Why It Sucks to Be a Freshman at Penn
Because after only two weeks with strangers in a strange land, you might get made fun of by a jackass 14,000-circulation magazine you've never heard of, by soulless editors you've never seen, for trying to appear confident/fetching in a headshot taken at Sears that your mom probably made you dress for. Penn '11, meet 34th Street Magazine's "Freshmen Superlatives."
(Let's get full disclosures out of the way: I was Editor-in-Chief of 34th Street in 2006. Go ahead and complain, but I don't even know half of these people anymore.)
Street, the Daily Pennsylvanian's weekly culture magazine, released in today's first issue its annual--and highly popular, as these things go--"Superlatives." In years past this meant stealing a copy of the freshmen directory, scanning funny headshots and writing a superlative for each (think high school yearbook). "Superlative" eventually became "random asshole comment," and this year the University didn't even publish a freshmen directory. Street editors took shots from Facebook instead.
Click on the top image for a JPEG of unrelenting abasement. And if you're a Penn freshman not seen here, you've dodged your first bullet.
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September 13th, 2007 at 8:40 pm
I fucking love Freshmen Superlatives.
September 13th, 2007 at 10:27 pm
I fucking hate Freshmen Superlatives…I was one. Thank you, Street.
September 14th, 2007 at 12:11 am
awesome idea
September 14th, 2007 at 1:13 am
Hey Ivygate aka Penn-Troll-Number-One, how about covering some real news, like the sudden resignation of your admissions chief Mr. Stetson, and the rumors of an alleged affair with a current Penn student?
September 14th, 2007 at 1:14 am
Hey Ivygate aka Penn-Troll-Number-One, how about covering some real news, like the sudden resignation of your admissions chief Mr. Stetson, and the rumors of an alleged affair with a current Penn student?
September 14th, 2007 at 3:18 am
Isn’t that an old story from like 359 years ago?
When you remember IvyGate stories from years back, you know it’s time to reexamine your life…
September 14th, 2007 at 12:16 pm
I also love freshman superlatives . . . but they are usually funnier than this. Maybe it’s because with the freshman directory, you had to send in a pic by the spring/summer of your senior year of high school in order for it to be included, and most kids were even more clueless at that point.