Blarney Blowout, March 9, 2013, A date which will live in infamy
According to the venerable Princeton Review, UMass/Amherst did not crack the "Top 20 Party Schools" -- the party culture gold standard. So I was hoping that we were safe from a high profile proposal this dumb. (Update: post has already been deleted from Craigslist)
But no, apparently not. So hide the women and children, cue the extra ambulances and police, start soundproofing the neighborhoods ... Reality TV is coming to Amherst!
And their reality is our nightmare.
By glorifying the Party House culture this "entertainment" show will only exacerbate the problem of rowdy off campus party behavior. Just when things were starting to improve.
Besides the better integration between UMPD and APD on enforcement, the number two reason things were more controlled this past spring is the "high profile" party hardy boys were taken out, kind of like those precision drone strikes in Pakistan.
Rapper wanna be Paul Markham was so spooked by pressures brought to bear he removed his "Welcome To The Zoo" idiotic ode to the party culture from Youtube, even after receiving hundreds of thousands of hits.
And Peter Clark and Emmerson Rutkowski went AWOL from the party scene, even after (or maybe especially after) a fawning self serving review in the King of Juvenile, "Bar Stool Sports."
Sure bad behavior sells. Some of you ardent readers will note my highest monthy readership of all time (over 130,000 hits) occured in March when I covered the Blarney Blowout from the opening bell.
The Gazette of course was fiddling while Rome burned:
This year’s Blarney Blowout revelers well-behaved in #Amherst | http://t.co/vbA6g9aKxs #westernma
— GazetteNET (@gazettenet) March 11, 2013
So I have no doubt that a "reality show" highlighting obnoxious childish student behavior will sell. Big time.
Especially when promoted by Hollywood PR types who specialize in selling their souls.
Larry- do you have the actual link to this Craigslist post? It's nuts. Thanks, Jim
ReplyDeleteHey Jim,
ReplyDeleteI did, but they already deleted it from Craigslist. A good sign ... Maybe.
(That is why I took a screen shot of it while still active and published that as well at the bottom of the post.)
These type of ads spring up all over the place. It's always one of two things. One, it's a bunch of wannabe TV producers trying to sell an idea. Business doesn't work that way but it sure doesn't stop people. Or it's sleazeballs looking for another way to find girls and guys to do web sex crap. Get 'em in the door, entice them with some cash and take your clothes off. Perfect for this generation of entitled, live off everyone's money, no-scruples society.
ReplyDeleteThe fact that your blog and a few others have already noted it (http://bostinno.streetwise.co/2013/08/06/craigslist-ad-for-amherst-reality-tv-show-casting/) causing it to be removed makes me think it's the latter of the two options.
And don't confuse the Princeton Review's winners with reality.
ReplyDeleteThey base the results on a student questionnaire concerning the use of alcohol and/or drugs, hours of study each day, and the popularity of the Greek system at that school. Amherst wins two out of three of those. They note that a big part of winning is a large Greek culture and serious sports mentality so Amherst isn't up there but don't let drugs/alcohol use or lack of study seem like it's not top of the list.
WIth eleven places to buy hard liquor in a 4 square mile radius of the school, UMASS has plenty of places to fill up.