You’re welcome, Internet. IvyGate’s oldest and greatest friend and triumph, deluded megalomaniac Aleksey Vayner, will be bringing his own special brand of hilarious douchebaggery to ROFLCON 2010, in April at MIT.

For those who don’t remember, Vayner was the 2006 Yalie whose blustery and lie-filled video resume (“Impossible is Nothing”), fake charity, hedge-fund, and holocaust memoir took the Internet by storm after we dug up all sorts of hilarity. Good times… He threatened to sue us, leading to a highly-publicized online battle. Thanks for that, man. And since public self-promotion worked so well for you the first time, I’m sure this 4chan-style conference is a great idea, and that you’ll be taken very seriously. According to their website, ROFLCON is

Another two days and two nights of the most epic internet culture conference ever assembled. Informed commentators suggest that this may be the most important gathering of humanity since the fall of the tower of Babel. And yes, we’re still looking to get Goatse.

At least Goatse was up-front about where he stood. At the conference, Aleksey will be

discussing what he’s been up to since those fateful months, the issues around privacy online and crisis management, and recounting and reflecting on the experience of being swept up in the middle of the memetic storm.

Did somebody say “comeback”??? Aleksey, the only way you could get more IvyGate-y would be by marrying Lena Chen.

With the help of former IvyGate Editor-in-Chief Adam Clark Estes, the Huffington Post’s long-planned college section finally went live today. The latest addition to Arianna’s latte-liberal media empire will cover “all things collegiate” in much the same vein as the rest of the site, aggregating the best of college-daily reporting alongside syndicated student opinionists. (Funnily enough, one of them will be none other than IvyGate’s old friend, the blackface-wearing, self-promoting and GoodCrush-founding Princetonian Josh Weinstein.)

The site is beautifully designed, and thankfully, stays well away from the IvyGate niche (hell if we have the pocket-change to compete with the big H). In her words:

With two college-aged daughters, I’ve recently been infused again with all the excitement, promise and vitality of campus life, so creating HuffPost College is something I’m especially excited about. The section features voices from colleges all around the country and is a real-time snapshot of college life today — from coverage of the latest trends and sports happenings to more serious issues such as freedom of expression on campus and the rising cost of tuition.

Or, as the Bullblog lovingly put it,

HuffPost College = (less funny, better updated) IvyGate?

All friendly, nonexistent rivalries aside, look forward to healthy cross-collaboration and tip-sharing between IvyGate and our HuffPost friends in the weeks and months to come. Congrats to all involved.

Those uppity Yale videographers just won’t quit. First there was the Christopher Buckley-angering admissions musical, “That’s Why I Chose Yale” (which earned IvyGate a New Yorker shoutout, NBD). Next came the equally calamitous Pi Phi and Theta rush videos, which sent Gawker-commenters into even more intense misogyny-bouts than usual. After those resounding successes, we know you were left clamoring for more.

In that spirit, on this fine February evening, IvyGate is pleased to bring you the latest in Yalie propaganda, this time straight from the administration itself. It’s a promotional video for Yale’s Senior Class Gift campaign, and it involves creepy piano music (from the composer of the admissions video), melodrama, shattered friendships, high-pitched screaming, a crying baby, and yes… a dream sequence. Feast your eyes:

The message? Donate, or get lynched. Subtle…

More hotly anticipated than Shark Week, the Jeopardy College Championship is upon us once again. The Daily Doubles will be flying, Alex Trebek, drunk off his ass (a well placed source tells us he hides it well), and the Ivies, very well represented. Tune in (or Tivo/Torrent) to watch your ivory tower buddies take on the state-schooler hordes!

We’ve got Rebecca Maxfield (Brown) and Ashley Walker (Dartmouth), for a start. Representing the Bulldogs will be Yale Political Union President, New York Times-enthusiast and future world-despot Leah Libresco. Penultimately, UPenn will be fielding none other than IvyGate contributor (!) Robbie Berg. How can this get any better?

I’ll tell you how: Renaissance man, cool-cat Columbian, stud-muffin, and beloved IvyGate co-Editor-in-Chief Dan D’Addario will be pounding the buzzer to glory, TONIGHT AT 7PM. Commenters, tune in and hurl insults at his smiling visage; fanboys, fawn, scream, throw your bras. Regardless, this proud colleague has a good feeling that Dan’s near-encyclopedic knowledge and winning demeanor will elevate him to certain victory. Or at least to beating the spread (I’m still taking bets). Here’s what everyone’s favorite adorably dorky media maven had to say:

When my first grade teacher asked what was significant about the number thirteen, I replied that it was the first year of eligibility for the Jeopardy! Teen Tournament.

Aw. Also, apparently the contestants are still friends, despite their absolute destruction and humiliation at the hands of Dan’s tremendous intellect. (We can only assume; he’s been contractually sworn to secrecy regarding the outcome of the competition). According to Robbie, the competitors

have a vibrant Facebook group and lots of commonalities.

Who are “major nerds”? Just kidding. Good luck Ivy Leaguers, and keep an eye out for Team IvyGate: we play dirty.

