Fun for all ages (of posters)!

Everyone likes to advertise at Columbia. The coolest events you’ve never heard of will be plastered all around Hamilton, on the corkboards in your dorm, or slowly falling off the side of the JJ’s stairwell. Mostly, these flyers are transient, appearing one week and gone the next—but sometimes, like Jurassic Park’s mosquito in amber, they’ll remain crystallized, a record of what once was.

So, of course, we turned it into a game.

How To Play:

Calculating your Outdated Poster High Score is simple: Time since the event it advertises (in weeks) x Ease of removing the poster (on a scale from 1 to 5).

This incentivizes older posters, of course. But there are different kinds of posters: those laminated plastic advertisements which have been lovingly framed and preserved, and those mere pieces of paper hanging by a single pushpin and left to fend for themselves. This game advantages the latter for surviving against the odds, even if they might never reach the age of their counterparts.

Let’s take a look at some of the contenders:

Lerner Posters (April–May, 2023)
Outdatedness: 0 (advertising future events!)
Ease of removing the poster: 5 (paper)
OPHS: 0

But those are the little leagues. The reigning champions reside over in Kent Hall, and they’re going to be tough to dethrone.

The Social Life of Inkstones (April 17, 2017)
Outdatedness: 314
Ease of removing the poster: 1 (framed)
OPHS: 314

And that’s just the runner-up.

The Many Worlds of Yamagushi Yoshiko (December 16, 2015)
Outdatedness: 384
Ease of removing the poster: 1
OPHS: 384

Play this game with your friends! Play it by yourself! And if you find something which can beat our current record-holder—let us know!

Poster pictures via Charlie Bonkowsky