If you’re an avid Argus fan, and we know you are, then you’ve without a doubt seen Evan Carp’s name all over the Wespeak pages. Whether he’s dishing it out or being responded to, Evan has made a name for himself at the Argus office and all over campus, so we wanted to get to know the “man behind the Wespeak.” More importantly, now all those creepy voyeurs who already know he’s not on Facebook can finally put a face to the name — he might have to look into that posse after all.

Laura: Why do you think we chose you as a WesCeleb?

Evan: I have no idea. The only interest I think that I could possibly hold is the other side of me, just because I think most people only know what I write [in Wespeaks]. Other than that, I can’t say — flattered, nonetheless.

Justin: Good, you should be. It’s an honor. So why do you enjoy writing Wespeaks?

Evan: It’s Wesleyan’s way of saying what they want to say in an appropriate forum. You get to write 750 words on whatever you want, and it’s well read. That’s part of the Argus I think most people are attracted to, other than the WesCeleb, of course.

J: Thank you.

E: I think for somebody who has an opinion, it’s an excellent way to get it out there.

L: Do you remember what your first Wespeak was?

E: It was about Wal-Mart and USLAC (United Student Labor Action Coalition), which thankfully has not been around very much this year, and they had some meeting or some posters up about Wal-Mart and how it doesn’t pay its workers enough and that sort of thing, so I wrote something in defense of Wal-Mart freshman year, and then a response to that later.

J: Do you consider yourself a conservative?

E: No, I definitely do not. More so than your average Wesleyan student, but not a conservative and certainly not a Republican.

J: Do you ever write Wespeaks just to play the Devil’s advocate?

E: I always write what I think, so I never say, “oh, let’s take this point of view.” I write them so that Wesleyan plays the Devil’s advocate. Hopefully hearing something that isn’t commonly expressed means that somebody will say, “oh, I haven’t heard that before,” whether they agree with it or not.

J: But you know going in that what you write is going to be provocative?

E: I know when I write about Muslims that it’s going to be provocative. Chalking or something like that, maybe not so much. But I definitely know that it’s going to spark controversy. I realized well before coming to Wesleyan that I was going to stand out from everybody else.

J: Why did you come to Wesleyan?

E: I got rejected from Brown, why else? I really liked it. It’s what I wanted: it’s small liberal arts, it’s got a beautiful campus, it’s intimate. I didn’t do a prefrosh thing, so I didn’t know much about student life.

L: You’re not on Facebook, why is that?

E: Well, Facebook became popular after my freshman year. Friendster was the big deal freshmen year and then the summer between freshman and sophomore year was the first time I heard about it. I don’t do Friendster, and I don’t do Facebook. I don’t like participating in that culture, and I recognize that everyone does it, and everyone has their own reasons for doing it, but I think that there’s an element of it that’s particularly creepy. I don’t like the way it’s used sometimes, for, like, voyeuristic purposes, “I wonder what his friends look like,” etc. I don’t really see the need in having that public form. If you want to ask me to see a picture of my friends, you can ask me and I’ll show you, but I don’t really want to see things like that up on a website.

J: Do you have a cell phone?

E:I have a cell phone, I have e-mail…

L: Do you know what the Internet is?

E: This isn’t some 19th-century public express thing. I am a firm believer in having technology and staying in contact, but Facebook is just a bit too much.

J: So I read your Wespeak about your birthday party experience where people confronted you and asked you to leave the party based on views you had expressed in a Wespeak.

E: Well, I assume that’s what it was based on. They didn’t tell me that. It could have been what I was wearing, but I doubt it.

J: Does that happen a lot? Has it happened again?

E: No, that was the only time that something like that happened. I get comments occasionally, but nothing really negative, it’s more curiosity or something like that, or people say, “Oh, you’re the person that wrote those Wespeaks.” If they want to be negative, they tend to write Wespeaks, and I’ve gotten a few e-mails, but that’s about it.

L: So you’ve never been knifed?

E: Knifed? No, no physical threat really. Wesleyan is not really the shanking type. I don’t feel the need to have a posse or anything like that.

J: Why do you think people were so upset by your Wespeaks?

E: I think the reasons they were upset were different from the reasons they gave. I think they were upset by it because they had never heard anyone say this before, and it kind of is a shock to the liberal system. Here’s this liberal world that they create, we’re Diversity University and everybody gets along with everybody, and that was a shock. They don’t necessarily want to talk about the uglier elements of cultures or people or things that we are supposed to accept and adopt as part of the Diversity University mentality.

L: Well, we also want to get to know the man behind the Wespeaks, so let’s start with with your major?

E: My majors are Economics and Film.

J: Do you have any plans for after graduation?

E: No, not at the moment.

J: What would you like to do?

E: I’d like to do something in film, get some experience in filmmaking, film producing or production assistant, something like that. I’m not looking forward to living at home for a little bit, but that does look to be inevitable.

L: Well, I wanted to ask what your favorite color was.

E: It really depends what we’re using the color for. I like yellow. I think yellow’s an underutilized color.

L: You have a lot of green on.

E: I like the green, I like blue, but as far as general aesthetics, I think yellow. I like yellow cars. I think yellow works very well.

J: What’s your favorite childhood memory?

E: Probably going to Yankee stadium for the first time. I’m a big Yankees fan, and my dad took me when I was seven, the summer of ’92. I didn’t know anything about baseball going into that, and I’ve been an enormous baseball fan every day since, so I would say that it was a pretty life-changing day.

J: Are you a member of a fantasy league?

E: No, I don’t really do that, I just watch the games, although not so much now that my team isn’t doing so well…

L: Oh, and that’s the Internet.

E: Right — it’s like the Facebook of baseball.