(Dan D’Addario’s episode of Jeopardy! airs tonight at 7pm on ABC or your local station.)

Professional crazy person Jesse Morrell was right. The gays have taken over the Ivy League.

The Crimson reports that Harvard’s Memorial Church will soon echo with the strains of “Here Comes The Bride” for two very special undergraduates. And get this: they’re both men! The Cantab pioneers, Billy Stallings ’10 and Paul Nauert ’09, are engaged to marry at Harvard this summer, having forged their union under a star and bat-filled San Antonio sky earlier this year. Yes, you heard that right:

I knew at that moment as bats were flying overhead and the stars were coming out, and then he said, ‘Will you marry me?’

Satanic sky-rats: how romantic. (FYI, bats are the only flying animals that practice oral sex. Also: vampires!) But hold up! Stalling’s dad is a Reverend.

Hold up again! He’s really, really supportive… Take that Leviticus 18:22:

I think they’re perfectly matched. They’re compatible, terribly interested in what the other is doing, and they promote each other’s interests. They’re talking about adopting children and having a family.

Preach it, preacher-man! After all, shouldn’t this adorable pair have the same right as the rest of us to lock themselves in the loveless and sexless Dantesque dungeon that is monogamous marriage? (Exhibit A: my parents.)

Hetero-normativity aside, we totally endorse this couple’s patent adorableness. Comparing their poise and maturity to some of Harvard’s classy straight gentlemen—Exhibit B: Matt “my spooge tastes like unripe bananas” DiPasquale—these fellas pass with flying colors. (Rainbow joke immaturely intended).

Reality checks, awkwardness, envy and Frankie Valli after the jump.

Read the rest of this entry »

Well we’ve come to that point in the summer where its time for the temporary IvyGate editors (Max and Michael, not that it matters) to say goodbye. It hasn’t been a great season for the Ivy League though. Cornell lost everyone’s social security numbers. Harvard is broke and is trying to own English. A Brown student and a Yale student competed to see who could be more annoying. Californians don’t understand us. Don’t even mention lacrosse. And we seem to be forgetting something. What could it be? Oh well, it probably wasn’t important.

But the worst news of all came just this week. Forbes Magazine, the nation’s premier experts on all things list-related, released their ranking of America’s Best Colleges. Here are the sobering results:

1. Army

2. Princeton

3. Caltech

4. Williams

5. Harvard

6. Wellesley

7. Air Force

8. Amherst

9. Yale

10. Stanford

11. MIT

12. Swarthmore

13. Columbia

14. Centre

15. Haverford

…

…

…

Umm, it’ll be a while until we reach the next Ivy League school, so we’ll warp ahead after the jump. Read the rest of this entry »

The Paper Trail – an education blog for U.S. News & World Report – has once again listed IvyGate as a contender for the best alternative media outlet of the year. Other nominees for the poll, which closes on February 17, include Wesleying, Bwog, The Daily Clog, Mads Vassar, Onward State, Saxa Speak, Timothy Dwight, MiddBlog, and the Critical Badger. Presently we are in last place, with a mere 1.35% of all votes. By contrast, Timothy Dwight – a blog about a certain cult group residential hall at Yale – is leading the polls at 28.72%, and Bwog – the blog of Columbia’s Blue & White – is in second place with 24.9%.

The reasons why IvyGate is being trounced by the likes of a dorm blog at Yale and campus-specific new media rags are numerous. One explanation is that some sites, like Timothy Dwight and Bwog, have posted links to the poll below their mastheads and are urging readers to vote multiple times. Another reason may have to do with the fact that IvyGate content has been conspicuously spare since the beginning of the new semester. This is due to our own laxity – we’re lazy and underpaid (read: paid nothing) – and also because we’ve been sorting out, in a productive way, our various levels of commitment for 2009 and onward.

In short: the hibernation is over and we’re as eager to probe the bizarre depths of higher ed as we’ve ever been.  If you’ve got a hot tip or want to write for us – we’re hiring! – email us at tips@ivygateblog.com.

Here’s wishing happy holidays and long winter breaks to our readers, especially to those poor souls who attend Harvard and Princeton, where fall semester final exams occur after winter vacation. Nassau and Massachusetts Halls: Thou art a Grinch.

We’ll be back on January 5. Until then, how about some premature nostalgia and self-reference? This year saw our redesign and tech upgrade at the hands of nimble-fingered Tech God Zach Ozer, to whom we are constantly indebted. Also, the addition of several new writers and editors, all of whom are obscenely talented and frighteningly dedicated to this wretched little blog. They created the following Top 10 Fall ‘08 stories, listed here by pageview:

