In which Bwog contributor Addison Anderson cracks open the glossy pre-yearbook destined for dust collection on shelves everywhere.

For this article to succeed, people to actually open up the 2010 Facebook handed out to every freshman.  So, upperclassmen: steal a copy, and start browsing for hot-from-the-neck-up first-years.  I found twenty-six, although my number might be high since I’m coming off a summer drought. I’m not going to give my personal faves now since I want first crack, but later I’ll give out a few prizes for qualities besides appearance. As for you fresh-years: get off facebook.com right now.  I know you haven’t had it for very long, but the site has become officially weird.  

Now, read along with me!

Columbia‘s NSOP theme, “exposed: beyond the hype” graces the cover. The title’s lowercase letters mean there’s definitely no “hype” coming our way, whereas capital letters are the tools of the hype-loving Establishment, with its Big Lie.

Page 1: Leave it to Columbia kids to screw up a table of contents by going high-concept. Randomly placed sequences of numbers scattered around the page, and a picture of the Thinker’s butt right in my face…this is the very first page and it’s awful.  If I were a fresh-year I’d drop out.  Can’t we ’07-’09 kids even appear capable of presenting numbers in order?  Or is that “hype” as well?

Page 2: The NSOP Committee’s group picture.  Smiling faces and peace signs and bunny ears and Churchill Vs abound, the usual, but then at the far right there’s Tony Fu CC ’09 looking way too cool for this whole picture/book/school.  He’s looking way out of the frame and has a thumb in his pants pocket, which is all code for being cool.  He’s

probably thinking: “I’m a Publication Coordinator for this very facebook, and I just made a table of contents that will break kids’ minds.  I rule.”  Tony Fu CC ’09 does rule.   

Pages 4-5: : “Barnard & Columbia”: A strange and depressing explanation of the Barnard-Columbia “partnership”/”relationship”/”agreement”/”collaboration,” repeating and combining those buzz words twelve times in a seven paragraph essay. The whole thing reads like a preemptive assault on the “Barnard is Columbia‘s retarded appendix” stereotype.  The flood of praise makes it painfully obvious that there’s something deeply wrong between the two schools.  Just look at the weird Photoshop of a plush Barnard bear and a Columbia lion prancing through a meadow, paw in paw.  In black and white. Dark clouds are moving in.  Hawks hover in the sky, or are those vultures?  This is massively depressing and counter-productive.  Perhaps its time to consider whether the best way to fix a relationship is to stop talking about it.

Pages 6-15: : Administrator photos alongside “Please Read Our Emails Maybe?” testimonials.  Chris Colombo’s visage exudes the stocky confidence of a Kruschev or

Churchill.  Bollinger’s tie is bad.  Also, chipper greetings from a Barnard Res Life Director: “As you arrive in your residence hall and room, I hope you take note of and enjoy the informative and stimulating bulletin boards, the personalized door decorations, and the amazing upper class women who will be smiling and welcoming you to Barnard as your Resident Assistants.”  Stimulating boards, personalized doors, and women who will be smiling! Note to self: stop talking about the relationship.

Page 16: : “the city,” little snippets about interesting New York sites, with the assumption that you’ll get lost finding them.  “If you see Astor Place‘s spinning cube structure, ‘The Alamo,’ you’re in the East Village.” In the “Go Uptown Maybe” department, there’s a Rucker Park section, along with praise for Sylvia’s, “arguably the most famous ‘soul food’ restaurant in the world.”  You know who puts quotes marks around soul food?  The “soulless.”

Page 19: : A tour of the neighborhood.  One quote will suffice: “Though Morningside Heights may not be as crazy as downtown, it definitely has a happening flavor all its own.”  Whose mom wrote this?

Page 20: : Cool tidbits of Columbia history.  The tunnels beneath campus were once used to transport mental patients! Barnard once banned shorts and slacks!  Mussolini helped fund Casa Italiana!  Columbia gets exposed and its hype gets so gone beyond!

Page 21: : Thirteen things to do before you graduate.  “Encounter romance in the Butler Stacks”…listen, this is a PC way of saying you should have sex in the library, not re-read all of Wuthering Heights on the tenth floor after a bad breakup.  And Diane, I’m still hurting.  We’re also encouraged to “Learn the hard way that the 2 & 3 trains don’t stop at Columbia.”  Is the “hard” way code for the “walk through a black neighborhood” way, just maybe?  But I might want some “soul food!”



Thus ends my first installment of the 2006 Facebook Review. Tune in later for the mugshot awards.