MLIP (My Life Is Princetonian)

I don’t understand the users on the website PrincetonFML.com. I was going to write a stirring column on PrincetonFML, portraying it in the same way that Fox News portrays the Tea Party Movement. It was going to be brilliant: I was going to demonstrate that PrincetonFML is composed of people who, lacking substantive complaints, only show how good life at Princeton is. Then in procrastinating on writing this column, I changed my mind: PrincetonFML was much worse, a wasteland composed of the scum of the Earth, malcontents who clearly did not belong to Princeton, judging by their atrocious grammar and frightfully lacking grasp of logic. When I had finally settled on how to attack the site’s more moronic posters, however, I started noticing the intelligent, well thought-out comments hiding in plain sight on each page. On the whole, I have concluded that PrincetonFML serves as a zeitgeist for our community.

Make no mistake about it: PrincetonFML has whiners and narcissists (and the occasional few with legitimate problems), but the posts paint a better-than-expected picture of Princeton and the strength of its community. What, after all, was the most posted issue in the past few weeks? The answer is Robot Unicorn Attack, a simple online video game. The music is fairly hypnotic, but not enough to keep people playing. Robot Unicorn Attack, however, represents more than a mere game: It’s a procrastination tool all of campus shares. It now has an acronym, RUA, that Princetonians are expected to know with as much familiarity as FML or P/D/F.

RUA is almost as bad as that wretched “Anna?” meme on PrincetonFML, whereby any embarrassing post is attributed to a single Anna. For the first few iterations, the sense that we all knew who did the nasty in the past-y was funny. After a few weeks of posts being answered with “Anna?” with the same unwavering determination, the joke ceased to be funny. The underlying truth of the “Anna?” meme is Princeton is a very close-knit community. After all, rumor has it that Anna began as a real person who lost a bet with (presumably not very good) friends, and some of the newer names appearing are unique enough to be recognizable as students.

Our third source of unity seems to be the fact that Princeton toilet paper makes sandpaper feel soft. At most places, toilet paper is probably fairly low on people’s list of priorities, next to affording the cost of four years of college. Here, our wealthy student body and generous financial aid go a long way in solving the latter problem; toilet paper dominates our complaints without disagreement. Meanwhile, in contrast to our lives of relative safety, some of our peer institutions have real problems in their local communities: Yale and Penn have street crime, while we have wiping issues.

The unity displayed through RUA, “Anna?” and toilet paper sharply contrasts with the diverse way in which the site’s users bemoan their sex lives. Every weekend features the obligatory “My neighbor is having loud sex” post, as if to say, “We resent those who are getting some.” Every weekday reverses that course, with an overabundance of lonely, desperate people, but a shortage of attractive and willing partners. A lot of people complain about being single, but based on the sheer number of complaints, the solution seems obvious. The whole situation suggests we cannot see beyond our own little social cliques, forming many Princeton Universities sharing one campus.

Bitter division also manifests itself in many contentious debates: A post celebrating the passage of the health care reform bill was soon followed by another post warning of the coming socialism. At Princeton, it seems that whether someone supports or opposes a particular stance, either on dorm etiquette or what constitutes a fun weekend, there will be fierce disagreement.

Ultimately, PrincetonFML still puzzles me. A couple of months ago, in-depth comments on FML posts were rare or nonexistant. Now an entire page might be filled with the comments on a single post. Day by day, as the popularity of this site grows, it seems to lurch back and forth between anti-tool, anti-intellectual hatred and mutual support and understanding. One day PrincetonFML is populated by those who hate the consulting and investment banking crowd that most undergraduates will eventually turn into, those who rue the day they accepted a place here and those who can’t wait to tell others about their angst. The next day, the majority of posters seem to be the very politics/economics/pre-med crowd that was bashed only the day before. The site’s users lead me one conclusion: There is no singular “Princeton,” and yet in other ways we seem to be united.

Based on PrincetonFML, it seems like the admission office has done a very good job finding a diverse community. So before telling people what a Princetonian is and is not, consider how schizophrenic our community seems, and ask: Who do we want to be as a community? Do we want to be brought together as a group by our FML memes or by our shared values?