Greyson Imm: If I can survive Harbinger, I can survive anything

I thought I was going to die. Freshman me stood quivering at the front of the journalism room, sweaty hands jammed in my pockets, and head down. I desperately tried to avoid the gaze of over 40 new classmates.

I was already nervous as one of only three freshmen who joined the Harbinger staff that semester, and on top of that, we were finally returning to in-person classes after a semester of online school due to COVID-19. Not a great start — but things were about to get a whole lot worse.

Tate — the all-powerful final boss of journalism advisors, and the villain in this story — was leading a lesson on how to take criticism. He said it was based on a scene from “The Mighty Ducks” where the goalie is tied to the goal and his teammates drill hockey pucks at him full-speed. Except instead of a player, it was me, and instead of pucks, my classmates started hurling every insult they could think of at me. Great.

Overlapping shouts of “Boo,” “You suck!” and far more unsavory things I can’t write here filled the room as I just stood there praying that they wouldn’t kick me off staff. This “lesson” felt less like a teaching moment and more like a near-death experience.

But that exercise in public humiliation taught me a valuable lesson: If I can survive whatever that was, I could do this Harbinger thing. 

No matter what happened, I still survived. 

The story that I poured my heart and soul into, meticulously edited and painstakingly revised for two weeks was torn to shreds in Tate’s critique? Oh well, I’ll learn from it next time and remember his advice. My spread article fell through on deadline week and I have to write a new, 2,000-word story in four days? Let me crack open a Monster Energy and a new Google Doc as I prepare for a three-day sleepless journalism bender.

While I’ve joked with my ride-or-die J-family — Katie, Aanya, Maggie, Bridget, Veronica, Addie, Avery and so many others — that Harbinger will be the death of me on several PDFing sessions that went well past 1 or 2 a.m., I am beyond grateful that it hasn’t been. Not only because of the friends and endless amount of inside jokes, but because of the strength I gained from it.

Four years later, as I stare at my final story doc on the Harbinger Google Drive, I can confidently say that if I survived being on Harbinger, I can survive anything life throws at me.

So even though a small part of freshman-year me will never forgive you Tate, for that mortifying “Mighty Ducks” stunt, deep down I am eternally grateful for that experience — and every painful, uncomfortable and awkward moment on Harbinger that followed. Without them, I wouldn’t have written my best stories, met a second family of some of my favorite people ever or even realized what freshman me couldn’t — that no matter what insults and critiques are thrown at me, I’ll live.