The Yale Pundits, culprits of the Scroll and Key application prank earlier this year, have released the list of taps for the top secret societies late last night. The newsletter-style email for the "Yale Does It Nude" addressed to and credited to former YDN editor-in-chief Andrew Mangino cracked what will hopefully be the last swine flu joke. Ever.
By the looks of it, Key is holding onto their YDN legacy by tapping current managing editor Bharat Ayyar. Meanwhile, Skull and Bones kept it presidential, welcoming Yale College Council president Rich Tao along with current publisher of the Yale Record, Nozlee Samadzadeh-Hadidi.
The Pundits' announcement is hot on the heels of Rumpus's publication of the graduating class of 2009 society members list. Regarding our mistake in framing that coverage, we hope you commenters will cheer up now that we've covered everything. After all, this shit's supposed to be secret, right?
After the jump, the original email from the Pundits and a video of a slow loris getting tickled.
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Yale's Rumpus magazine recently published the full list of secret society inductees for 2009. These future-leaders-of-the-world hopefuls join a league of will-never-really-be-leaders-of-the-world Yale alums plus George W. Bush. Meanwhile, nobody outside of New Haven gives a shit after that Joshua Jackson movie showed how whack secret societies are anyways.
The lists may or may not be correct, but Google doesn't care. The only name we actually recognized immediately was Andrew Mangino, former Yale Daily News editor-in-chief who is now a Scroll and Key member, again. (Wonder if he applied...and too bad he's not a Boner...) Since he was on last year's list, this seems confusing. Smells like journalistic integrity, nevertheless.
After the jump, the absurdly long list of tap-ees and the trailer to aforementioned Joshua Jackson movie. The list is really effing long. Do the Elis really need 32 secret societies? Do we have a little complex, Yale?
Correction: Kind commenters have let me know that Rumpus publishes the list of graduating members, so obvious that Mangino is on both. We still don't care.
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UPDATE: The prank was actually pulled by the Pundits. More below.
Over the next few hours before Yale's tap night, a few sorry Scroll and Key hopefuls will be finishing up their applications to join the secret society. We're sorry all you wannabe Keysmen. It's a hoax. And if our well-informed hunch proves to be correct, it's yet another Rumpus hoax.
Several anonymous tips came in to us over the past day or so calling Wolf on an obviously fake email. In short, the message said that Society of Scroll and Key would be opening up the 2010 Delegation to applications. (!?!)
If you are interested in applying, please submit the following information to kingsleytrust09@gmail.com no later than 6:00pm on Thursday, April 16:- your full name
- your residential college
- your place of birth
- your gender identity
- your greatest fear
- your three greatest enemies
Even better than asking overeager juniors about their greatest fear and greatest enemies, all applications are to be sent to former Yale Daily News editor Andrew Mangino—who is also a Scroll and Key member according to the list included at bottom of the hoax email. The kicker has to be the @gmail.com account, though. For an organization that supposedly has millions more than Skull and Bones, you'd think the Kingsley Trust Association, Scroll and Keys other more preppy name, could buy a clandestine-sounding domain.
After the jump, a little bit of banter about Rumpus and the full text of the hoax email.
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It's Thursday night, you've once again been sexed in by your roommate (walk-through doubles are baaad news), and you've got a good hour to kill. Here's a project for you. Pour yourself a scotch and sink into the online archives of Rumpus, Yale's inimitable tabloid, which we are completely derelict in not covering a lot more. Part trashy gossip, part genius prose, Rumpus lies at the intersection of two highways that don't meet often enough. What they lack in substance, they make up for in complete disdain for anyone who considers substance a requirement for college journalism. Aleksey Vayner? They slammed him first, in like 2002. Dr. Susan Block? Same. We're pretty sure it's run by a group of self-absorbed fuck-ups, but what great publication isn't? Rumpus's primary flaw is that it doesn't publish often enough.
With that preamble, we feel comfortable piggybacking on their proudest (only?) tradition: Yale's 50 Most Beautiful People [PDF], the 2007 edition of which is out now. Every year, Rumpus turns its already astonishing superficiality up a notch and dolls up a few dozen passable-to-smoking students for the noblest of purposes: to stoke Yale's collective fantasy furnace.
But last Friday, on the eve of our journey, while compiling our initial draft on this, we found ourselves in an unprecedented schism -- at each other's throats over blonde vs. brunette, decolletege vs. prim, bulging obliques vs lattimus dorsi. With intra-IvyGate strife threatening to rend the blog in twain, we tabled discussion. No hot-or-not civil war would divide and conquer us. Besides, as every Facebook airbrusher knows, the camera lies. We investigated, and these people are not worth the infighting. So we're calling this issue of Rumpus out for the Photoshopped fiction that it is: it's time to fact-check Yale's alleged 50 Most Beautiful People.
Upon inspecting their Facebook photo records, the women acquitted themselves quite well. But to paraphrase Derek, the male models are really, really, ridiculously ... ridiculous-looking. Rumpus has a cute tradition of always referring to Yale's paper as the Yale Daily "News," even abbreviating it YD"N." Well, we're starting our own little tradition here. After the jump, enjoy our fact-checking of Yale's M"B"P ...
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In the student government universe -- a realm that is equal parts absurd, amusing, and unflinchingly self-serious -- Yale College Council has always served as the Platonic ideal. This year's race has already perfected the form.
Sam Heller, Yale '08 and former editor of campus tabloid Rumpus, submitted the following candidacy statement for Pierson residential college council:
"What is the YCC? I don't really know, but I plan on finding out - pronto. It'll be an exciting adventure for all of us, and we'll really grow as people.
"With this statement of hope and fabulous dreams, I hereby announce my candidacy for Pierson YCC representative. I hope all of you will get up out of your chairs and put your hands together, 'cause when I say "Sam", you say "Heller"!
"Sam!
"Heller!
"Sam!
"Heller!
"With your help, I can make this the rock 'n rollinest year evar! Hooray!"
Council rep Steve Engler, '07, doing a spot-on angry dean impression, responded:
"Sam- You know I can't accept that. Write a legitimate statement and then I can enter you."
The rest of the conversation, in which Heller cc'ed the Rumpus discussion list, is inappropriate for a family blog. So we included it after the jump. Short story: Heller is back on the ballot. Score one for Dadaist, faux-anti-establishment student council campaigns.
*UPDATE 10:22 p.m.: See Heller's campaign poster here.
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