTIVATING MAGIC THE LIKES OF WHICH THE WORLD WOULD ONLY KNOW AFTER ITS EDGES WERE SAVAGELY RIPPED FROM ITS SCALP!

BECAUSE BEYONCÉ GISELLE CARTER-KNOWLES, FIRST OF HER NAME, QUEEN OF THE BEES AND THE HIVES, IS A WITCH!

BEYONCÉ was Released Without Promotion and SUCCEEDED 

The visual self-titled album is definitive proof that Beyoncé is the witch to end all witches. We know this because of the manifestation work she did publicly before and the boasting she did after! Let’s break it down:

Exhibit A: On March 17, 2013, she referenced the spell she was working on in Bow Down/I Been On when she incantated:

I’m the number one chick, I don’t need no hype.

Exhibit B: BEYONCÉ was released on December 13, 2013.

Exhibit C: In May 2014, Nicki Minaj dropped a track on her album The Pinkprint on which Beyoncé collaborated with her for the track Feeling Myself. The Witch in Question audaciously croons:

Changed the game with that digital drop Know where you was when that digital popped I stopped the world Male or female, it make no difference I stop the world, world stop… Carry on

Here’s what these exhibits prove:

Exhibit A: Beyoncé needed unconscious attention to pull off the December 13th drop. This was a step in the magic she had been putting in motion – telling you through prophecy that she would not use her massive publicity machine to do successful work. She would just do it. She needed no hype.

It’s not like Bow Down/I Been On was a braggadocious piece that meant to do what artists in hip hop had been doing forever: Propping themselves up and talking about their achievements. Nooooope. It was extreme witchcraft.

Exhibit B: The magic culminated and mushroom-clouded a few minutes before midnight (AKA: THE WITCHING HOUR). The world lost its collective shit. Singlehandedly, this powerful witch had fucked up the sleeping schedule of every professional that had to wake up and get to work in the morning, the studies of every student that had class to get to, and every night shift worker who told their boss to STFU because Beyoncé was drunk in love and telling the driver to roll down the petition.

It could not be that she had an incredibly consolidated fanbase that, as we talked about earlier, could probably cut the supply lines and wreak havoc on an actual military unit. No. This was straight up Black Arts incarnate.

Exhibit C: After the pre-work of I Been On/Bow Down and the successful deployment of the self-titled spell that altered this world’s whole timeline for the better, Beyoncé was exhausted from the magical effort, but gathered herself together enough to explain the mechanics of her magic work, reminding us that we knew where we were when she’d stopped the world and executed the spell.

Classic monologuing like a villainous sorceress. Nothing whatsoever to do with the track being hip hop and Bey bragging about her well-deserved achievement after years of hard work. T’was solely magic.

Her witchy Aesthetic

If she succeeds like a witch, does spells like a witch, twirls on her haters like a witch, she must be a witch, right?

RIGHT! Because extreme witchcraft is not done in secret, but out in the open!

It’s not like it would be clever to hide witchery from the wider world. Humans are totally understanding of difference and would never actively hunt down witches were their existence to be known widely. And because this is totally true and not exaggerated, here is definitive visual proof that Beyoncé is a witch.

She already admitted to stopping and restarting time. Here she is bringing all of the alternative realities she created into one place. She’s using this powerful magic all willy-nilly just for VMA BEYMA ratings! Reckless!   

What’s a more classic witchism than this spooky shit right here? CLEAR WITCHERY!I mean, NOBODY has that much coordination! Oh, and she’s leaning backward without any obvious means of support. Low-level stuff in comparison, but still.

Do I even need to spell out what we’re seeing here? She’s literally lifting the veil between worlds. UGH! Dont you just HATE IT when worlds collide?

Beyoncé and her coven CAUGHT IN THE ACT of summoning.

THIS VEIL PROVES SHE’S A WITCH! CAN IT BE ANY MORE OBVIOUS?!

Disregard that it MIGHT have been a trend during that year’s (2014) MET gala. Sidenote: How did Beyonce’s brand stay strong during ElevatorGate?! MAGIC!

