At around 6:00 next Wednesday, members of Wesleyan’s newly arrived Class of 2014 will meet, shepherded by RAs and Orientation Leaders, on the CFA Green for the traditional barbecue welcome. Left in the dust, their parents will be forced to move on and move out—not necessarily in that order. So goes Operation Separation at Wes: swift and painless.
Not so at other schools. A New York Times cover story this week details the myriad ways in which college orientation schedules have learned to deal with a generation of doting helicopter parents who seemingly refuse to leave—from Morehouse College’s formal “Parting Ceremony” to Princeton’s blunt “students only” designation:
As the latest wave of superinvolved parents delivers its children to college, institutions are building into the day, normally one of high emotion, activities meant to punctuate and speed the separation. It is part of an increasingly complex process, in the age of Skype and twice-daily texts home, in which colleges are urging “Velcro parents” to back off so students can develop independence. . . .
Some undergraduate officials see in parents’ separation anxieties evidence of the excesses of modern child-rearing. “A good deal of it has to do with the evolution of overinvolvement in our students’ lives,” said Mr. Dougharty of Grinnell. “These are the baby-on-board parents, highly invested in their students’ success. They do a lot of living vicariously, and this is one manifestation of that.”
Do (most) parents know instinctively when to peace the hell out? Or does Generation Helicopter really need a more formal, if occasionally ridiculous, dismissal? Does Wes do it right? Discuss and share move-in day horror stories in the comments.
YouTube user canzona uploaded a video to the web, downloaded it, then re-uploaded it one thousand times, gradually eliminating “all human qualities” of his voice and image.
The final video in canzona’s series is a mess of distorted colors and sounds; you can recognize from the motion that the original featured a person talking into the camera, but all individual characters and specifics have been lost, replaced by artifacts created by YouTube’s video and audio compression algorithms.
This just in: even without the ACB in their day, alumni know how to troll in style. Jesse Sommer ‘05 sends word of a pretty hilarious Reunion prank perpetrated by an unidentified member of the Class of 2005:
Over Reunion weekend, the Class of 2000 had set up a Twitter account and provided the access information to the public, where “public” was intended to express “members of the class of 2000″ but unsurprisingly included “a member of the Class of 2005 who took the opportunity to exploit the open account access.”
And, perhaps aware of where suspicion might inevitably fall, Jesse adds:
I became aware of this because of a very inconsequential exchange of heated words between members of the Classes of 2000 and 2005.
With no further ado, I present some highlights from the Class of 2000’s hopelessly hijacked, NC-17 Twitter stream:
“Harvard is proud to honor the tremendous merits of Adderall, without which many of you would not be sitting here today,” Faust said in her opening address to the nearly 1,900 unblinking and intensely focused students receiving their diplomas. “I don’t think I’m exaggerating matters when I say that Adderall has been an inspiration to us all.”
The psychologically addictive drug then received resounding applause from the assembled graduates, with many jumping to their feet, clapping in near unison for 25 straight minutes, temporarily forgetting where they were, and then grinding their teeth in celebration of the well-deserved honor.
Ben Somberg ‘05 sends in video proof of President Roth getting crunk at Saturday’s tent party. I guess this is incentive to come to your five-year Wes reunion?
For those of you who missed– and those who would like to see it again– check out this T. Swift/Gaga/JFK mash-up from the recent Burlesque show : Dylan Marron ‘10’s WesBurlesque dance with Nik Owens ‘12 and Tyler Wuthmann ‘11. Filmed by Zach Valenti ‘12.
Update: PEREZ HILTON (of celeb blogger fame) tweeted yesterday about the video, thinks it’s “super cute!”
What do I do if my college graduate cries? What do I do if he screams?
College graduates are setting foot in the real world for the very first time. Imagine how daunting that must be! They have so many daily needs, and yet they lack even the most basic tools required to survive in the world. They are completely helpless. Crying and screaming are ways for college graduates to communicate their frustrations, so that you can solve their problems for them. Again, you can usually find out what’s wrong by consulting a simple checklist:
Does your college graduate have enough cigarettes? Yes / No
Did you remember to fill her wallet with cash? Yes / No
Does she have Internet access? Yes / No
Has she had her daily nap? Yes / No
Does she have her Moleskine and/or sketch pad? Yes / No
Does she have her bottle? Yes / No
Sounds about right. I guess all that’s missing is how to gently cure your college graduate’s mental dependence on a goddamn falafel cart and teach hir to recognize authority figures slightly more threatening than P-Safe’s Dave Meyer. Good luck, kids. I’ll be over here, clinging to the Olin steps railing.
