Stress @ Oberlin
In a cost-cutting measure of frugal genius the marketing department at Oberline University has started using its own videography students to make short promotional videos. Most of them received a collective internet reaction of “big whoop” but their most recent effort has caused a little bit of a stir in the blogosphere… something like the proverbial butterfly who flaps its wings in the Amazon and causes Donald Trump to vomit in New York… or something like that.
The video interviews students about stress and how they cope. And the answer seems to be “pretty badly”. A tactic for getting through their midterms that appears time and time again in the video is sleeping for absurdly short periods. There is an element of one-upmanship in this aspect as students compete on how little sleep they can get as if this is indicative of their competence level.
One student takes us through his nutritional breakfast which seems well-thought out and healthy. Sweet Potato for breakfast is a new one for me, but hey, whatever floats your boat. He looses marks for including bacon. As some Hindu guru said, “if you put death into your body, you will give out death” – maybe that is the cause of his stress.
The video could be a marketing aid for the “First World Problems” meme. For example, “my elite education is making me loose sleep” or “my super expensive university is making me work hard”.
The video throws up some unlikely stars. Take, for example, “Todd” who is a Politics major with Entrepreneurial studies. He really should be teaching a class in “Unjustified Smugness”. He is in the video for a criminally short space of time and is the only guy wearing a suit as if he thought to himself, “gosh I’d better look like the dashing entreprenuer I am”. The effect was lessened somewhat by the fact he was shot infront of those grotty wardrobes you get in university accomodation. Another highlight was the pottymouthed but unnamed student who reeled-off a long list of incomplete projects and exams in a speech peppered with expletives. A man after my own heartd. And then there is Heather, the video’s dubious eye-candy whose Bambi-eyes and bodacious dance moves make are another unexpected highlight.
The students in the video are completely unrecognizable to the people I knew in my college days (all of five long years ago). These guys are all clean-cut, disciplined and achievement-orientated. They stand in contrast to the scraggly collection of wasterals I found myself with back in the day. We bore more of a resemblance to Fagin’s crew of pickpockets than the perfectly-haired students of stress in the video.
Anyway, without further ado, here it is:
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