Modern communication is a perilous pursuit — what with all the Facebooking and Tweets and emails and texts. You lose touch of what it means to be human; to talk to someone face-to-face. And confusion abounds. Because who really understands how all that interweb mumbo-jumbo works, anyway?

…

If it feels like I’m paraphrasing the beginning of a Bill Keller column (“The printing press — WHAT’S UP WITH THAT?!“), it’s because I basically am. But, lest you think this sort of addle-brained consternation with technology is just a side-effect of senescence and Lipitor, I point you to the story of Princeton’s class of 2006. Only five years removed from the ivory tower, and already these once-brilliant men and women may be losing a grip on what it means even to send a discrete, non-offensive email.

Case in point: As their five-year reunion approaches, the ’06 class council has been putting in some work trying to hype that shit up. They even crafted a cutesy logo (pictured right) to memorialize their four years in Tiger Town. For purposes of effective branding, they’ve been attaching it to all of their official correspondences. They’ve apparently been doing this indiscriminately.

Maybe you can see where this is going. The reunion’s organizers decided to hold an event in honor of the class members who’ve passed away in the past five years. And they reflexively included the same logo. (You know, the one that lightheartedly quips about how the end of college was the end of your awesome life.)

Tactlessness, thy name is Catie, Tim and Duncan:

From: Class of 2006
Date: Mon, May 23, 2011 at 12:14 PM
Subject: Memorial Service for Deceased Classmates: Friday
To: [redacted]

TIGERS,

This Friday at 4:00pm we’ll honor our deceased classmates with a short service of remembrance in the September 11th Memorial Garden next to Nassau Hall and the Chancellor Green Rotunda. The rain location is the West Room of Murray Dodge (Office of Religious Life building, next to Theater Intime). Fr. Tom Mullelly, Aquinas Institute chaplain, will preside.
The four classmates who have died are [redacted], [redacted], [redacted], and [redacted].

Please join if you’re in town. It would be great for as many friends and teammates as possible to come and share their memories.

All best,

Catie, Tim, & Duncan

Shortly thereafter, the same class organizers sent out an apology email:

From: Class of 2006
Date: Mon, May 23, 2011 at 3:02 PM
Subject: Memorial service follow-up
To: [redacted]

Classmates,

I am very sorry for the oversight of including our 5th Reunion logo in a message regarding Friday’s memorial service. This was entirely accidental and I apologize to everyone, especially the close friends of the classmates we will honor on Friday.

See you at the end of the week,

Duncan

Phew! Nice save.