You cant just BE THAT BEAUTIFUL. GENERATIONAL MAGIC!

The coven at rest. Plotting. Sipping the tea of their haters.

The ULTIMATE MAGIC. WHAT LACE?!  COME THROUGH FLYAWAYS!

Queen Bey is known for her poise and seemingly effortless ability to keep her chill up with the most regal of English monarchs. She is unbothered. She is not amused.

And we saw that put to the test during Jay Z’s ass whuppin the event famously known as Elevatorgate. Elevatorgate not only reminds us how our culture of surveillance is farther reaching than just the entertainment-valued mass media, but also how security surveillance contributes to the production of entertainment mass media. And how individuals surveilling surveillance are active in this entire set-up.

So lemme lay out how we finna do this: Firsta all, we goan talk bout how Solange played host to the spirits of Ryu and ChungLi from Street Fighter when they be fuckin’ them cars up in the mini-game. She basically snatched Jay’s crusty edges the same way Nicki be coming for edges but wind up takin’ scalps because the force is strong in that fish.

And we goan talk about the way Bey just stood there like a British toothbrush-helmet havin’ ass palace guard.

Seconda all, we goan murrinate on how there’s cameras every muhfckn where you go and how Bey taught us to remain in charge at all times least we be revealed to not be perfect statuesque-ass goddesses like her (which everybody know that even tho we flawless, we still got flaws and all.) MOVING ON. We goan get into what YOU can do to keep that ass polished and out of trouble when nukkas eyes get digital, if you know what I mean…

Unbothered as an Englishman

I reference the English stereotype in this post a lot because, as Americans see it, the Victorian English(wo)men (at least if the American in question only knows about Victorian virtues) were more emotionally reserved than Americans at generally any point in our history. For reference, see here:

Bullets are whistling, shells are exploding, panicked soldiers dash here and there splattered with mud and blood, the air is thick with shouted commands and the rich stench of death! And yet our hero is smoking a pipe, sipping his tea, and doing theTimes Crossword Puzzle, for he is an Imperturbable Englishman.

–“Stiff Upper Lip”, TvTropes.com

If this don’t sound just like our Bey! While Solange was over here ringin the alarm, Beyoncé was like “nope. NOAP. NUUUUPPPPPEEEE.” She only moved her dress out of the way because she wasn’t about to pay for it if it were damaged. (Most outfits are rented by the celebrities, donchaknow?)

Now, this elevator ride is assumed to be a very private space in time. We rarely even think about the cameras when we ride up and down the shafts, let alone that someone is actively watching. As Solange did what she was doing, Bey remained complicit in the action. She just stood there. I like to think it was all a set up and she knew and everybody was in on the action, but that’s the 4-Loco in me. In reality, I think it’s more that Beyoncé is aware of how far-reaching her fame is and that security cameras aren’t unable to make their way out (how do you think we get those hilarious videos of Walmart parking lot shenanigans?) of the Closed Circuit TV systems.

Our world is like a giant eyeball that has the ability to look inside of itself. If you live in London, there are cameras on the streets. In most if not all commercial property and financial and government institutions, there are security cameras to record everything that goes on. Even where there are no “official cameras”, a person with a phone on their camera *cough*EVERYONE*cough* is just as able to take a selfie as they are to see Sharkeisha wrecking your shit.

Beyoncé is well aware of this and doesn’t compromise her image in the slightest. Were we with her and she explained her reasoning for not getting involved, we might have called her a conspiracy theorist at the time, but she was right: A person used a cellphone to snatch the video from a security camera feed and sent it to a prominent station that rips makes its millions from publicizing unfortunate celebrity occurrences.

Imagine if Beyoncé had thrown some bows. What would we have thought? Don’t answer. We would have criticized her for “doing such human activities.”

How to Channel Your Inner Bey and Keep Calm

While I wrote a post centered around Carey-calmness, Bey meditation should not be overlooked, especially with Elevatorgate in question. This is important because if you have an image or a personal brand that you present yourself under in public, and word gets out that you are another way in private… That’s your integrity at stake. You immediately look like a phony. If you have a business, it’s in jeopardy. If you work for someone, you’re in a real dangerous place. Here’s how to carry on even if you have to fake it.

