Class clowns literally classless: Harvard axes meme-flinging morons At least ten students due to start at Harvard this fall have had their admission offers torn up – after they swapped offensive piffle online. Specifically, the cyber-garbage was posted on the official Harvard College Class of 2021 Facebook group, set up for applicants who have been accepted by the Ivy League university. Some …
This is Hahvahd we're talking about. The qualifications are like Oxbridge: money or high intelligence, both accepted at a pinch. So "dumb" is not likely to apply, and the money students wouldn't be facing expulsion, such is the way of the world.
What's more interesting is how postings from a private group leaked to the point where TPTB could see them. Somebody snitched?
Dumb is most certainly likely to apply, moreso when your life protects you from most consequences. For example, what sort of idiot thought they could post some of those things in the main group without a second look? Who imagined there wasn't going to be a snitch? What kind of response was expected once this mess came to light?
Just because your money or connections can get you out of trouble doesn't mean you lack the native gifts to get into the ditch in the first place. Dumb has as much to do with common sense as intelligence.
Does any one read past the first paragraph these days?
"What's more interesting is how postings from a private group leaked to the point where TPTB could see them. Somebody snitched?"
From the article itself:
"A number of students went to the uni's authorities, who stepped in to examine the allegations."
This post has been deleted by its author
"I appreciate humor [sic], but there are so many topics that just should not be joked about,"
I don't think so - really there are very very few, but context, timing and audience is everything. Often joking about bad things is how people deal with them. There's a world of difference between laughing at someone's problem and laughing with them. The Maltesers ad?
While I fully applaud the effort to clean up this sewer, two points I see:
a) Kicking out the students involved was not an intelligent way to go about this. I can envisage several more onerous ways of re-indoctrinating Da Yoofs while still milking them for their fees,
2) The offended young lady who joined these fora: Did she actually post anything or was she there just to be offended?
Teaching students that Free Speech does not exist on the internet is a great thing. I support all efforts to throw a bucket of cold reality over anyone who thinks otherwise.
But semi-professional outrage is becoming tedious, and can end in such unpleasant side-effects as the election of the Clown Car Caucus to real power.
As for Kathy Griffin: Same applies. Make her sit in the unpopular corner for a bit by all means. Voting with yer feet is always an option (at least for now). But save me the fake outrage over a fake chopped-off head that looked nothing like OPOTUS. Nobody seriously thinks she has an army of people waiting to assault Mara Lago to remove anyone's head.
Well, I say that but given the utter tripe I've heard people declaring as true in the last year I suppose there might be a few dolts who do think that.
A little agree, a little not so much.
Kathy Griffin was dumb and not funny and got abused online, but she doesn't deserve the amount of crap she's received. But these weren't a bunch of random strangers who met on 4chan. These were hand-picked by the august institution to constitute the next class and acting as a group. They had no context outside of that, so when it came to light (and who expected it not to?) the school was put into a spot where they could say "Yup, those are our cherubs!" or "Whoa, OK, they aren't in yet, right?"
What was going to happen? Expect stuff like this to come to light, especially in a university context where kids are just starting to flex their voices. Expect large organizations to make the expedient PR move rather than defend stuff like pinata baby jokes. Expect rich kids who could get into Harvard to come out of this just fine.
Kicking out the students involved was not an intelligent way to go about this
Harvard's first priority is its reputation. If it doesn't have a good reputation, donations, rich parents sending their darlings there, etc. will soon dry up. Allowing students with such views in, would be a very brave (or foolish!) thing to do.
They didn't kick out the students involved - they kicked out those who had crossed whatever line they determined defined inappropriate aka stoopid behaviour. A written job offer would probably go up in smoke if you managed to transgress acceptable levels of behaviour before joining a new company.
And perhaps the young lady quoted had joined in mid-December and the offensive content only started to appear later. Bit presumptuous to assert that she was just being a snowflake especially if we haven't seen the contentious content.
Free Speech is possible on the Internet - this story just demonstrates that someone exercising their right to also be a complete prat does sometimes have consequences which is the valuable lesson. No semi-professional offense-taking required.
"They didn't kick out the students involved - they kicked out those who had crossed whatever line they determined defined inappropriate aka stoopid behaviour."
And in doing so they opened themselves to the old "Select ten peasants and make an example of them" abuse of power charges.
Look, I'm not saying what these idiots did was acceptable. But isn't one purpose of a University to widen the student's perceptions and open them to new ideas? Including how to be adult and know when to keep schtum?
Does anyone really think anything good will come of this action? Or is it possible that now we have a group of young people convinced that they were victimized for their out-of-mainstream opinions and denied their future over it?
