Several month ago, you may have gotten a Snapchat friend request from a young man. A young man just trying to fit in. A young man by the name of Cole Baynard. 

Coming from a small town 13 minutes southeast of Tulsa, Oklahoma, Cole knew no one from St. Pius, the same school his mom’s great uncle’s college roommate’s cousin’s dog walker attended. On his almost 800-mile car ride, Cole decided to get a head start on making friends. 

After a little time, Cole was adding anyone he could find online that had an association with St. Pius. 

“At first, most people added me back,” the junior said, “so I just decided to add literally everyone at Pius who had a Snapchat. Alumni too.”

During the next few days, hundreds of students saw a pale-faced, brown-haired Bitmoji appear on their added friends screen. That was when people started asking questions.

In the halls, rumors started to spread about the uber-friendly new kid including a popular belief St. Pius president Mr. Chad Barwick was using it as a sock puppet account. The similarities of both first names having four letters starting with a C and the last names having seven letters starting with a B were too much to be a simple coincidence.

“I don’t even know what Snapchat is,” Mr. Barwick interjected. “Who is that? All of a sudden students would just come up to me saying, ‘hey, Cole.’ I was so confused.”

Some students came up with their own conspiracy theories

Sophomore Antonio Cueller said, “I think that the account is just some freshman trying to play a prank on everyone,” while senior Luke Young believes that the account is run by Grizzly, Memphis, Stevie Ray, and Bentley.

“All four of the dogs. It is pretty intimidating. I imagine them on each other’s shoulders in a trench coat,” he explained.

Cole, on the other hand, doesn’t understand the confusion and paranoia.

“I’m just a normal kid from another state and I guess I shouldn’t have been as aggressive with meeting friends,” he said. “It is what it is.”

Maybe it is just a friendly teenager, simply wanting to make friends, but ask yourself this: Have you ever seen both Mr. Barwick and Cole Baynard in the same place at the same time?