First thing’s first: You truly have to be at peace. Even if you have to flare your nostrils to breathe extra deep to make sure you are keeping all of the good in and expelling all of the bad, actual calmness is the best way to fake calmness. It doesn’t matter if you can beat someone’s ass, you don’t have to prove it during an age where that shit will be uploaded on Youtube wirelessly over an 18G network.

Secondly, have presence. The fact that there are cameras around you at all times and you never know when they’re going off truly calls for you to step your game up. If you’re supposedly a fashion icon in the making and you decide to go to the mall to pick something up in sweatpants and some fashion blogger thinks it’s hilariously funny and tapes you from afar to post on their blog, can you imagine the uproar when the community (maybe you both have overlapping fans) discovers that it’s you?

Not saying you can never be comfortable, but you need to realize what is at stake here and make every choice accordingly. Personal example: I sometimes speak at schools. I hadn’t realized that kids love their cellphone cameras and will have any excuse to take them out—even against the teachers’ wishes. I literally had to be on my game and at my most dynamic in case I misspoke or rambled or said something off-topic and dumb (which I’m prone to do.) There are youtube videos I’m in that I don’t even know about. Hella sure there are facebook vids.

Pro-Tip: Stars fake authenticity all the time; now you can too!

If Mariah Carey gets one thing right, it’s the ability to look good and unbothered as fuck as the world burns up around her.

There could be forces the likes of which she knows not and she will roll her eyes and sigh before asking it what it wants. When gravity attacks, she rolls her eyes and makes other people pick up the slack for her inability to keep upright on two-legs because bipedalism is an evolutionary trait that needs to get its shit together with gravity. Has nothing to do with her.

And then she probably belittles Science.

Space/Time Continuum: *Does space/time continuum-ish shit* Mariah: *rolls eyes* Whut do you want? Space/Time Continuum: Nothing… *Stops existing* Mariah: *Still here doing Mariah shit*

If a monster attacks whatever the hell city she lives in, she’ll tell the thing to wait for her to put on her heels before strutting away. It’s like that ya’ll. 

She has no time for… anything, really.

While you may or may not be here for her, she has enough money and shine and sparkle that your opinion is irrelevant. She is on a level all her own, whether that level is in the material world or some place far away in her mind that only she can see (not a mental health joke–she’s imaginative as hell and she shows it in her art). She lives in a world of her own design.

Everyone has a fave whose accomplishments normally speak for themselves. But stans being stans just can’t help but speak anyway because… It’s just what stans do. We amplify shit that don’t need no amplification.

But some stans’ faves are a little bit meh. That doesn’t mean they can’t be a part of the stanarchy! They’re just a little lower in it. All our faves can’t grant us positions of prominence in the stanocracy, after all.

Anyway, here’s some great stats to be proud of regarding your flop ass fave. We can’t all slay the game, but participation matters too!

1. They have great personalities in their private lives

2. They are a true artist, which is why they don’t do well commercially

3. Statistically speaking, two in four passed high school with at least a B average, three in four with at least a C and one in four with at least an A. And who knows, maybe your flop fave was valedictorian! It isn’t a Grammy, but at least it’s something!

4. They’re just living their own life, doing their own thing

5. Triple aluminum is just as good as triple platinum or quadruple vibranium if it comes from the heart and soul

6. The Illuminati is too focused on other artists to help yours score on the chart

7. They interact with the fans

8. They’re down to earth and would rather be in small clubs than arenas and stadiums with millions

9. Theyre not about the money or fame or talent or vocal ability….

Just because your fave is a flop doesn’t mean you have to abandon them. You can still ride with them--and now with these swanky new justifications you can stand up to stans whose faves actually perform and exceed expectations and have net worths that aren’t measured in the amount of Big Macs they can get on an expired rewards card!

Unless you have a grill made of vibranium from Wakanda, the only color your teeth should be is white. Good presentation and first foots forward and best steps of mice and men and whatnot, right?

