the teacher who groomed me in high school is posting ai slop on youtube now

i have google alerts set up for my high school and its associated creeps. this guy’s name was a jump scare in my email this morning. when i thought i knew him, he was pursuing an arts-related phd and was the smartest, most interesting person i’d ever met. he traveled internationally to present at conferences, which sounded important, and lectured as if building up to an o captain! my captain! ovation from students. for over a decade, our relationship lived in my head as a largely impotent schoolgirl crush – i was enamored and he indulged, but only a little bit, and only for a moment. a few years after graduation, a friend visited me at college and yelled in my ear over the bass at an outdoor club: “you know what he did was fucked up though, right?” / between pestering me for suggestive photos and inviting me to “say something sexy, say something scandalous, say something provocative,” he found time to nurture my love of writing and budding interest in feminism. he introduced me to…