The title of this post is the headline of an entirely satirical Ampersand piece I wrote a few weeks ago, wherein Mytheos Holt ‘10declares himself “the ultimate troll” and reveals his entire conservative persona to be “a sick four-year-long joke”:
“You been trolled, bitches!” announced the History and Government double major in a final Mytheology column, entitled Wesleyan Viewed From The LOLZ. “The school is my ACB, and my reCAPTCHA is ‘gullible as fuck.’ What now!”
Minor semantics adjustment aside, it’s also the title of Holt’s final Mytheology column—you know, the real one, in the Argus—and if you’ll permit me one fantasy, I’d like to imagine Holt faithfully included my “bitches” postscript before some squeamish section editor put hir foot down.
Oh, what a tangled web we weave when satire and reality intertwine. Like when my daily Onion calendar bears startlingparallels to my actual daily life. Or when I satirically label as satire what is revealed, in some twisted, convoluted way, to be nothing more than satire. Past on Film students will recognize Žižek’s notion of double-deception: “only man can deceive by feigning to deceive.” But only the Ampersand can do it by accident.
Howdy there, readers. Though the winners of the WSA Spring 2010 elections have just been posted, I’m sure most of you know, as I do, that those “results” are totally a part of the SYSTEM, man. Instead of letting the CONFORMISTS herd us around like NOT-VERY-INDIE SHEEP, Wesleying once again gives you a roundup of the underground candidates who are gonna FIGHT THE MAN: the write-ins.
The real results are after the jump; we can’t let the freakin’ mainstreamers see the truth. They can’t handle it.
1. Are you at work? (yes / no) (If you answered “no” to this question, please continue to question #3)
2. If you answered “yes” to question #1, is your boss totally OK with employees looking at pictures of breasts and genitals on teh interwebz while on the clock? (yes / no) (If you answered “no” to this question, please tune out now)
3. Would you be interested in following a link to a Tumblr page called “Wesbreasts?” (yes / no) (If you answered “yes” to this question, please click here; if you answered “no,” please do not click in said location)
4. Are you offended by slight spelling errors? (kinda / not really) (If you answered “kinda” to this question, please employ caution in reading question #5)
5. Would you be interested in following a link to a Tumblr page called “Westacles?” (yes / no) (If you answered “yes” to this question, please click here; if you answered “no” to this question, please keep calm and carry on)
Use the Geocities-izer to make any site look like it was created by a 13-year-old in 1996! Turn on your sound for the full effect. Truly, this is an astounding leap forward for society.
If you’ve walked around campus with your eyes open this year, you probably know that googly eyes have been appearing all over the place, turning nondescript surfaces into little guerrilla faces. Students have expressed their approval of the googly phenomenon in small ways. Various commenters on a post about a Fauver Frosh googly creature pointed out the location of googlies they encounter in their day-to-day lives. One student wrote a really cute email to the Wesleying staff a few months ago to declare her love for the lil’ guys. And today I saw the URL of a blog devoted to googly eye pictures scrawled on a bathroom wall.
Who are the individuals behind the googly eye placement? According to a top-secret source, there is a Googly Eye Alliance composed of students dedicated to the strategic placement of the crafty ocular things. That’s right–an underground coalition devoted to google-izing stuff. Part of their mission: to reclaim the word “google.” One of their mottos: “not everything that can be googled should be googled, but everything that should be googled must be googled.” Mysterious… and profound.
So remember–before Google was a giant Silicon Valley company with a reputation for making employees happy and storing intimate information about our lives, it was a word that meant craft projects. And watch your back in the PAC elevator; something might oggle you.
Ha Ha...Jordan Goldman Making Mischief: Is williams a "new" ivy? Wes only 8th Most Political College?http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/08/24/the-new-ivies-10-schools-_n_692223.html#s128862
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/08/28/the-most-political-colleg_n_697826.html#s129203
At around 6:00 next Wednesday, members of Wesleyan’s newly arrived Class of 2014 will meet, shepherded by RAs and Orientation Leaders, on the CFA Green for the traditional barbecue welcome. Left in the dust, their parents will be forced to move on and move out—not necessarily in that order. So goes Operation Separation at Wes: swift and painless.
Howdy there, readers. Though the winners of the WSA Spring 2010 elections have 