You ALSO can’t fall behind in networking and being on your grind just because you’re technically confined to a chair with harmful chemicals in your mouth that could sear your soft, sensitive tissue if you move too much. Time is money and you’ve REALLY got to make that $400 back--here’s how to stand out while getting your teeth bleached!

Sing “Work” while giving the dentist chair a whine

You can literally sing that song the whole time without closing your mouth for even a second. I SWEATERGAWD! (No, seriously, try singing it without closing your lips and then start making bets with people cos you’ll win everytime unless you’re a loser.) And the chair will feel so good about itself because no one ever pays attention to it at the club. It’s a win-win for everybody.

Also, everyone in the clinic will be so impressed that you can sing with an ultraviolet light activating bleach that will quite literally fuck your mouth up for years they’ll fight for your business card.

Sit there. Don’t sit, Sit.

Don’t passively sit, actively Sit. Sit with capital-P Presence. Channel the acting teacher who ran out of shit to teach you so she made you do this for like 2 periods.

Not only will you shine as brightly as your teeth in about 30-more-minutes-I-promise-it’ll-be-over-soon-don’t-worry-sweetie, people will think you’re descended from a godly real ass nigga like Lil Wayne or some shit. That’s pedigree right there.

Start a round of spades

Nothing brings people together quite like cards around sophisticated and dangerous chemicals and machinery. Be sure to explain beforehand that you dont really know how to play because you’ve only ever SEEN it played at family functions and you couldnt really get involved because “grown folks were talking” but you’ve got the gist more or less. Win or lose, at least you’ll have company in the hospital because you wouldn’t let the dentist do her damn job in peace.

Give head

To your dentist, your Tinder bae, another patient--whoever! Sure, there’s potent bleach on your teeth that could burn the sensitive insides of your mouth as well as their genetalia, but how else will your soon-to-be business partners know you’re willing to do anything to meet your goals? Aaaaaaannnnyyyything. (Seriously, like r u DTF or….?) Chemical burns aside, you’re gonna really get ahead this way!

Practice your kegels

Everyone does it, but doing it during a whitening is sure to show people how determined and perfect you are in all aspects of life. And if people dont realize what youre doing, dont be afraid to loudly and breathily count or, more appropriately, place an audio recorder in your pants and rig it up to a sound system so that everyone can not only marvel at your strong _______ muscles, they’ll also give props to your dope IT skills.

You’re fake as fuck and you know it, but you’ve also got a startup blog or whatever and you’re afraid all that falsificatianiety is going to shine through witcha fake ass. Well, fear not! Here are some great ways to fake authenticity when you’re the type to say “yaaaasssss!” to someone’s dress when you should probably close your mouth because you’re gonna throw up a little bit in it. And you actually do cos you’re that dedicated to deception cos you’re a highkey snake (no shade)!

Squint your eyes when you’re smiling

Studies have shown that authentic smiles can be differentiated from fake ones (or ones with people with botox) because the corner of the eyes close a bit. When real people smile, their whole faces light up in a bright display of joy and indominable happiness that you could never achieve or experience because you’re too busy being a hater and everything you love decays instantly when you touch it and any happiness you have known has dried up like ash in your mouth.

Well, you don’t have to gain a conscious or empathy to look like you have either: Just close your eyes a bit when you smile. A picture has a thousand words or whatever and you neeeeed to make sure none of them show you for the fake ass pigeon you actually are.

Add a hearty chuckle (but not too hearty cos what the fuck are you--a down home mountain dwarf?) in response to some probably unfunny shit someone else says before talking

Shit like smiling and laughing shows that you wear your emotions openly. This is good for you because little does everyone else know, you’re literally (not literally but literally) an assassin. And they let their guards down and trust you. AND THAT’S WHEN YOU STRIKE!

No one is ever going to suspect you’re fake because no one fake chortles (WITH A SMILE WITH SQUINTED EYES--REMEMBER THIS!) unless they really mean it. And real people don’t chortle on purpose for the sake of convincing people they’re not fake, so you’re basically in the clear. You can murder and slay (in the real way, not really but really) to your heart’s content now.