Look around - look what happens when such people gather together and make their voices heard at the right (or wrong) time. They may not be the only ones rubbing their hands in glee but they were part of the claque that enacted Operation Fuck-Em Where They Beathe.
There were cleverer options open to the supposedly intelligent people holding court.
For all we know the young ones will look back in thirty years and say, "Just think, if I had wound up going to Harvard I'd still be paying off that stupid student loan. What? Oh. Sorry, the robot that makes the curly fries just broke, did you want onion rings or regular fries instead?"
Sorry, how is this a free speech issue? The government is not going to lock anyone up for what they said. Free speech doesn't mean complete impunity. Private individuals and organisations are perfectly free to take any legal actions they like as a response to what you say. That's freedom too.
2) The offended young lady who joined these fora: Did she actually post anything or was she there just to be offended?
The Social Media Singularity is this: Everyone on social media is there specifically to be offended and to offend others, while ratting out all of the offensives to moderators and authorities.
PS:
It is a plot forged from the globalist cabal of "World Improvers", those that gave us "Arab Spring" and "Iraqi WMD's"
While the unreasonable people are thus fully occupied, world peace is theoretically possible - except they brainiacs who came up with this plan forgot that the unreasonable are commonly also unreasoning, thus they cannot distinguish "Digital" from "Reality" and they carry their rage over being offended into the real world.
While the applicants' behaviour and their topics for "humour" sound quite reprehensible, I can't help but think that the punishment seems rather excessive.
These are 16 - 18 year old teenagers. We've all been there (possibly some Reg readers still are, in fact), and we all know that a lot of teenagers (of any gender) can essentially be total dicks. At that age we often still find inappropriate things funny (or are encouraged to do so in order to feel part of a group (peer pressure), teenage life can still be hard and confusing, and you are still trying to find out who you are). You would hope that school and parental education would do a better job nowadays to discourage any sort of discriminatory behaviour from early childhood onwards, but we know that that doesn't always happen, and some people mature later than others (if at all).
A better solution would surely have been to demand a public apology from the applicants and make it implicit and explicit that their behaviour at the university might be watched a little more closely than others.
If they are still fratboy dicks after their first year and haven't learned how to be more properly adult, then they can potentially be chucked out if they continue to breach the university's rules of student conduct, and at least the university will have got a year's fees out of them.
There are (sadly) bound to be as many students at Harvard (and elsewhere) who will behave just as dickishly while there, but will hopefully turn into responsible adults (although some sadly won't), but who by sheer luck weren't foolish enough to act up online at this point in time. It seems a bit unfair not to give these applicants at least one chance to make a mistake and then try to redeem themselves.
Wouldn't there be a code of conduct that these students-to-be would have agreed to? Either way, free speech can be costly. I'll consider it a lesson for all to learn from. But I doubt much will be learned. It seems like every week there's news of people getting let go for social media antics.
Social Media has become The Clap of the Digital Age: no matter who initiates the interaction, everyone comes away scratching their crotch and vowing "never again".
Employers abuse their position when they scrape (there is no more appropriate verb) social media to dig up the dirt on a prospective hire.
Young would-be employees retain an idiotic naivety when it comes to using social media platforms, behaving on-line in an exaggeratedly juvenile manner, then have the nerve to act surprised when they're found out.
Somewhere in the middle is a happy medium in which juvenile behavior can be forgiven - up to a point - and employers understand that without a safety valve the boiler can blow with catastrophic results.
Bring on the EMP.
If we don't set limits and examples for privileged young people, we'll keep getting this:
What, because sharing a bad taste image on facebook is in any way equatable to death by drink-driving?
Privilege might the reason some undergrads will be accepted. The others are probably rather clever, and many will be present on some part of the autistic spectrum as well - and there is a higher chance such people may well see nothing wrong with and actively seek out "darker" humour.
However, there is an enormous difference between finding a bad-taste image funny and acting in a way which actually causes others harm. Undergrads are still very young adults and they will still be testing boundaries to find levels of societal acceptability. Extricating them from their academic lives before they've even started the course is extreme, particularly given that this is purely about sharing images (on a private group no less), something virtually every teen does on a daily basis.
In my opinion this is a collosal overreaction based on theoretical offensiveness. Deserving of a reprimand? absolutely, but not more. This is from the same chain of thought that videogames cause killing sprees and books are corrupting the morals of the edwardian youth.
In my opinion this is a collosal overreaction
If we ignore 'pinata' jokes, offensive behavior becomes normalized, making it easier to take the next step, and the next, etc. Society, and the institutions within it, must draw a line. Or you wind up with a POTUS who bragged about being allowed (in his privileged mind) to sexually abuse women, and then goes on to.... oh, read the press!
