Over prospective weekend we witnessed a proliferation of programmed events, put on by Dartmouth to entertain and amuse, to show all those kids just how much there is to do at this school. The weekend exaggerated common characteristics that we see in the advertisement of events; we can interpret this as an attempt to control the social lives of students in desirable ways by the administration.
I'm not one to argue that the Greek system was necessarily born naturally out of the social desires of students. However, I do believe that for any social event -- let alone any social regime -- to be successful, it has to arise out of the desires of those who will be participating in it rather than being imposed from on-high.
I don't know how successful any of the events programmed for the naive and impressionable '06s were. By now, however, we should all know better than to fall for events sponsored in a manner utilizing any of the traits I discuss below. So without further ado, the four most common tricks of the trade for advertising socially-programmed events, (all of which take shape especially in the medium of blitz to be all the more insidious and ubiquitous). If you are susceptible to any of these attempts at programming, then you are evidence that the "program" is working, and you may need to be deprogrammed.
Method number one: The ever-baffling phrase, "You know you want to!" If I knew I wanted to, why would I have to be told? Beware of any event that claims to understand the nature of your own desires; more likely than not, that slogan's actual meaning is "You know you don't want to, but we're really desperate for attendance. Please, for the love of all that is holy, give us some sign that Big Brother's manipulative techniques are succeeding!" And, come to think of it, that phrase really is the epitome of "doublespeak." It contains within itself its opposite, even within the realm of the conscious, but the idea is that eventually we will learn that the half of the dialectic they're telling us to think is the true one, and the half that we actually think is the false one.
Method number two: Indeterminate temporal parameters. That is to say, "Party at Poison Ivy: 10 o'clock until ???" By suggesting that the party has the potential to last throughout the night, this sort of advertising feeds off the notion that the cool kids are the ones who stay out late partying. Apparently, peer pressure to stay out late is OK if institutionalized and if occurring with respect to events that are certainly anything but "cool." Make sure you do not take the indeterminacy seriously because you might be disappointed if you get there after 11.
Method number three: Deliberate misspellings. This method is similar to number two in that it is an administrative attempt to appear "hip" and "with it," although, in this case, it does not do so by copying "cool" hours but instead by copying "cool" jargon. These attempts are usually the most amusing since they are so poorly conceived. Even if they are utilized for events that are not worth attending, the act of reading the blitz is enough enjoyment when it says to come to "Da coolest partay wit da hoppin' tunez." Especially when followed by "Soda and treats provided!"
Finally, method number four, the most readily apparent as well as the most pervasive technique: Alternating upper and lowercase letters. This method is often used in conjunction with other methods of ornamentation, like pound signs and asterisks. Conveniently, I have Derrida on the brain, and Derridean theory serves as a useful guide to this sort of advertising. The nature of the blitz, the "signifier" for the event, as it were, substitutes for the "signified" event itself. That is to say, the excessive decoration of the email compensates for the entire lack of attractiveness in the event itself. The relationship between linguistic ornamentation and event is inversely proportional. This fact can be solidified when one realizes that the best parties are simply the ones that say "11 p.m., DJ and kegs." When it comes to social life at Dartmouth, do not trust a signifier to mean what it looks like it means about the event it's supposed to be signifying.
I have named only the most obvious techniques, techniques that I'm sure we all realize are used but which don't usually enter conscious thought as having a pattern. No doubt I have omitted others that already exist. None of these preclude the possibility that other entirely new and even more insidious techniques will spring up, so always be on your guard.
Let me conclude with a personal agenda of my own to indicate that what's especially frightening is when manipulative methods begin to apply to things other than social events in such a way as to subliminally enter our unconscious. Case in point: GreenPrint, a printing system whose unreliability is matched only by the Collis printer. Hold out until the last possible moment: keep printing to Berry because you'll be sorry when you go to print out your paper from the GreenPrint server five minutes before class to find it isn't there! Dartmouth students: I implore you to resist the machinations of the increasingly-insidious Big Brother in all his forms while you still have the freedom of your mind to do so!
