In the wake of Wesleyan’s Annonymous Confession board, a new craze—The Wesleyan Anonymous Digression Board—has hit campus computer screens.
Jeff Cohen ’07 started the board to quell a growing problem he perceived in his classes: the scorn that comes from completely changing the topic of a class discussion.
“You know, sometimes I don’t want to discuss the socioeconomic ramifications of the Treaty of Ghent,” Cohen said. “Like, yeah, I understand we’re reviewing for a test, but what about Fox canceling Arrested Development? What about the socioeconomic ramifications of that?! Let’s get a dialogue going! But as soon as you say ‘Portia De Rossi’ half of the class is staring you down and the professor is mumbling something about relevance.”
The board invited users to comment with “whatever” but to make sure “no one references the topic at hand.”
“I’m really interested in profound gap in the family financial income of Wesleyan students,” said one anonymous poster. “Rich or poor, share your stories. Where do you find a safe haven on campus?”
“That reminds me,” responded another student. “I need a ride to New Haven. I’ll pay for gas.”
“I used to work at the Gap,” responded one student. “Do you know that they only have one CD that they play on repeat? Like, if I heard The Shins one more time I was going to track down Zack Braff and strangle the motherfucker with a Corduroy Knit Pullover.”
“I’m 78 percent sure that I have contracted the Avian Bird Flu, and all the health center did was give me a Cold Pack,” answered another student.
While the digressions started out appropriately rambling, the board—perhaps fittingly—departed from its original purpose. By the second page, anonymous posts that stayed on topic without any tangents began popping up.
One such post stated that the song “My Humps” by the hip-hop-pop group The Black Eyed Peas was a profound step back in the ongoing struggle for women’s rights. The post provoked a page-long debate between a series of anonymous posters.
“Fergy is madd hot,” said one poster. “Eww her lump lump lumps make me want to jump jump jump off the science tower,” stated another comment. “The Black Eyed Peas are the future of music, like it or not. Fergy is this generation’s Aretha Franklin or Paula Abdul,” retorted another.
“I guess it’s human nature to stay on topic when speaking about something everyone has an opinion on, like Fergy, and especially when it’s anonymous,” said Margaret Phelps ’09. “But frankly, I think it’s disturbing that this repressed hatred for conversational detours manifested itself on this board.”
All posters have been able to stray anonymously, aside from the outraged students who chose to identify themselves so that they could criticize students that didn’t respect the rules of the board, and therefore kind of disrespected the rules themselves.
“I anonymously posted something about the new Usdan University Center being kind of lame, because like what the hell is an Usdan, and—get this—someone responded by agreeing with me,” said Pauline O’Connell ’07. “I was so offended to receive a relevant response that I had to make an appointment at the Office of Behavioral Health. Don’t silence my ability to instigate a non sequitur!!!”
Because this is an Argus article, overall response to the route the board has taken has been decidedly MIXED and/or VARIED.
“Most of the people I’ve talked to via livejournal think the board has gotten violently cohesive, and they won’t be returning,” said John Steinstine ’08. “Who has the attention span to read 5, 10, 15 comments worth of related material?”
“I think the willingness to break the rules speaks to the independent spirit of Wesleyan students,” said Director of Admissions Diverzeté Universtein. “Students like to fuck shit up. Actually I’m pretty sure this is the first time students have consistently stayed on topic over a period of time, ever.”
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