T. Anne Cleary Preacher Turns to “Zoom-Bombing”

With most classes online and significantly fewer students on campus during the day, the guy who stands on T. Anne Cleary Walkway and tells everyone that they’re going to hell several times a semester has shown up to a Zoom classroom uninvited, a practice known as “Zoom-bombing”, to get his message across. Students in the class report he called them names, criticized their appearances, and shouted at length about why they would be perishing in eternal torment.

“Repent!” the preacher is quoted as saying from his Zoom square. “All of you degenerates—having premarital sex, wearing orange! Idolaters, feminists, emos! Repent!” According to eyewitness accounts, the professor took nearly seven minutes to figure out how to mute all participants while the preacher shouted, shook his Bible, and abused the “react” feature.

“I think my class was startled but I was really moved,” said sophomore Madison Thompson, who, according to the preacher, will burn in hell for listening to rap music. “The way he interrupted my 9:30 philosophy lecture screaming bloody murder about how we were sinners—it was a beautiful reminder of God’s perfect love.”

Professor Amy Anderson says the incident has prompted her to take precautions against future intrusions. “It was completely inappropriate and against UI policy,” she said. “We don’t want to give the impression to our valued students and community that we permit anyone to attend classes without paying tuition.”

Anderson says from now on classes will require the students to enter a password, and in a recent email she encouraged her classes to keep any explicit or emo listening habits “on the DL”.

After the Zoom ended, the preacher was found harassing people in the comments of a Lady Gaga music video, where he declined our request to comment.