Gawker: oberlin

At Hippie Student House, John Edwards Will Police Your Showers

Sheila — Tue, 27 May 2008 15:16:27 EDT

The New York Times—that arbiter of youth culture—reports on the "green" student houses springing up around the country, focusing on the one at Oberlin. (Voted as one of the top annoying liberal arts colleges by this very website!) "All year they studied together in the living room at night so they would not have to turn on lights in the other rooms. They mastered worm composting, lowered the thermostat — keeping it at 60 degrees for most of the winter ... and unplugged appliances." Aww! They're living like lil' pioneers. (Disclosure: during college, I lived in a house exactly like this, featuring huge rows over wasting bread and the evils of commercial cleaning products. To this day, I clean with vinegar out of fear.) The Obies, as they're called, have a very special way of making sure each other's showers are kept quick and dirty:

Lucas Brown, a junior at Oberlin College here, was still wet from the shower the other morning as he entered his score on the neon green message board next to the bathroom sink: Three minutes, according to the plastic hourglass timer inside the shower. Two minutes faster than the morning before. One minute faster than two of his housemates.

...The bathroom is the showstopper on the tour. Besides the hourglass timer — Mr. Brown pointed out that it was called a shower coach and cost $3 online — the shower's energy-saving motivational accessories include a picture of former Senator John Edwards of North Carolina plastered to the ceiling.

That was Ms. Bob-Waksberg's idea. No one wants to linger in the shower with someone staring down from the ceiling, she said.

"You could also look at it another way," she said, "that John Edwards is encouraging me to take a shorter shower."

How Green Is the College? [NYT]

"I Don't Trust People Who Aren't On Facebook": The Meta-Feed of Oberlin Students' Minds

Sheila — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 14:50:52 EST

As it turns out, Oberlin has sort of a "secret" website, as secret as any website called Oberlin Confessional can get. You can type in your anonymous confessions in the "booth!" After the jump, excerpts from November 27th alone:

Anyone want to hookup tonight. I have been with a woman but just want to mess around and explore all that a woman has insider (sic) her (sexually).

That's sexually, ladies—not intellectually.

Also:

"last night, in two sex sessions, I gave my girlfriend five orgasms, one of them huge."

There's vegan poetry somewhere on there too!

FUCK nonverbal cues. If everyone used only verbal cues, then there would never be a misunderstanding, an overanalysis, nor the necessity for complex social exchange with unapproachable results. Cut-and-dry, no-nonsense, straight-talking simplicity. Ah, if only...

And finally, in one of the most telling statements of our times:

I don't trust people who aren't on facebook

Don't worry about your postgraduate plans, guys. You all are going to fit into Williamsburg just fiii-iine. We'll continue this discussion at the Charleston!

[Photo: Oberlin]

Oberlin Now Paying Students To Defecate

Sheila — Mon, 12 Nov 2007 10:40:00 EST

Says our on-the-ground Oberlin College correspondent: "Here's an announcement... you poop in the Environmental Studies building toilet and get a quarter." Oh God. It's true.

Low on Cash, High in Fiber Bash:
Poop in the Adam Joseph Lewis Center toilets anytime between Saturday, November 10th and Friday, November 16th and sign up to receive a quarter per poop. Claim your quarters at the bash! H'orderves [sic[ and drinks provided.

This probably has something to do with sustainability or whatever, but what more is there to say? Nothing more, really.

Help Us Pick America's Most Annoying Liberal Arts College

Doree Shafrir — Thu, 19 Jul 2007 16:15:08 EDT

After much discussion, we have come to the conclusion that it might be possible that Oberlin is not, in fact, the most annoying liberal arts college in the world. (Though there's some pretty strong evidence in its favor.) So we've come up with a list of contenders. We acknowledge that most people probably don't have first-hand experience with each of these schools, but we'd like you to think long and hard about your experiences with their graduates, which should be enough to allow you to make blanket generalizations about the nature of the colleges. Also, consider this your introduction; there will be a poll, and later a crowning of the Most Annoying Liberal Arts College In The World. Maybe they'll get a diploma from us! Write-in candidates will also be considered.