" and they will still be testing boundaries to find levels of societal acceptability."
Yep.
Found em..
As supposedly intelligent young adults they need to be aware of what they can get away with, and where... and anything associated with a professional organisation or status vendor is not the place to show how hard core politically incorrect you can be.
Stupidity is its own reward
It is their university, so they get to choose who gets in. If you had invited someone to a party at your house then found out they were an openly and extremely offensive person to the point that your association with them would make your other friends and associates less amiable towards you, would you still want that person to come?
I haven't seen the material mentioned but don't doubt it's as offensive as stated. That said, surely the context matters? In this case, context being that the posters in question are kids, full of overconfidence, cheek, peer groupthink and heedless hormonal impulses, who maybe—just maybe—would have benefited from a good talking to and a severe warning, leaving them appropriately humbled, embarrassed ... and much wiser?
No matter how repugnant the memes in question may have been, you should surely have some regard for the foolishness of the young. It's not as if the offenders in this case were seasoned representatives of the people: we have a president who routinely broadcasts offensive drivel, and many members of his political party and administration publish shamelessly odious beliefs, and *they* are people who really should know better.
So for me the punishment seems a draconian, rather heartless over-reaction. I would guess the decision-makers in this case are motivated by the predictable vices of hypocrisy and ass-covering.
"That said, surely the context matters?"
Yup, but not in the way you're implying. Harvard has an infinite supply of these kids, so setting a couple of them alight every year or two sets an example for the others and throws a lovely reddish light on them that drives away the shadows these memes were casting.
"I appreciate humor, but there are so many topics that just should not be joked about,"
There exist no such topics. ANYTHING and EVERYTHING should be joked about. But there is a time a place and a context for each. Something like this Harvard group is not the place or context for this sort of thing.
"There exist no such topics. ANYTHING and EVERYTHING should be joked about."
Just where does this modern misapprehension come from? A generation whose social interaction is largely played out from behind a keyboard? Try talking to people face to face and making off colour jokes, and see where that gets you,
>> "There exist no such topics. ANYTHING and EVERYTHING should be joked about."
> Just where does this modern misapprehension come from?
>...Try talking to people face to face and making off colour jokes, and see where that gets you,
Saying that there should be jokes about X does not imply that every joke about X should exist (be spoken out loud) and certainly not in every context/situation.
Gallows humour will save your sanity when the gallows are looming but isn't appropriate at your toddler's tea party.
Then again, some toddlers... and the parents... the gallows look quite friendly now.
" ANYTHING and EVERYTHING should be joked about."
That depends on how it's done, really. If you post up a "joke meme" that says "haha look at all those jews burning", or some oh-so-witty one about a dead baby piñata, and then whine that your freedom of speech has been curtailed when it is removed along with your membership of a college, then frankly you deserve all you get.
There is dark humour and there is plain crass stupidity. The modern thinking that anything is fair game is shallow self entitlement, nothing more. Yes you have freedom of speech, not freedom from consequence.
This article demonstrates just how successful the 20 year program by Neoliberals to destroy education has been when applications to the supposed elite private schools are completely clueless in terms of knowing what is socially acceptable speech, or knowing that you bear the responsibility for what you say.
The US is currently playing out the film "Idiocracy", where the poorly educated don't understand science and elect crooks and con men who specialize in acting moronic while the 1% continues to rob everyone else blind.
What a coincidence, this comment also illustrates the demise of considered, moderate thought in the western world.
Not everything is black and white, not everything is the end of the world, not everything is a plot by The Others to ruin The Good Thing. Most of life occurs in shades of grey, individual situations don't always fit into broad, loud headlines, and most discussions benefit by a little thought and nuance.
In this case, for example, a small group of the hundreds and hundreds of admitees acted in an manner unacceptable to their new community and were exposed by other new students from the same community. The entire group is not at fault here, as it self-policed. The entire group is not absolved of this either, as the stupidity did happen. Most of this is far more mundane than the Koch-fueled phantasms you managed to splash all over the place. Calm down.
OK, if I read correctly, so these kids were on a forum hosted by Harvard, and they started a group for memes on this forum, and they got really offensive and over the line. Were they physically injured? Were they heavily fined? Were they imprisoned? No, the host of the forum, Harvard, decided they weren't their sort after all, and rescinded their acceptances. Wow, they might actually have to go to (gasp) another college! Oh, the horror! Sounds like a very good use of self-selection criteria by a university to head off future problems, kudos to Harvard.
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