YOU MAY HAVE NOTICED THESE AGGRESSIVE, STRESS-INDUCING DEAN’S DATE POSTERS AROUND CAMPUS. THE INK’S INSIDER INFORMATION TEAM HAS CORNERED THE CREATOR(S) OF THIS PROPAGANDA AND ASKED THEM THE REAL HARD-HITTING QUESTIONS.
Name: The Committee to Motivate Students to Do Dean’s Date Work (CMSDDDW)
Hometown: Grover’s Corners
Major: General
Club and Residential College Affiliation: Club Foot
Are you an animal, mineral, or vegetable?
We are argon-based lifeforms, straddling the boundaries between what is alive and what is merely sentient. So kinda like all three.
Who’s your favorite Princetonian, living or dead, real or fictional?
Goku from Dragon Ball Z. He’s a Princeton alum in many Dragon Ball fanfictions, which we hold as canonical.
What’s the best meal you’ve eaten in Princeton?
One of us once distracted Nancy Malkiel and gulped down several spoonfuls of some clam chowder she was eating.
Why are you posting such intensely fonted posters?
It is inexplicably acceptable at Princeton to procrastinate on papers, then wail and moan on Facebook as you pull an all-nighter and produce some half-assed essays on Dean’s Date Eve. We somehow find a perverse sense of camaraderie in this self-destructive tradition, punctuating it with fanfare and pageantry and silent discos. Our posters are meant to encourage skepticism about a culture in which we all act as if we’re all academic martyrs crucified on the amount of work we have to do, when we nailed ourselves there in the first place. We all have work. We all have time to do it right. It’s hard, but complaining makes it worse. It’s a privilege to have the education we do, one that hundreds of thousands of applicants wanted and were denied. Acting as if Princeton is pulling us through school by our hair disrespects that privilege and lowers the quality of the work that we do. If we saw Dean’s Date work and exams as challenges to be met rather than curses to be endured, we would write better papers, score higher on exams, and live happier, less stressful lives. If inculcating that kind of living takes some aggressive words in Impact font, so be it.
In one sentence, what do you actually do all day?
Acquire currency and the hatred of the entire Princeton student body.
What is your greatest guilty pleasure?
Snarky answers to journalists’ questions.
Who is “sponsoring” your posters?
Microsoft and Mr. Pibb.
What is your relationship like with the font IMPACT?
Monogamous.
What’s hanging above your desk and/or bed?
The last reporter who divulged our identity.
What is your biggest fear?
An unwritten paper. Also, spiders.
What would you do if you were on the Presidential Search Committee?
Install the dictator android ENLIGHTENED DES-BOT and enjoy a thousand years of peace.