• 1. Egotistical Freshman Wants to Rule the World: 15,300 views for that breathtakingly bizarre sensation, Stephany Her Royal Highness.
• 2. “I Was Shocked I Would Be Joining a Lower-Tier Bank”: Life After Buyout: 9,800 views
• 3. Ivy League Scores Low in Forbes College Ranking: For some reason you guys continue to be obsessed with rankings: 7,800 views
• 4. Harvard’s Very Own Hugh Hefner, If Hef Devoted His Magazine to Pictures of His Own Penis: 7,700 views for Not-so-Big Man on Campus Matt diPasquale and Diamond magazine.
• 5. Middle-Aged White Guy Sues Columbia for Discrimination: An Interview with Roy Hollander, Men’s Rights Pioneer: Messiah of Misogyny scores 7,500 views, never gets laid again

The rest of the top 10 + assorted tidbits, time-wasters, and arbitrary “Best Of” designations: Read the rest of this entry »

I woke up the morning after IvyGate’s big bar bash relieved that I was in my own bed and apparently still wearing my underroos. So far so good, I rationalized, and that was when I heard the shower turn on.

Despite the early morning haze of one too many gin and tonics, everything came back to me. I hadn’t gone home from that party alone. I had gone home with my new co-editor.

**

I don’t usually take showers in unfamiliar apartments the morning after. Hell, I usually just grab my pants and run. But this time was different. It was uncanny how much we complemented each other. Robyn was from Irvine, California, a student at Barnard, and headed to med school in the next few years.  Basically, she could do a Korean accent better than I could; she was the daughter my mother was meant to have. I was raised in New Jersey, a former prep schooler and a student of literature at Harvard.  I should have been bat-mitzvahed years ago.

When we met, we finished each others sentences. We ordered the same drinks, a few too many.  Sometimes you know right away that it’s not going to work out.  But sometimes you know that it will.  And so I stayed for my shower.  We were going to be the best of friends.

**

Our beautiful-yet-awkward relationship started out where most healthy, substantive relationships begin: through Facebook. After stalking the shit out of each other once we were assigned as co-editors, we decided to meet for drinks.

We were both in New York for the summer, interning in publishing (Juli), and taking summer physics classes whilst editing Columbia’s bioethics journal (Robyn). Well, drinks turned into a baking fiasco, then a round of embarrassing sex story trade offs, a trip to Nick and Chris’s aforementioned IvyGate party, and finally a drunken subway ride uptown, which culminated in what can only be referred to as a slumber party.

Yes, really. A slumber party. With pajamas and giggling and cookies and all that girly shit. And now we’re, like, totally BFFs. Over the past few weeks we’ve gone to the theater, the park, a nice Italian restaurant.

So thanks, Ivy Gate, for the first completely not awkward morning after we’ve ever experienced (i.e. In the words of Douglas Adams, ‘So long, and thanks for all the fish’).  And, as an act of gratitude, the plan is basically to turn this blog into the next Sex and the Ivy.  It’s a hard job. But someone’s got to do it.

Send us tips, recipes, personals, or embarrassing sex stories at tips@ivygateblog.com

—
Juli Min, Harvard ‘09, is the singer in a funk band and also an acoustic indie duo that performs in and around New York.

Robyn Schneider, Barnard ‘08.5, is the author of several forgettable books for teenagers.  She hopes to attend medical school and bedazzle the shit out of her scrubs.

–ROBYN SCHNEIDER AND JULI MIN

Well, we’ve all suspected it for some time, but now we have it directly from the horse’s mouth: IvyGate founding co-editor Chris Beam is a Republican operative intent on destroying the reputation of America’s Greatest Hope for Survival.

Beam, who is a Columbia grad, has a prominently placed item at Slate today in which he claims responsibility for widely circulating the phrase “terrorist fist jab” as a possible interpretation for the fist-bump shared between Barack and Michelle Obama on the night that Obama clinched the Democratic nomination. Like so many things in our Internet-crazed lives, it seems that the trouble originated in an anonymous comment on a website:

The morning after Obama locked up the nomination, I was writing a “Trailhead” item that mocked the media’s difficulty in figuring out what to call the now famous gesture. “Fist-pound,” “knuckle-bump,” and “fist-to-fist thumbs up” were among the funnier examples, but one of them—”Hezbollah-style fist jab”—was particularly risible. It came from the Web site for Human Events, a hard-right weekly. Unfortunately, I failed to note that its provenance was not the magazine itself but a reader comment posted below an unrelated column by Cal Thomas. I linked the phrase to the column but didn’t explain that the words weren’t Thomas’

A couple miscommunications later and the phrase ended up on Fox News, causing a great deal of hand-wringing about how low the Republicans are willing to go to paint Obama as a the scary “other.”

As usual, the left has proven that the only thing more dangerous than the vast right-wing conspiracy is the vast left-wing ability to fuck itself over unnecessarily. Beam’s confession coincides with day 3 of the mass hysteria provoked by the cover of the latest New Yorker, which depcits Barack in traditional Muslim garb terrorist fist-jabbing a machine-gun toting Michele while an American flag burns in the fireplace. The cover has led to cries of umbrage from Obama’s camp, a great deal of shouting on cable news, and mumblings of “Didn’t New Yorker covers used to be funny?” from sane people.

Meanwhile, real terrorists killed more real people, but I’m not sure how you make that into a cartoon. Oh, right.