Touch people lightly so they can feel as if you’re not a cold-hearted calculating demonspawn (which they’ll know when (IF!) they don’t combust first)

People tend to put their guards up around other people who have their guards up. If that weren’t the case, you wouldn’t be reading this article now would you be, Ice Queen/King/Pharaoh/Emper(or/ess)/Khaleesi? So while you’re not really making any attempt to become less fake and more genuine, you can keep your guard up while making it look like it isn’t. You create this invisible wall by touching.

Science or whatever shows that touching has a positive psych(!)ological effect on the person at the receiving end of the touch and they’re more likely to respond positively to touching. If it sounds like I repeated myself to make that sentence look longer and therefore more smarter and scientific, it’s because I did. Unlike you, I can be real because I’m not fake. No tea, no shade, no darkside of the orbiting celestial body of Uranus.

Now what you need to do to appear like you *really ARE* raising awareness about Panda bears without fingernails and not just doing it because some rich ding-dong is funding the nonprofit to avoid paying taxes is start non-sexually touching people. But don’t do it too much or else you’ll come off as creepy and you’ll probably have a court hearing where you have to defend yourself against being put on the sex offender’s list.

For real, for real (Pls try)

You could learn to be a better, more caring, more patient, more genuine person, but honestly ain’t nobody got time for that. Nobody fake, anyway. So with these tips, I invite you to spread your fake ass wings  and shoot for the stars or wherever you wanna go witcha fake head ass.

SERIOUS NOTE: Triggering. Just because it’s satire doesn’t mean it won’t bring up bad thoughts and take you to a headplace you don’t wanna be in. You’ve been warned.

So, the hayday of imperialism might be over, but these things come back from time to time--80’s parties, amirite?!

Anyway, since you want to step your game up and your goal is to get to the top by any means necessary, why not just become a raging imperialist? I mean, sure, the hours are long and there’s always a risk of death from the perils of “new world” exploration or the ungrateful attitudes of the people whose lands you’re robbing and whatnot when they revolt against your taxes and tyranny, but meh. Honestly, imperialism is it’s own reward (and also exceedingly lucrative if the empire you set up doesn’t fall to revolt). So here’s how to make your stolen piece of land and population of subjugated people thrive!

Stop Thinking of the People as People

If it walks like a person, talks like a person and doesn’t like being stabbed like a person, does that make it a person? Only if the constitution (you/God?) created says so. Meaning the vast majority of native-born people probably aren’t people. As such, you don’t have to feel bad about ripping apart their families, stamping out their language with brute force and cruelty, and destroying their overall way of life that was practiced for ages before you arrived.

When you stop thinking of the people who make your life comfortable and create the foundation for all the wealth you accumulate, you don’t feel guilty about not paying them for labor or annexing neighboring regions into your empire. It really lets you focus on the task at hand, you know?

Make Equality Work for You

When calls for “EQUALITY OR ELSE!” are being chanted outside of your palace/manor/townhouse/plantation window at 3 A.M. and the orange light flickering into your room more resembles the firelight of angry torches than the never-setting-on-your-empire sun just a day after introducing groundbreaking new tax laws, you maaaaaaay have a problem. And it’s not one you can just erase from the history books in subsequent generations.

You’ll really have to think about equality and make some changes in your thought process. This may include things like creating a Divine Right to do whatever the fuck you want. But there’ll be some work on your part.

If you want land and power, you’ll have to make equality so that certain people get more by the way the natural order works. Then use cultural institutions to enforce that. Either make it law that you get to expand your reach from coast to coast by order of God, that voting in your sparkly new republic requires more humanity than the capacity of some non-people are capable of, or make a rewards system in the shape of a pyramid that rightly gives the most to the fewest more purest select elite.

I promise your start-up colony will be space-faring one day if you follow this advice!

Love Yourself (and Force Everyone Else to Love You Come Flood or Fire)

If you don’t love yourself, how the hell are you gonna expand your sphere of influence beyond the region, let alone the solar system? But all the narcissism in the world won’t be able to move mountains. That takes generations of brainwashed citizens and subjects personally invested in you and the colony to happen. And that all starts with the precedent set by you, the founder.

