Full text of senior Bradford Lyman's speech

Presented unedited, as received from Lyman.

Recently, I was talking to my father about Princeton. Having graduated more than thirty-five years ago from the esteemed Halls of Nassau, he was curious about my Princeton experience.

"Bradford," he said "so what has changed since I went here, you know, besides the fact that there are women, and that Shirley Tiggleman?"

And I thought about it. What captures the heart of the students sentiments on campus right now? It wasn't long before I realized that discovering what has changed about Princeton can be found one place, and one place alone: www.TheFacebook.com — the website that has been sweeping across campus like a computer born Ugg boot.

TheFacebook.com has grown into more than just a user-friendly way of stalking that girl from the street. In fact, it's become a fairly significant indicator of our passions, interests, political views, and how we feel about the most divisive issue facing this campus today: popped collars.

At first I was excited because the website seemed exclusive. A person could only be a member of TheFacebook.com if he or she went to Princeton or any of a small number of highly regarded Princeton safety schools. Now every Tom, Dick, Harry, and South Dakota College of Mining and Technology seems to have their own page.

And if my father actually knew how to use the Internet, he would find the statistics staggering. 769 members of the Class of 2005 have Facebook.com profiles that list everything from our hometowns to whether or not we went to a public school, bitch. At a school where dating is more rare than an American born Engineering Grad Student, it's nice to know that we've replaced the first date with an easy to access website.

There's a famous Japanese proverb that states, "When the character of a man is not clear, look at his friends." And with TheFacebook.com, we can also organize ourselves into more than just friends but 5000 and counting self-created "groups."

Sure, there are large numbers of people in the Triangle Club group, Daily Princetonian group, Colonial Club group. But we've now assembled ourselves into the most specific and sometimes peculiar of categories.

But the simple fact remains: we can tell a lot about the collective class of 2005 by taking a hard look at the groups we choose to join.

For instance, after a few minutes on TheFacebook.com, my father would realize that we are totally obsessed with what we wear. But more specifically, with what we don't wear. A staggering number of us, 529 in fact, are against popped collars, which begs the question, who is really for popped collars? Could all this animosity be a reaction to the mere 35 members of the Princetonians For Popped Collars, or even the 31 members of Princetonians Against Princetonians Against Popped Collars.

As Princetonians, we also love self-aggrandizement. There are 51 people with their own fan club of some sort. And if we want to get really Meta for a minute, Ben Kingsley has 39 people in his fan club, but his fan club has a fan club with 10 members total. But this idolatry doesn't even come close to Tim Churchill for President, with a whopping 109 members. Which I think is a good start. After all, we haven't had a US President since Woodrow Wilson. And we certainly can't let Yale keep running the show.

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My father would be the first to tell you that if there's one thing we Princetonians like doing, it's flexing our wit with clever names. If you play football, you're a Footballer. If you're from California, you're from the Californ-I-A Club. And if you're in a bad place, you can always join the group that goes by the title, I PDFed Life And I Got A D.

Although my father may think that Princeton kids haven't had a reason to rebel since the 60s, TheFacebook.com will reassure him that modern Princetonians are still willing to protest. In fact, we have 36 groups "Against" something, some notable ones being; Princeton Students Against Quintiles People Against Students Talking Directly to the Professor in the Middle of a 300 Person Lecture, and People Against Pi Phi's Taking Your Laundry Out of the Dryer before its Done.

In all seriousness, TheFacebook.com puts what has defined Princeton on display, both in my father's time and my own: the diversity of our passions, our pleasures and our pursuits. We will never experience another place like it.

And should he log on to The Facebook, my father will be relieved to see the existence of one Club that would've been around, even in his day; titled simply, Harvard Sucks.