First off, congrats to name of the year winner, Penn State WR Christian Kuntz. The people have spoken, and Kuntzy earned 32 out of 102 votes, squeaking past Texas Tech's Nubian Peak for the W. Congrats, Christian, I hope it makes up for the fact that you were made fun of nonstop for about six years straight once kids figured out dirty words around, oh, I'd say, the age of 12. Scratch that - people probably still make fun of you.
It's July and sports aren't for another few months. Gimme a break for straying from football-related waters for a sec.
People talk serious smack about Northwestern. They say we have none of the fun things bigger, state schools might have: we're all nerds, the girls aren't cute, and of course, our sports teams suck. Well, neither basketball nor football has had a losing season since I got to college, agree to disagree about the girls, and my GPA and complete inability to do moderately complex math problems hopefully keeps me from being called a nerd, although the sports blog really isn't helping me out here.
This year, NU went above and beyond in terms of proving that Northwestern is an awesome place to go to school. On a seemingly monthly basis, some absurd stuff went down that landed NU on the front page of Gawker. Quote the dude from Gawker:
Northwestern University simply cannot stop being awesome.
I don't normally read Gawker - see? Not a nerd. Nerds read Gawker, right? - but I feel NU's alarmingly ability to produce catchy jokes just highlights that now of all times is the greatest in Northwestern history, a statement that is probably more effected by the fact that I've steadily increased my alcoholic tendencies every quarter at NU, but, more to the point, a fact that is clearly true. Spare me your tales of being able to drink wherever you wanted back in the day - we have backyards and solo cups, same diff - we're in a golden age of purple.
I highlighted three NU non-sports memes - wait, does using meme make me a nerd? That's like, only an internet word, right? - after the jump. Vote or die!
Bl*wj*bs and Brothels: It's not that funny in the grand scheme of things: a bunch of kids were too loud and Evanston made a half-hearted move to restrict students' ability to legally live in town. But it's not in the content, it's in the presentation. When students were, like, moderately badly behaved, every off-campus resident got an email about how we shouldn't yell about bl**j*bs - WHAT COULD THOSE LETTERS STAND FOR! - in public or bone on people's driveways, and the name of the law the town invoked to stop this debauchery accused 75 percent of juniors and probably like 95 percent of seniors of, you know, hookin. This wasn't funny at the time, as NU's off-campus population, as well as our school's well-known graduate prostitution program, were seemingly at risk. (The email about the blowjobs, err, bl**j*bs was obviously hilarious.) But in retrospect, now that the dust has settled, and we've all survived, still free to live with three of our good friends and sell our bodies for money, we can sit back and say "really? Brothels, Evanston?"
@Chethaze: I'm not here to mock Chet Haze: despite the gimmicks, he isn't a bad rapper. I'll stake my limited influence as a hip-hop critic and someone who listens to like three hours of rap a day that he's not a bad rapper. He's not the world's best - he's not the best at Northwestern, but I'm biased - but he's not bad. He's clever, and he doesn't lack in charisma or flow - by which I mean, he sounds like a rapper. And judging from the fact he's always tweeting Nas and Mobb Deep lyrics and stuff like that, he knows real rap. And he's smart enough to embrace the fact that he's Tom Hanks' son instead of fighting that and trying to act hood. I've known the son of an equally famous actor since about fifth or sixth grade, in a few thousand conversations, I recall talking to him about his dad's movies perhaps twice, and one of them was about how he'd never seen a pair of movies I'd seen multiple times starring said parent. He just wanted to be a regular kid and everybody respected that. But Chet Haze tweeting about how his dad was in Toy Story is part of the gig: it's what helps him get noticed, and getting noticed is everything. He's done gigs, and gets legit producers like Swizz Beatz to give him songs, stuff other rappers might kill for, and did anybody read this without knowing who I was talking about? But sadly it's the same thing that prevents a lot of people from taking his stuff seriously: it's the reason I can put him on a list of things found funny about Northwestern University this year and not on a list of decent rappers where he'd probably be better suited. (Rhyming "frat house" with "that blouse" was particularly inspired.) That said, his twitter is unintentionally hilarious and there's nothing wrong with that, and "white and purple" was an unintentonally good NU anthem, even if, you know, someone else had had the idea about Northwestern already and 450 million people had made that song into a remix of whatever sports team they like that has one color with one syllable and another with two syllables. Vote Chet if you enjoy his music or just find the Larry Crowne jokes too hard to resist.
The Fucksaw: I don't think anything can beat it. Fuck and saw are two great words. I don't normally cuss on here - it's a family site! - but, forgive me for a paragraph, fucksaw is supreme. First off, merely as a term. I prefer not even to imagine the sexual instrument to which it refers and imagine a rotating, serrated blade of fuck, hacking down forests, far superior to fuckhammers or fuckaxes, both imaginary objects I just conjured up. (Also, typing "fuckhammer" made me realize that although "fuckhammer" is not a word according to SB Nation spellcheck, "fucksaw" is. WE'RE CHANGING THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE.)
The other two things were funny on Gawker and people around the campus or commencement speakers could joke about it. My grandma heard about the fucksaw, and I just explained to her last week that Facebook is something on the internet, not an alternate mode of technology meant to replace the internet (her argument was about how she never bought a VCR and it's the same reason she doesn't have the internet - VCR's are now irrelevant, and now everybody talks about the Facebook instead of the Internet.) At the time I was serving my JR and for two weeks, everything I did was greeted by a co-worker with a remark about fucksaws - what sort of crazy stuff are they teaching you at Northwestern? Hey, can we trust you now that we know what type of classes you take? - It wasn't funny the first time and I heard it 400 times, even though there were at least three other Medill people on staff. It's also hands-down the best nickname for the untackleable superback Drake Dunsmore that I've heard in two years of trying.