We are deeply saddened that we missed a time when Foucault influenced your in-class development while Ashton Kutcher simultaneously influenced your night-life decisions! Who is the hot star now? What is the song of the moment that makes it socially acceptable to grind your genitals on the girl from Hitchcock? Is it still Natty Ice you awkwardly clutch in the corner of social dorm parties, dipping into the drinking pool for the first of many times to come? We miss you Amherst, we really do.
We write from the "real world." Class of 2005, beware! Graduation will unleash you into a sterile workplace where co-workers are eager to use the verb "spearheaded." But, enough about us. Rumor has it that Amherst's embargo on "lower-brow" laughter will soon be lifted, and we write to support the re-emergence of the edgy Hamster, Amherst's once vastly popular journal of "satirical and social thought."
The journal had its funding revoked last year after lampooning an Amherst student who embezzled $12,000 from The Amherst Student. Just a few semesters ago, The Hamster reigned as the most popular student publication at the College. As much as The Hamster was loved, it was also feared and despised. Feared by students hoping not to fall victim to The Hamster's omniscient eye and dexterous pen. Despised by a handful of pompous faculty members, whose unruly eyebrows hint at Ivy League pasts, and whose lambskin degrees prefer haughty chuckles over cacophonous cackles.
The Hamster at its best was spit-out-your-baked-cod funny, and at its worst, more forced than a "spontaneous" John Kerry football pass. Funny or not, it was always offensive, and the offensiveness at times came across as "crude." The perceived "crudeness" left many at our fine College feeling that we weren't living up to the rich, lofty history of Amherst. Many hoped for grander, subtler humor, on par with what they imagined emanates from Harvard and Yale.
Yet, those yearning to uphold the Amherst facade see only what the admissions guidebook tells them to see: a bustling academic community brimming with prodigious 19-year-olds. They ignore the licentious 19 year-olds whose priorities shift as soon as class ends. Amherst's open curriculum is closed to ideas it deems "crude," even if the College's social reality itself is "crude." Sorry Professor Mehta, we learned more about human nature on a Saturday night in Crossett basement than in the first two hundred pages of Hobbes' Leviathan.
To the faculty and students who idealistically long for a stuffy, snooty humor publication: get over yourselves. The kids at Harvard and Yale aren't as insecure as the kids at Amherst. They have the name brand to fortify their intellectual confidence. That confidence gives them the freedom to laugh at what's funny, not just what's funny and intellectually stimulating and above the "UMasses."
We beg Amherst to step off of its elitist pedestal because it screams insecurity to those beyond our liberal arts bubble. We urge you to recognize the importance of a satirical and humorous publication. Without satire and without various depths to that satire, a liberal arts campus can become way too full of far too little.
Elitists prefer "funny HAR HAR," to "funny HA HA." Faculty members uphold this distinction by sitting uncomfortably close to their framed Ph.D. degrees. Students uphold it by making attentive, thinking faces while sitting in class. The foolish "HAR HAR" versus "HA HA" distinction implodes when we look at our current cultural terrain.
A New Yorker article by John Seabrook rejects "highbrow" and "lowbrow" as "rigid, obsolete categories that have been superceded by a new amalgam called 'Nobrow.'" Stanford professor Geoffrey Nunberg writes that "Nobrow is the creation of the high-powered cultural marketing that gives us blockbuster museum shows, music megastores and crossover bestsellers." Pop culture prevents us from easily distinguishing between "highbrow" and "lowbrow." John Kerry appears on Meet the Press with Tim Russert yet equally resonates when he appears on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. In this Internet age, artistic creations are immediately disposable and pushed aside by the next big thing of the moment. Idolized Van Gogh paintings that once adorned walls of famous museums now reside on faces of Capital One credit cards. No source remains sacred and only in the aloof world of academia does high culture perpetuate.
As much as The Hamster has been loved, it's been quickly thrown into the now obsolete category of "lowbrow," because it includes a healthy handful of body humor articles alongside its political attacks and social commentary. "Crude" doesn't mean dumb. And this is far from a plea for intellectual recognition, because believe us, The Hamster's founders and family members still flash that "Louisiana Purchase grin" every time we mention Amherst (during our weekly family visits at the jail). Still, we'll say it again. "Crude" doesn't mean dumb. Offensive doesn't mean bad.
We appeal to you to recognize "Nobrow," a concept that reflects our present-day culture. We urge the pompous among us to open their minds and wallets for The Hamster and future student efforts seeking to stir the pot. This isn't melodrama, friends. When you set boundaries on creativity, you hold yourself captive.
The Hamster is in the best hands that it has ever been. Hands that have played an active role in The Hamster since its inception. Hands that WILL raise the bar. Hands capable of grazing the "highbrow" threshold of the pompous few, but hands that will never sacrifice "funny HA HA" for the archaic and pathetic "funny HAR HAR."
Current editor-in-chief Aparna Nancherla '05 is one of the most talented people that we encountered at Amherst. Thirty years from now, whatever she is doing, she will be among the best of the best to come from Amherst, influencing the world and creating something that makes a significant impact on those around her. We'll bet our brows on it.