As a disclaimer, I would like to say that I have nothing but the utmost respect for shitposting as a profession, whether that's journalism, academia, law, or NEETdom. I would also like to say I know literally nothing about education or academia, so don't @ me.

Our story begins with https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/19378629.2017.1408631 "Rigor/Us: Building Boundaries and Disciplining Diversity with Standards of Merit" by Donna Riley, published in Engineering Studies, Received 15 February 2015, published 01 December 2017. Readable for free at https://sci-hub.tw/10.1080/19378629.2017.1408631

In the introduction, Riley says that this is going to be a highly personal blogpost that purposefully eschews tradtitional ideas of rigor (AKA, that she's not going to be using STEMlord LOGIC and REASON), and that the snobs and square are going to look down their noses at her for it and she won't be allowed in their club:

An earlier version of this work was presented as a distinguished lecture co-sponsored by the Liberal Education/Engineering and Society Division and the Minorities in Engineering Division of the American Society for Engineering Education. On its face this paper would seem to be more appropriate for an engineering education journal, and indeed this paper ought to be read by engineering education researchers, among others. Yet the Journal of Engineering Education pre-emptively passed on publishing this work because it is not an empirical study, itself an example of how rigor is constructed and boundaries drawn (in this case around engineering education research) so as to relegate critical analysis to a category outside the space of inquiry.

In other words JEE, the flagship journal of the American Society for Engineering Education, hard-passed on this particular shitpost because they're elitist nerds and gamers.

She then meanders through the various reasons that rigor isn't good, ramping up to a whopper of a truthbomb in the section titled "Asserting white male heterosexual privilege:

One of rigor’s purposes is, to put it bluntly, a thinly veiled assertion of white male (hetero)sexuality. The term has a historical lineage of being about hardness, stiffness, and erectness; its sexual connotations – and links to masculinity in particular – are undeniable. My visceral reaction in many conversations where I have seen rigor asserted has been to tell parties involved (regardless of gender) to whip them out and measure them already.

That's right. You just read a dick joke in an academic paper. And it gets better.

A Wired magazine article on a slide rule exhibit at Purdue9 illustrates engineering’s rigor culture (Figure 1). Wired, known for its puerile sexist humor and boys’ club working climate,10 reported on two Purdue engineering faculty members who were the collectors of some 200 slide rules on display. In the article another slide rule enthusiast was quoted:

Slide rules made me miserable in school, but now I collect them with a passion ... I know it’s weird to talk about passion in connection with slide rules, but they fascinate and delight me the way my ex-wife never did. They are functional and beautiful. I guess you could say I’m obsessed.

So, what could be better than this long, hard, and juicy quote about Purdue engineering faculty members playing with their slide rules?

Well, in the years since this was written in 2015, Donna Riley has become the head of Purdue's school of Engineering Education: https://engineering.purdue.edu/ENE/People/profile?resource_id=171338

Notably, this is not their Engineering department. However, as a bit of backstory, the Purdue Engineering Education department is the oldest, largest and can be considered the most prestigious in the nation (Though arguing about which is on top depends on exactly which particular sub-branch of Engineering Education you're trying to study). In other words she might be in the next building or even the next office from the Slide Rule Guys and their collection of dildos.

(So yes, the shitpost didn't get her the job and the title is pure clickbait.)

Since the December 2017 publication of Rigor/Us, JEE's very next issue (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/toc/21689830/2018/107/2) featured Fearless Girl on the cover, itself a stunning metaphor for everything wrong with modern feminism, and a quote from bell hooks.

The Editor's note https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/jee.20194 discussed a new direction for the Journal, which would now feature a series of guest editorials about "quality considerations in engineering education research as a way to take a stance". It also says

A recent article by Donna Riley, which critiqued the term “rigorous research in engineering education” for some of these very reasons, called for engineering education to become an inclusive community that supports researchers and educators in doing the best work possible (Riley, 2017).

That's right. The Journal is changing because of Rigor/Us. Donna Riley strapped on her slide rule, bent JEE over, and fucked the rigor out of them.

The guest editorial also begins with a quote from Rigor/Us as well https://doi.org/10.1002/jee.20202

“Our strength can come through multiplicity rather than adherence to a single norm.” (Riley, 2017, p. 263)

In this editorial, we are taking up Riley's challenge to the field to move beyond “a single norm” (2017) and explore ways quantitative analysis can be used in richer and more nuanced ways in educational research.

The takeaway here is "don't let your memes be dreams". If you continue to shitpost long and hard enough, you can level up and take them to the big leauges. Never give up, Never surrender. Maximum effortposting for fun and profit. I actually was going to effortpost this into a YouTube video, but it was riddled with inaccuracies and misinformation, so I'm keeping it here in /r/Drama where you'd have to be a complete retard to take any of it seriously (unlike a pretigious article in the journal of YouTube). Also, I have nothing against qualitative studies and navelgazing thinkpieces, or Donna Riley, so don't get the wrong idea. It's just a really cool story, imo. Truly impressive power. dude bussy lmao.

TL;DR dickjokes changed the world.