“Who Would Be Here”: Need-Blind Gets a Video

YouTube clip inspired by 2011 “I Have Sex” video, filmed for a SOC assignment. 

Because it’s 2012, and the ongoing string of editorials and banner drops isn’t enough, the movement to preserve need-blind now has an aspiring viral video spot: “Who Would Be Here.” Filmed by Samantha Maldonado ’13 and Katya Botwinick ’13 as a viral video assignment for SOC 234: Media & Society, the YouTube clip takes inspiration from “I Have Sex,” the 2011 video supporting Planned Parenthood that inspired similar efforts at Oberlin, Skidmore, and beyond. This one offers a montage of students on financial aid (or with friends on financial aid) wondering if they’d be here without Wesleyan’s need-blind policy, as Benny Docter ’14 and Leonid Liu ’14 expressed in an editorial earlier this month. (There’s also the obligatory shot of Rotbot ’13 being himself.)

Watch the clip above. Music by Santigold (Santi White ’97), camera by Sydney Lowe ’13.

Update: As of Tuesday, the video has been featured on Middletown Patch and The ‘Cac, with 1,100 views and counting.