The Contenders (in alphabetical order)

Bard: Upstate New York haven for rich, disaffected filmmakers, writers, grade-skippers and artists.
Bennington: Hippie haven in Vermont with optional grades and lots of "creative" types. (Bonus: Bret Easton Ellis went there. Then, so did Jared Paul Stern.)
Brown (honorary liberal arts college): Eurotrash and rich hipster magnet in Providence, R.I.
Hampshire: This "non-traditional" college in Amherst, MA calls itself "experimenting." Whatever that means.
Kenyon: There's not much to do here besides go drink in the Ohio woods. Also, maybe too preppy for our list, maybe.
Oberlin: Asked and answered.
Reed: They're smarter than you. Just ask. Even though they're baked. Also: West Coast represent!
Sarah Lawrence: Breeding ground of coked-up artsy heiresses and the lone faggy heir.
Smith: Lesbians and the LUGS who love them.
Vassar: Favorite of budding editorial assistants everywhere. Male population: See under Sarah Lawrence.
Wesleyan: Our instinctive favorite to take the crown, if only because if we have to hear about one more awesome party at Eclectic we might slit our wrists. Also, heroin is all fun and games until you can't get out of rehab, isn't it!
So there you have it. Mull it over, give us your thoughts—and be ready to vote tomorrow.
[Photo via]

Sam Rauch: Oberlin Grad, Williamsburg Loft-Dweller

Doree Shafrir — Wed, 18 Jul 2007 18:10:39 EDT

This afternoon, we received an email. It read:

Dear Choire/Balk/Doree or whichever intern checks the emails—[Ed. Note: Actually, we all do!]
As a total fucking cliche who attented both Trinity School (gasp!) and Oberlin College (where I majored in art history! And cinema studies! Oh no!) and who now lives in... wait for it... a bougie Williamsburg loft (for which my parents pay the rent, naturally), I must insist that you cease making fun of Oberlin immediately.

Just because we're a bunch of pretentious, entitled, politically-correct, self-satisfied, bleeding-heart, postmodern burlesque and street art enthusiast douchenozzley fags doesn't mean we don't have feelings. If anything, we have far too many feelings. Feelings we have learned to express thanks to four years of professors who humored us when we raised our hands to start a sentence with "I kinda feel like..."
But really. If you cut us, do we not bleed?* If you insult us, do we not cry ourselves to sleep while gently caressing our diplomas and our limited-edition Supreme hoodies? ** I cannot bear this abuse any longer. n fact, I demand that you extend an olive branch to me (and by proxy, all Oberlin alumni, since I am their mascot) by making me a commenter.

Cheers,
Sam

*actually, we don't. "Feelings" aside, we are empty on the inside.
**actually, when you insult us we secretly get off on it.
P.S. Since you knew this was coming anyway... I have a blog. Feel free to read it. But please try to refrain from tearing me a new asshole on your website since this email is, believe it or not, not my audition to the be next Yara Flinn.

We contemplated what this young man's email meant. Frankly, it left our heads spinning. It was like reverse-reverse psychology! Confusing! Was it postmodern? Post-postmodern? We felt like this was probably covered in an Oberlin critical studies class.

But what we did realize—after looking at Sam's blog, in which he discusses a little term he calls "Nostalgie de la boue," which is "One (1) serving of limousine liberalism, One (1) serving of cultural appropriation, One (1) serving of bourgeois bohemianism," and relates an anecdote about running into a girl he knows from both high school and college, and how they discussed "street art," and it was all so predictable and ironic that between the two of them there is $1 million worth of education, and there was a bodega with real Hispanic people outside, because as you recall, Sam lives in Williamsburg—was that people like Sam continue to make us sad, and we know we should get over the fact that everyone has a trust fund and is able to list their occupation on Facebook as "a carpenter, an east village radio dj, cory arcangel's assistant, possibly a contemporary art auction house slave and soon to be a street art exhibition curator," and live in a "bougie loft in Williamsburg."

It makes us sad because are old enough to know that life isn't fair, and that some people would in fact be jealous of the life that we have (if only because we have cable T.V.), just as we are jealous, on some level, of Sam's life and the fact that the most difficult thing it seems he's had to deal with in his 22 years is perhaps a B+in one of his cinema studies classes. On the other hand. We also find it annoying that these people are so hyper-conscious of their own privilege that they peremptorily bring it up in the most ironic way possible, which of course deflects any criticism or, really, analysis of said privilege.

It's kind of similar to the way Sam is a member of a number of Facebook groups. They include: "BITCH/ NIGGA I LOOKS GOOD DON'T TRY & FUCKIN SIN ME," "WAL- MART IS DAT DEAL.... HELL YEAH," "MY name MUST taste GOOD,cuz its ALWAYS in SOMEBODYS MOUTH," "Fuck 2 Steppin Bitch I Gets Loose," "I fuks wit Ramen Noodles," "I'll Aways Love My Momma," "For Every 1,000 People Who Join, I'll Have a Threesome in Darfur," "I Get High and Watch Don't Be a Menace to South Central," "Lindsay Lohan: American Hero," "Legalize Abstinence-Only Gay Marriage for Men," and "Sam Rauch: Not a Cokehead."

Let's all appropriate hip-hop culture together now! Does he also wear iced grillz?

Anyway. All of this is our way of saying that no, Sam, we will not stop making fun of Oberlin grads. At least not until Oberlin grads get a little fucking perspective.