Start off by assessing your qualities and deciding which ones are more exclusive to you and the people that are managing the colony. Then look at the ones more associated with the downtrodden (by you) classes and demonize those while lionizing your own. It’s OK to lie if it gets people motivated to shift their love from themselves to you while the vacuum left in their hearts becomes self-hate.

Encourage your subject-citizens to be more like you and the ruling classes with catchy motivational slogans and narratives enforced by whatever forms of influential media are available to you and your startup. If there’s any sense that they might be better at your own game than you, shift goalposts. You’ll know how to do it when the time comes.

Upward and Onward! (Manifest) Destiny Awaits!

In the end, your colony is a reflection of you and your values and willpower. You get out what you put in (in a manner of speaking… I mean, you’re not really putting in resources as much as you are extracting them from the ground and labor of the land and people, but it is what it is). At any rate, startup colonies are a dime a dozen and if you don’t draw from the inner drive and entrepreneurial spirit, you’ll never bring honor to the motherland.

You have goals and working all day for someone else may or may not be stifling your hustle. (Lowkey, it probably is.) That said, you sometimes have to hack work. Here’s how to get a return on your time spent from a company that’s most likely paying you only a fraction of your worth and not putting you on the path you want to be on.

Do all your personal printing and xeroxing at work to save on (your) ink and paper.

Take as many bathroom breaks as is necessary to finish that chapter of your novel.

Use the Creative Department’s photoshop to make a logo for your business venture.

Use the office phone for long distance calls you can’t use your cellphone for some reason.

Go to meetings you don’t technically belong in so you can learn as you can when you ditch your current gig and go solo.

Listen to the finance people talk so you can learn about complicated concepts like “cashflow” (rappers may or may not be using it in a way that benefits you legally).

Flirt with the people in creative so they’re more likely to help you along with your brand design when you go AWOL.

Memorize the books in your boss’s bookshelf to read during your own time (or when you take bathroom breaks to work on your novel).

If you work at least six hours and take a ten minute bathroom break every hour, you’ll have two hours free including your lunch break.

In your hiring interview, explain that you went to and worked in Japan (especially if you didn’t) so when you get caught sleeping at the desk, you can tell management it was because you were so exhausted from giving the company 100% and you want to continue doing so, so you take power naps. They’ll never suspect you’ve been up all night on your own hustle!

Make a personal work performance metric sheet and hand it to your boss to sign. Use the newly acquired signature to stamp the letter of recommendation you wrote yourself for the small business grant you applied for.Also, get a burner phone to use as your “boss’s phone” in case they call you. ALSO, learn to change your voice and speech pattern so they don’t clock you at the in-person interview.

Write an anonymous blog sharing the best perspectives of your watercooler chats with coworkers as your own. Monetize that blog with Google ads.

Learn how to CTRL+TAB and ALT+TAB if you haven’t in middle school already.

Start a carpool group and don’t have a car. And instead of helping to pay for gas, bake cookies for the driver every (other) day. Cookie dough costs $4-5 and it only takes 15-20 minutes to make. Your contribution to the carpool collective will be unique and lighter on your wallet.Unless Obama and imperialism makes gas cheaper. In that case, fuck cookies and pay for gas. (Only do this with asshole coworkers. Unless you’re amoral then whatevs.)

Join a religious group that has a bunch of holidays and observe those holidays by not going to work. Use that time to work on your hustle. When pressed about why you’re doing something contrary to the beliefs of the religion you joined later, explain how you’re not a monolith and everyone observes That Thing differently.

Ask for permission (and funds) to hold a company-wide diversity training to bring awareness to barely noticeable people. When asked where the stuff you spent the money is, explain that, like the people in attendance, it’s barely noticeable.

Use the janitor’s closet as a recording studio for your mixtape. If the custodian threatens to snitch, make them a featured artist.

Pull the fire alarm and stay inside when everyone runs out. Record your vlog while your hair is still on point and you’re not worn out.

Offer to train the new employee. Give the new employee difficult tasks while you sit back and write (your novel) on the clipboard. If you need more time, purse your lips and mutter about incompetence to get them to double-check their work.

