“Out of Control” blitzjack

Around midnight last night, an extremely creepy blitz was out to all of campus from an anonymous gmail account called “Expecto Petronus”.  The blitz accomplished the reasonably impressive feat of offending pretty much every constituency that received it.

Before I proceed, let me briefly indulge in the vanity of a self-call to note that, because the D has decided to hesitate (for propriety’s sake) to address this story until tomorrow’s issue, and because the Dunyun was unsure about whom in this situation it was appropriate to mock, and because the DFP editors may have masterminded the blitz in the first place, we, the Review, are the first to break this (slightly bizarre) story.

Anyway, the blitz that was sent out last night under the subject name ‘blitzjack’ consisted of a three stanza poem that spoke ominously of “surrendering what is most dear” and was composed primarily of heavy-handed lines such as “what they will take, you will never get back/your world that was white will now become black.”  

The poem’s creepy ambiguity was cleared up by a song that was attached to the blitz called “Out of Control”. The song itself was a weird auto-tuned female voice singing for about 6 minutes, and the chorus began “the Dartmouth frat boy will steal your soul…”  The song then told the story of a “frat boy”‘s assault on a freshman girl who was “out for the first time, quite enthused” and ended up waking up “with her underwear on the wrong way.”  Some other unfortunate lines include, “you can rape all the poor freshmen that you ever wanted to” and “why do we go to a place where humanity dies.”

Although (I suppose) the blitz’s intention appears to be condemning the un-appreciated prevalence of fraternity-related sexual assault at the College, it was considered extremely offensive to Shanel Ballo, this year’s Director of MAV (Mentors Against Violence), and Katie Lindsay, the Chair of the Student/Presidential Committee on Sexual Assault.  Both women are planning to release statements in the D article tomorrow condemning the blitz.  Many other women on campus are disgusted, some frightened, including one ’13 who said (making reference to the sender’s alias), “It’s like we really are Hogwarts and this is the Dark Arts descending on us!”  

The Inter-Fraternity Council has yet to release a statement, but “frat boys” seem to have emerged from this blitzquake relatively the same as always, ready to don the lax pinnie, p some p, and crush a couple brekkie bombs (no homo).

A similar incident happened last year, where signs saying “RAPISTS” were placed during the night on the front doors of a number of houses, including Psi U, KKK, and Alpha Delta Fraternity for Men.  While the signs definitely heightened heternormative attitudes on campus and destroyed months of progress towards improving campus gender relations, their nature was not digital and therefore not viral and thus the effect of the signs was relatively minimal.  Some evidence pointed towards the Sun God as their perpetrator, but these allegations were never confirmed.

While sexual assault remains a prominent issue on campus, frightening ’14s, females, and campus administrators with an alarming blitz was probably not the most effective way to address it.  We, at the Review, have cultivated much more tasteful ways to scandalize the College and make the soi-disant intellectuals in Parkhurst huff, puff, and shake their heads sadly.  For instance (a little soupçon of advice for future creeper/dissidents): consider picking a sinister alter-ego more scary and bohemian than “Expecto Petronus.”  And at the very least, for goodness sake, do your Harry Potter homework and spell ‘Patronus’ correctly, please.

     –Georgia Travers