The Urban Dictionary defines “ragebait” as “content deliberately created to provoke anger or frustration online.” For Simpson residents, an Instagram sketch by the off-campus house Casablanca was just that. 

“Hey Erik,” senior Aidan Christian says, opening a kitchen cabinet. “No bowl.”

“How’s this one?” senior Erik Teder replies, walking into frame. 

Then Christian pours himself a bowl of Frosted Flakes — milk first, then cereal — into the homecoming trophy. 

“Come and get it,” the caption on the video reads, with the tune of “Champion” by Kanye West.

Teder and Christian’s Instagram reel comes as the latest installment of a months-long game of hide and seek. The homecoming trophy, which Simpson won in October, vanished in mid-November when a group of Alpha Tao Omegas took it from Simpson Residence. 

“They claim that they lost it,” Simpson co-Head Resident Assistant and senior Jonathan Williams said. “They tried finding it and returning it but failed to do so. There has been silence on the matter since right before Thanksgiving until last weekend.”

That all changed when housemates Christian, Teder, senior Thomas McKenna, and junior Joshua Mistry posted the short video Jan. 25 on their joint Instagram, @casablancaexecboard. 

“I must’ve gotten eight text messages in 30 minutes from people asking me if they could do something with the trophy,” Christian said. “Everyone wanted to see it, everybody wanted to touch it, to feel it, like it was the ring — the all-corrupting power of the homecoming trophy.”

Freshman James Lennington said two friends, ATOs Emmett Fleischer and Christian Sosa, originally took it from Simpson in November and brought it to the off-campus house Jungle. The freshman pair removed one AirTag tracker from the trophy, but more remained, clueing Simpson into its whereabouts.

“We were all at Jungle, and Jonathan Williams showed up,” Lennington said.

According to Lennington, while Williams was in the hallway of the house, Fleischer and Sosa snuck the trophy out a window. 

Lennington said the group brought the trophy to his brother Henry’s off-campus house, Triplex. 

Senior Luka Stanic, who lives at Triplex with Henry Lennington, said that after the ATO freshmen brought the trophy to the house, chaos ensued.

“When I woke up the next morning, the house was trashed,” Stanic said. “The trophy was missing, and my three housemates were like, ‘We have no idea what happened.’”

Stanic assumed his house had been raided. When Williams arrived and asked Stanic about the trophy’s whereabouts, Stanic told him the ATOs had taken it when they trashed Triplex.

“I 100% believed we had lost the trophy at that point,” Stanic said. 

In the following weeks, photos of the homecoming trophy at various Hillsdale landmarks appeared on the anonymous campus messaging app Jodel.

“My housemates were still acting a little funny about it,” Stanic said. 

Stanic said he still suspected nothing when over winter break, he and his Triplex housemates drove 15 hours to Louisiana.

“I roll out of the driver’s seat,” Stanic said. “I’m half asleep, stumbling to the shower. I come back out, I’m getting dressed, and the guys are talking to me about the mini fridge. And I’m like, ‘What about it?’”

The trophy was on the mini fridge, right in front of him. His housemates had brought it in from the car without him noticing. 

“I lost it,” Stanic said. “They trashed the house, and used it as an excuse, and told me it was trashed, and I was their convenient witness. Master class on their part.”

After Louisiana, the trophy journeyed with Stanic’s housemate, senior Carter Brett, to New York and Louisville, finally returning to campus in January. 

But last week, friends of Stanic discovered the trophy in his closet. 

“So we put together this plan,” Stanic said. “We’re gonna create a little scavenger hunt to get rid of the trophy — have someone else do something with it, because we’d had our fun.”

The next day, Stanic and his housemates created a five-step scavenger hunt and sent the invitation from an anonymous email address to a collection of Simpson, Galloway, and off-campus friends. 

James Lennington and freshman Wyatt Widolff won the scavenger hunt and brought the trophy to another off-campus house, Camelot, for protection. But it soon came into Casablanca’s hands, and within an hour, became a cereal bowl. 

“We were able to leverage our months of video production experience to have such a quick turnaround when Providence placed such a beautiful opportunity into our lives,” Teder said.

The instant success of the sketch brought visitors to Casablanca’s door. 

“Jonathan Williams and his entourage arrived at our domicile to inquire after the whereabouts of the trophy,” Teder said. “We invited them in and had a really great moment of collegiate bonding. We offered them some tea, but unfortunately, they refused.”

According to Williams, he has not been actively searching for the trophy. 

“It actually isn’t that big of an issue to me as some might think,” Williams said. “We’re doing just fine over here.” 

According to Teder, the current whereabouts of the trophy are unknown. 

“The trophy hopefully will be returned to those who have earned it via a test of virtue and valor and cunning, the likes of which Hillsdale College has never seen,” Teder said. “But wow, you’re dumb for losing it. And in order to regain the trophy, they’re gonna need a little more brains and a little less brawn.”

Christian said that he hopes the trophy will make it back to the SAB office at the end of the year. 

“A lot of people want the trophy gone for good, or defaced,” Christian said. “I think that’s a terrible idea. I won’t go along with it. I won’t allow it.”

That said, Christian said he hopes the trophy hide and seek becomes an annual tradition. 

“All they have to do is throw a little bit of a tantrum, and everything they want gets plopped in their lap,” Christian said. “Sometimes I think it’s better to show a group of ankle-biting bed wetters that life doesn’t give them everything they want.”

Williams said that Simpson has no game plan for recovering the trophy. 

“If you’re reading this and either have it or currently know where it is, I would so appreciate a nudge toward a return of the trophy to Simpson,” Williams said. “To have that marker of victory and hard work paying off back in our lobby would be so awesome. But, like I said, the intangible rewards will stay with us for a lifetime.”