PrincetonFML, FYL

Instead of paying attention to perhaps-pertinent material or hopefully unimportant slides, I passed my time scrolling through the hundreds of posts whining about grade deflation, JPs, theses, quartiles and smelly vaginas, hoping to find the occasional knee-slapper or the elusive “Anna.” The noteworthy posts were as rare as first-round Colonial sign-ins, but that made PrincetonFML all the more fun — it was the satisfaction of finding the gem among the swaths of patheticness that brought me those little, evanescent bits of satisfaction that we all crave.

As I continued to scroll, I realized that the malcontent had proliferated, from the usual “-19”-rated posts to new, virulent attacks on others’ celebratory MLIGs. The “I finished my thesis proposal, MLIG” post became the new staging ground for the immediate “tool” comment, which would instantly receive the “+1” reply. Given, however, that thesis and JP deadlines were looming, I figured that the commenters were venting impulsively, and that the anger would subside. After all, the site was designed to be a bit downcast, even if one could argue that it had so many visitors that it was the de facto voice of Princeton student opinion.

But the sea of vitriol continued to rise to nearly suffocating levels. If we weren’t so glum, why would we allow the trolls and the malcontent few to dominate the rest of us? If we weren’t all so unhappy with our lives, why were so few of us protecting the brave souls who posted at 4 a.m., celebrating the completion of the 20-page paper? I started to believe that every public display of happiness had now become taboo, as if we were a school so miserable that happiness was to be repressed in favor of a facade of glum. We were, it seemed, a school of masochist sadists — taking some bizarre, perverse pride in both our own misery, and our ability to impose this misery on our peers.

When I came upon one of the happiest posts I had ever seen —“I’m so lucky I go to Princeton. MLIG,” — I expected a vicious first response. Yet inasmuch as I had acclimated myself to the hostility of many of the commenters on PrincetonFML, the spirit of the first comment shocked me: “What’s so lucky about being here when half of us are as miserable as hell?”

I struggled with this comment. I simply couldn’t understand why one would dislike this school so much. Materially, I thought that we had it all: the campus, the Street, the friends, Late Meal and certainly the wealthy school; all that we didn’t have were inflated grades. And more spiritually, it didn’t seem as if Princeton students were any less miserable than students of any other campus outside of PrincetonFML; by many accounts, we were far happier than those of many other schools.

Confused, I decided I would make a weak attempt at a rebuttal. In the FML posting box, I typed “PrincetonFML, FYL.” My cursor hovered over the “Submit” button, when I decided to check that post once more.

The commenters continued their disparaging remarks, but this time, they targeted them at that first comment. Moreover, the post boasted a thumbs-up rating of over 200, one of the highest ratings I had ever seen for any PrincetonFML post. One commenter responded to the initial comment very simply: “I think the +1/-1’s demonstrate how wrong you are.” Others praised our campus, our endowment, our laundry and our unmatched student body. The first commenter may have been a troll or may have genuinely hated the school, but he was certainly in the minority — the loud minority. And for his morbid pleasure, he had chosen to invade PrincetonFML, spoiling it for those of us just looking for a little fun and a lot of procrastination.

Relieved, I went back to the FML posting box, highlighted my post, deleted it and closed out of the site’s window. But before I closed my laptop, I opened Safari again, returned to the Top Sites page and hovered over the PrincetonFML window once again. This time, though, I pressed delete.