If you’re quick enough, you can use those ten minute bathroom breaks and hour lunch break to braid your client’s hair, provided they’re able to sneak in and occupy a stall for the day. You can probably get an “out of order” sign from M.C. Sweepies.

Offer to set up the meeting room for when the regional manager arrives. When your boss asks why it’s taking so long, explain that you overheard corporate saying the management team might be facing some cutbacks and you’re secretly using ancestral folk magic to ensure the boss stays (but him bothering you ruins the charm and you have to start over). Use the time to put the finishing touches on your new blog design.

Convince someone on the IT squad to give you server space to use for your website. Promise to invite them to all the VIP events your party promotion company throws.

Sell baked goods to your coworkers for the school bake sale. When management gets on your case about the company policy about selling your kids’ stuff the joke’s on them because you don’t have kids and it’s only for personal gain!

Spill coffee on people’s clothes and advertise your washing service.

Start a fight club in the company basement and advertise your washing service again but with a special fee for blood.

On the day that HR is set to give out a company memo, put your digital marketing into overdrive and crash the server. Offer to hand out the memos manually and include your mixtape along with it all.

Invent a child and, at least once a month, tell the boss that you have to go get your child from school because of a scabies outbreak. If someone mentions you never having had a child before (or brings up the “everyone around me is having children and getting married” memes you post on facebook--WHY DOES ANYONE YOU WORK WITH HAVE YOUR FACEBOOK?!) tell them that they’re being discriminatory against the barely noticeable and threaten to sue.

During catered events, pull the fire alarm. When everyone’s gone, steal the catered food. Offer to get a last minute caterer but you need the money upfront. If this does not fly, open a pop-up catering service on your block.

Answer comments to your Youtube videos and blog posts on a Word document so it looks like you’re being a productive member of the team.

There is nothing more wholesome, more American than devoting yourself to your place of work 100% despite the fact that studies have shown it’s probably killing you. But just because capitalism is slowly eating away at you from the inside out doesn’t mean you can’t throw that ass in a circle while you devote all your time and energy to a business whose sole existence is to thrive at your expense.

Booty-music is good for the soul because it’s kind of repetitive but it always sounds new because your butt probably doesn’t have muscle memory and is relearning to twerk every other song. Also, the Rihyoncé brand is strong so I’m basically prescribing you top shelf shit for free.

You’re welcome.

Here are 4 songs that will help you generate just enough energy to be able to go home exhausted because your ding-dong ass boss asked you to do some unnecessary shit at 4:56 that you could have done earlier when ya’ll both know your time to clock out is 5.

1. Pour it Up by Rihanna

Nothing screams “I fucking hate this job and as soon as I get my money up, I’m buying this place and shutting it down” more than Pour it Up. While it would be a bad business move to acquire a profit-making property and shutting it down out of spite, it’s the thought that counts.

Listen to Queen Rih as you do the same thing over and over and over for eight hours straight and imagine her bouncing that booty in a money-covered gold throne (because your boss wont let you watch videos on your phone)

2. 7/11 by Beyoncé

Beyoncé booty-music is basically the opiate of the working class prostitariat proletariat masses. You almost kinda wanna start a revolution but then you realize “meh, lemme just get through one more circle twerk before I go burning this hedonistic beast down from the belly out” and then you forget about the plan you and the other wage-slaves came up with because you’re smacking it in the air. Your Marie Antionette-looking managers dont even KNOW how close they were to getting GOT.

7/11 just makes it all OK. It’s like a hug that encircles your bootycheeks and jiggles them individually all the while whispering “you’re gonna get through this”. You’ll have to be snapped out of your trance of imagining yourself luxuriating poolside in an Olympic-sized pool filled with the blood of those who used to be richer than you in Mexico City by a co-worker when it’s quitting time.

I promise this song works.

3. Work by Rihanna

This song is perfect because it bypasses your otherwise intellectual senses and speaks directly to your ass, whispering sweet nothings of tomorrows slabbed heavily in love and success and love of success and successful love. Like 7/11, with Work you just let the music move you and wake up in whatever puddle you passed out in later and walk off the sprained ankle and walk home.

