Spring Fling 2016: A Call To Action

Dear fellow Quakers,

During Fling, we are finally free. Free to engage in drunken debauchery on Beige block. Free to soak up some off-key tunes at the Quad. Free to eat fried oreos with abandon. Essentially, life during the 36ish (or 48! Or 72!) hours of Fling is liberated and open in a way that is diametrically opposed to the closed, scheduled, and exclusive way we live the rest of our weekends at Penn.

But over the past few years, this has changed. The change has crept up on us slowly but surely, like a squirrel coming to attack your lunch. The Bureau of Liquor Control Enforcement starting sending NARCs to campus, pushing partiers towards wristband-only events and downtowns. Quad security started barring anyone from entering who doesn’t live in the building, making the Quad a less hospitable place to spend your afternoons. All of a sudden we had to know our Fling "rights," and practice saying, "Am I free to go?"

Over time, these small changes have become big changes. And now, people are paying $275 to go to a ratchet pool party downtown. These changes not only suck because we are college students eager to freely consume drugs and alcohol, although that’s part of it. They suck because Fling is supposed to be a joyous escape from what Penn is the rest of the year, which is too often a land of rejection and exclusivity. 

For many – we would venture to say most – people, Penn is an experience of getting accepted to your dream school only to be rejected again and again once you arrive. From a pre-NSO program. From frats/srats. From a nerdy club you really wanted to join. From that guy/gal who stopped texting back. From senior societies. From our post about senior societies. From internships. Even from Under the Button, perhaps (thanks for still reading us!).

It’s true that rejection is a part of life. But so many of the rejections we face at Penn are imposed by us and by our own culture of desperate exclusivity. It’s ridiculous to interview for tutoring clubs, but this is the way life is at Penn.

Except for Fling, when barriers are supposed to be knocked down for one glorious weekend when we all let our better, drunker angels take center stage. We become one amorphous blob of student body, pretending we know the lyrics to a single song by the Fling opener as we try not to vom Allegro's mac and cheese. But now, Fling has reverted to the status of any weekend at Penn, full of events with different cliques and grossly expensive parties. We divide ourselves into neat cross-sections. Some people are in and some people are out.

So Fling has changed. But we aren’t just writing this to complain (although it is what we’re best at). We can take Fling back! Here’s how:  

Do you have rich parents that would enable you to buy a $300 pool party ticket? Realize that someone will inevitably poop in the pool and you will be too drunk to even remember it. So take that money and throw a pregame. Invite more people than can rationally fit into your house. And when that girl that you hate shows up, welcome her with open arms. 

Are you a newly initiated frat brother, high off the power that this fundamentally flawed but fundamentally fun Greek system has bestowed upon you? Let that guy into your party even though he showed up with zero girls and knows zero brothers. He’s probably not a narc (We hope...or you’re getting arrested lol). 

Are you just a regular ole Penn student? Buy that struggling dude in line behind you at Allegros a slice. Hug a random person at the Chance concert. Make out with someone who is a li'l uglier than you normally would! It's all in the spirit of Fling. 

Are you an incoming freshman reading this and running for the hills, frantically calling Brown to see if you can take back your application withdrawal? Don’t. Penn is a cool place with cool people and is mostly pretty fun. And when you get here, you can start a club that rejects no one. You can change all of it, because Penn is what we make of it. 

So let’s make this Fling the best one yet.

UTB