She didn’t pass the smell test.
A recent UK Ph.D. grad’s thesis examining “olfactory oppression” has raised quite a stink on the internet — with online critics claiming slamming her academic work as the reason “everything is falling apart.”
“Thrilled to say I passed my viva [oral exam] with no corrections and am officially PhDone,” Ally Louks, who earned her post-grad degree in English Literature from Cambridge University, wrote on X on Nov. 27.
That simple post has now received nearly 90 million views and tens of thousands of comments and retweets.
The thesis, titled “Olfactory Ethics: The Politics of Smell in Modern and Contemporary Prose” examined how scent facilitates “smell’s application in creating and subverting gender, class, sexual, racial and species power structures,” according to the abstract (summary). The thesis states that “olfactory disgust” can result in a person’s “rejection.”
Online critics needed smelling salts after reading what they deemed to be woke-sounding academic gobbledygook.
One X user alleged that the thesis was nothing more than “bulls–t language, unnecessary big words, and pretentious sentence structure.”
“Her thesis statement is basically: “If you say someone stinks, people like them less.”
Another critic, biotech scientist Dr. Simon Goddek wrote “academia is dead” in response to Dr. Louk’s post.
“We can no longer take these so-called ‘elite’ universities seriously,” he said.
The Cambridge lecturer says she is “genuinely bamboozled by the sheer volume of people entirely mischaracterizing the subject and argument of my thesis.”
She then took to the comments to valiantly defend her work.
She responded to outright threats and vile comments by saying she contacted the police about the posts.
Louks also sought to explain her choice of topic.
“To be clear, this abstract was written for experts within my discipline and field. It was not written for a lay audience and this is not how I would communicate my ideas to the average person,” she wrote.
Not all of the reactions to Louks’ post were negative, with many sicking their noses in to defend the recent graduate.
“Large numbers of people are heaping abuse and mockery on a seemingly nice lady who’s proud of earning a PhD, demonstrating that the worst thing you can be on social media is earnest and vulnerable, especially if you’re a woman,” X-Men: First Class screenwriter Zack Stentz posted on X.
“Congratulations both for finishing and for very possibly being the first person in recorded history whose dissertation will be read by someone who is not their mom or on their committee,” x user Alex Zawacki posted.
Louks doesn’t appear to be giving the negative reactions a second sniff, with the Cambridge lecturer claiming that they’re primarily coming from a “minority of disgruntled folks.”
“The majority of those commenting and quote tweeting are doing so with generosity, intellectual curiosity, and kindness,” she wrote.
