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so_long42 ([info]so_long42) wrote in [info]otf_wank,
@ 2009-03-25 01:58:00


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Wesleyan University Wank
So, there's this group on the campus of Wesleyan University (in CT) called Eclectic. They used to be a fraternity, but went co-ed, and subsequently were forcibly separated from their alumni association when they burned "fuck the alums" into the lawn of their house. They are famous for having sold all of their furniture for cocaine, and also for throwing awesome concerts and large sweaty all-campus dance parties (which themselves are famous for the MDMA present).

Naturally, a place like that is going to cause some problems. Namely, they have been shut down for the semester. The reason this is exciting is because Wesleyan is a very web 2.0 campus, with both an active student run blog (linked above) and a super-active Anonymous Confession Board, the latter of which has a lot to say. A TON. Opinions. Conspiracy theories.
Jokes.

There is of course a segment of campus that is outraged, and a
petition is circulated. Even people who claim to be unassociated have strong pro-Ecletic, anti-student government opinions.
However, people are skeptical that Eclectic is in the right. They remain unconvinced weeks later.

Eventually, outrage dies down and the zeitgeist shifts, so the Sound Co-Op, which provides cheap PA systems and setup for the whole campus (and is populated primarily by Eclectic members), decides that they be boycotting the ENTIRE CAMPUS until Eclectic is served justice (i.e. reopened without consequence). General sentiment is that this is ridiculous and calculated. Meanwhile, there is a lot of very deep-cut Wesleyan handwringing about our reputation as an "activist" status.

ETA: And the petition is now closed due to "spam," ie trolling (no, I'm not concerned that it was anyone here).


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[info]iamnotyourmuse
2009-03-25 05:19 pm UTC (link)
It ranks up there with "agency" for me when it comes to terminology used too often to mean things other than what I think it's supposed to mean. Overusing a term and applying it to everything under the sun just makes it lose all relevant meaning and it drives me nuts.

But used to differentiate user-driven web content from third party web content, it actually has a purpose.

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[info]aliaras
2009-03-25 06:06 pm UTC (link)
Aaaagh, "agency" is so annoying. Best moment ever was when a class of mine was discussing Roman paintings of women from the Iliad, people were throwing around "agency", and my friend pwned them all with basically "that word does not mean what you think it means, stfu, we could be talking about rocks for all anyone cares." And then the class kept using the word. Inappropriately.

Ahem. Sorry for tangent.

(My own full disclosure: I'm at one of those little liberal arts colleges in which some percentage of the student body feels the need to be ~intellectual~)

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[info]iamnotyourmuse
2009-03-25 06:36 pm UTC (link)
I went to a women's liberal arts college and was an English major. I think 2/3 of the senior theses written in my year had the word 'agency' in the subtitles.

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)


[info]aliaras
2009-03-25 06:38 pm UTC (link)
Fun times.

I'm a studio art major currently working on her art history credits (stupid studio classes at wrong time) So...yeah. It comes up a lot.

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[info]iamnotyourmuse
2009-03-25 06:52 pm UTC (link)
I can imagine. I was so glad my thesis only required me to come into contact with other people's theses two or three times and was otherwise just me and my adviser (who was awesome and never once used that word).

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[info]aliaras
2009-03-25 07:31 pm UTC (link)
That sounds great. I've considered switching to an Anth-Ling interdisciplinary (no Linguistic Anthropology major, sad), but that wouldn't get me away from the wank. I could study the internets, though!

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[info]iamnotyourmuse
2009-03-25 07:32 pm UTC (link)
Alas, there is wank all around. Think one could legitimately write a thesis on internet wank?

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)


[info]aliaras
2009-03-25 07:42 pm UTC (link)
This is pretty much why I want to go into anth-ling! (is it dumb to pick a major for the thesis? I'm not that excited about a studio thesis at all.) While I'd end up writing on the linguistic side of things a bit more, I'm interested in how fandom culture has linguistic aspects as well, which enable the full range of snark and passive-aggressiveness and joy that leads to wank. I want to say there's a dialect, but I can't remember my intro class well enough to say that with confidence.

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[info]iamnotyourmuse
2009-03-25 07:45 pm UTC (link)
I remember once trying to decide if netspeak constituted a dialect or a register and I honestly can't remember what I decided. It's been years since I took any linguistics.

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[info]luthe
2009-03-26 07:44 am UTC (link)
I keep wanting someone to write a paper on LOLcat as a pidgin.

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[info]adevyish
2009-03-26 09:17 am UTC (link)
If so, then given a generation of native speakers, it'll become a creole :D

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[info]iamnotyourmuse
2009-03-26 01:08 pm UTC (link)
I think I recall reading something somewhere about how it's actually developed its own grammatical rules.

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[info]blue_penguin
2009-03-26 05:14 pm UTC (link)
I think my roommate did something like that for her Linguistics class, actually.

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[info]miss_padfoot
2009-03-27 06:39 am UTC (link)
I'm not a linguistics major, but I'm taking a semantics class, and just today I was thinking, "Hey, I remember an FW icon that perfectly demonstrates that. Wonder if I should email it to my prof?"

I am seriously hoping for more internet-related goodness to make its way into my class :D

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[info]luthe
2009-03-26 07:42 am UTC (link)
One of the BMC anthro majors I know wrote her thesis on World of Warcraft. She got to use cat macros in it.

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[info]iamnotyourmuse
2009-03-26 01:08 pm UTC (link)
Now that is truly awesome.

(Reply to this)(Parent)

Spinning off into tangent land
[info]fruce
2009-03-26 08:27 am UTC (link)
Ooh, I've had one of those, too. Except it was a discussion of the portrayal of religion in literature- specifically, The Handmaid's Tale. The class was using "resistance" and "transgression" in ways that would probably make anyone with a basic understanding of social theories (or the power to contemplate what you're saying before you say it) shrivel up inside.

(Ditto the disclosure, except ~intellectual~ is frequently overlaid with ~activist~.)

(Reply to this)(Parent)


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