Have you ever seen someone zooming through the Quad on an electric scooter and thought to yourself, “Wow. Why can’t that be me? They’re so cool and interesting. When will my day come to be just like them?”
Yeah, me neither.
Okay, that’s a little dramatic, but there’s something so goofy about the electric scooter trend on campus. Not just because of how the early 2000s Razor scooter craze is being ripped out of its grave and forced back into our collective consciousness, but because of the clout associated with having an electric scooter.
Every day I walk around campus, stomping around in my silly little shoes, taking it step-by-step like a loser and I inevitably almost get steamrolled by an electric scooter.
It’s also come to my attention this past week that I can steamroll the scooters right back. I wish I were making this up, but someone on a scooter sped across the road in front of me without even glancing to see if anyone was coming.
I was driving my car.
The absolute disregard scooter riders have for other people once they step onto a glorified hoverboard is one of the weirdest things I’ve ever seen on campus, and that’s saying a lot.
And I’m certainly not the only one who has noticed that the people on these scooters are almost exclusively student-athletes.
The student-athlete backpack, coupled with identical electric scooter models, is their weirdest claim to fame yet; it’s not as if these were the most able-bodied people on campus or something. If athletes ride electric scooters to preserve their physical health for their respective sport, the implications of what walking on campus can do to your body are hilarious.
I’m not irritated by these scooters solely because they look ridiculous; that would be shallow. I’m annoyed mostly because they’ve become a status symbol for a niche of students.

I can’t help but roll my eyes every time someone zooms past me on their bright pink scooter in head-to-toe LSU Athletics gear. There is a clear uniform associated with student-athlete scooter culture, and that uniform speaks volumes about who is and isn’t important on campus.
I am not a student-athlete, so I can’t speak on whether the university provides these scooters to its athletes during registration in the same way we “normal” students get LSU-branded t-shirts. However, the obvious disparity in who has a scooter on campus is a reflection of the university’s overall partiality towards its athletes.
But alas, this would wipe away all the clout and intrigue associated with student-athlete scooter culture.
All students can, of course, purchase their own electric scooters to ride around campus. However, as college students are notorious for living on the absolute edge of poverty, a $300 scooter is not necessarily a top budgetary necessity.
Even if this $300 was pocket change to me, I do not want a scooter. One of the most embarrassing things in the world would be to be seen on campus riding a motorized kick scooter.
There’s just something so flashy and, again, goofy about it. I don’t want to undercut any of the work of student-athletes, but why do they insist on zooming recklessly through campus?
I’m not asking for a revolt against the campus scooter clan; instead, I hope we can all openly acknowledge how silly they look and maybe try not to get run over.
Emily Davison is 20-year-old anthropology and English junior from Denham Springs.