When played on repeat as it should be between the wee hours of whenever the hell you arrive to work O clock and FINAL-FUCKIN-LY-thirty, you just kind of cruise through the work days.

And don’t call it “tropical house” or else you don’t love Rihanna, and you’re a sellout, and you’re never going to prosper and whatever happiness you attain will turn to ashes in your mouth and you will never know what it’s like to be in Rihovah’s light.

4. Formation by Beyoncé

Check out our writeup on Formation’s Entrepreneurship lessons.

I’m pretty sure I don’t have to tell you why this song is literally the most important song of your workday. Like...

Twirl on my haters

Earned all this money but they never take the country out me

Albino Alligators

I did not come to play with you hoes I came to slay, bitch

I slay

I see it, I want it I stunt, yeah, little hornet I dream it, I work hard I grind 'til I own it

Always stay gracious, best revenge is your paper

Like, the lyrics tell you to #WIN. There’s no ambiguity about it! There’s literally nothing to read between the lines about. If your boss sees your ass moving in formation they should literally bow down (also another great song you need in your worklife) and know that you’re a good person to whom they had better give a glowing letter of recommendation (and a pancreas). Also liberation from wage-dependency and the support to do your own thing.

Now that you have the songs necessary to ensure a bomb comeupance at the expense of the old leaders that thought they’d have you under their thumbs for life, you’re basically ready to do a Beyoncé and go take over the known universe.

So, there are a bunch of political and social implications in Beyoncé’s “Formation”--acknowledgement of and pride in African features which have been traditionally shunned, mocked, made fun of, appropriated and “appreciated” so long as they weren’t on Black people, etc.; recognition and celebration of Southern Black American culture that has always been the butt of jokes and callous stereotypes; calling out and challenging white supremacy, especially within the rank and file of police departments as well as the national response to crises that affect society’s most marginalized.

My homegirl Yoncé pulled all the stops and it’s been documented and written about. Basically: Bey broke the internet again. But here, we’ll focus on how we can use Formation as motivation for our education and determination to take our rightful places within our nation.

Sorry, got carried away there and channeled Malcolm X’s rhetorical spirit. Happy Black History Month! Anyway, let’s break this down and get us some themes going.

1. Earned all this money but they never take the country out me

Stay true to yourself. Play the game if you must but always know your true self and stay honest to that. In this line, Bey recalls a LONG history of being in the music business and presenting herself as a sophisticated style icon and diva whenever the moment asked for it, but she always had inside of her that Texas bamma country girl. You know, like the one Taylor Swift pretended to be despite being from Pennsylvania.

2.  I see it, I want it I stunt, yeah, little hornet I dream it, I work hard I grind 'til I own it

a. Visualize; b. feel it; c. make it happen.

Beyoncé did not come to play with you hoes. You might be workerbees, but she’s a bee that aint bumble--she makes gains off her moves (hornet). And you should too. Don’t be content to work a 9-5 for someone else if that’s not in your best interest. You need to do what you can to make your dreams come true.

Whether it’s launching your own brand or acquiring a new property, you have to bring it into existence and into your domain. OWN IT.

3. Always stay gracious, best revenge is your paper

Keep composed, when you get your money you’ll be set. This one is trickier than the others though for 2 reasons:

It isn’t easy to be and stay gracious for most people (have you seen reality TV?)

People get caught up in the image of wealth and success they forget to take the steps that get them there.

When Bey says this, she’s basically praising hard work now and reward later. She’s telling you to do what you have to do and get your shit together so that, much later, you can stunt on them hoes, as the kids say. (Is that something you could do? Everybody doesn’t have the patience.)

Don’t be afraid of having material or financial goals.

If money is the lifeblood of this system and you need to to be holding on to one of the system's bleeding limb.

It’s not superficial to want to be financially secure or even to want excess. As long as you live for you and do right by others and can sleep at night with the person you are, you’re good.

Capitalism might not be your favorite dog in the race, but it's currently the biggest one globally and if you're going to weather life, you'll be needing some coin.