Like most DePauw University students, a weekend filled with fun is usually capped off with a Sunday filled with napping, football, and the illusion that any work will be accomplished. This week was not particularly different, other than the fact that it was Halloween: the most misunderstood holiday of the year.
Pre-puberty Halloween is a pedal-to-the-medal race to see how many fun-sized candy bars you can collect and then consumed in a four-hour window. In college, on the other hand, it is a different type of race, but I will not say what the fun-sized candy bars are replaced with. So here it is, my assessment of Halloween at DePauw, described by our favorite means for procrastination: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Erodr.
The weekend began with ominous warnings from upperclassmen about what the first-years could expect. Most were entertaining including, "This is where we separate the men from the boys," or "This weekend is the freshmen's trial by fire." Bravo, upperclassmen, bravo. Others were predictions about what costumes should be expected, with the dominant theme being cats, cats and more cats. When cats became the vogue-domesticated animal for college age girls, I will never know, but you have to respect the loyalty.
I was fairly disappointed by my "case-study" of Facebook and Twitter, maybe because my state-school friends started celebrating Halloween on Monday, Oct. 28 (jealous) or maybe because Matthew Tully, Indianapolis Star columnist, has never dove into the subject of cats. Either way, these applications, the people I follow, and probably myself included, needed to step up our Halloween game.
The other two apps in question, Instagram and Erodr, were the sources of plenty of amusement over the weekend. While Instagram contained the prescribed number of #PicStitchs to keep the creative juices flowing, Erodr took a different route to liven up the holiday. The Erodr costume contest was an entertaining way to see the most creative costumes DePauw students were able to think up. Shout out to first-year Nate Conviser, senior Casey Devlin and sophomore Matt Costakis for their particularly clever and lucrative ideas.
The most exciting and entertaining moments over the weekend belonged unquestionably to Erodr. The community stream produced its fair share of pictures of sweaty freshmen finding love in a hopeless place: the fraternity basement. Stay classy, first-years. While this may seem a little invasive, it did not disappoint in terms of entertainment, which seems to be the entire purpose of the app.
Then came the wave, and I do not think it is inaccurate to call the anticipation leading up to the Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity Sports House a wave. It seemed like the entire day on Saturday, regardless of which social media site you looked at was dominated by a "Sports" theme. From the pictures and my experience there, it certainly did not disappoint. By the way, who ever thought up the idea of combining a college party and an inflatable jousting ring should have a statue commissioned in their honor.
While most of what I have written may come off as things the University might not want widely publicized, there were definitely bright spots to the weekend. As a senior, nothing makes me happier than seeing positivity towards the entirety of the greek system. Everyone that held an event this weekend was met with an outpour of support by a variety of members of the DePauw community. We should keep that up, because it is what makes DePauw and our greek system so special.
More importantly, the alliance made between DePauw and Wabash College to join the Freedom Indiana Coalition in opposition to a state constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage made my weekend pretty great. I am proud of DePauw, even when we get a little wild, we come out on the right side of history. Kudos.
- Small is a senior from Zionsville, Ind. doublemajoring in political science and history.