Along with a photo of the pranksters — who’ve dubbed themselves the “Eastside Boys” — some flashing peace signs and sporting blazers with no shirts on underneath, was a list of their acts: shredding the posters and door tags made by their RA, stealing signs from construction sites, and stapling thongs and used condoms to the floor’s bulletin board.
One of them said they wanted to be “the floor that goes down in history.”
Sorry, boys, but you’re going to have to try a little harder. If anyone goes down in Broward Hall history, it’s going to be the guy responsible for the drunkenly-pooping-in-the-oven incident of the 2011-12 academic year.
No criminal action was reported in connection to the gang — just a bunch of obnoxious, unoriginal, low-grade shenanigans.
On the surface, the incident with the Eastside Boys — which is impossible to write without cringing, for the record — may smack of National Lampoon’s “Animal House.” They seem similar at first: a group of raucous college guys behaving badly with no regard of consequences, cost to the university or the sanity of those around them.
However, upon closer inspection, the freshmen of Broward Hall and the men of Delta couldn’t be more different.
“Animal House,” like many other National Lampoon movies and, years later, movies from the 1980s by directors such as John Hughes, emphasized a difference between the wealthy, stodgy types in the fictional university’s administration and the rebellious, uncouth members of the Delta fraternity. When John Belushi and co. acted out, it was a calculated effort to undermine the stuffy, old-fashioned reign of authority the snooty Omegas and the university’s evil president held.
But trashing a dorm with your bros simply because you find it funny? Not so cool.
Chalk it up to youthful naiveté: The boys quoted in the article were all fresh-faced 18-year-olds, blissfully unaware that in this age, incidents like this don’t fade away after the security cameras are installed and the slaps on the wrists are administered.
As veterans of the residence halls, we are asking the — ugh, one more time — Eastside Boys to cool it. The RAs and other residence hall staff members aren’t paid enough to deal with your childish games. We’re happy to hear that fraternity recruitment has hindered your pranking, but the fact that your stupidity culminated in the installment of security cameras is disheartening nonetheless.
We get that you’re away from mom’s watchful eye, but remember: You’re living in a veritable ant farm with hundreds of other students in close proximity to you. One of the lessons you’ll learn in college, aside from time management and how to mitigate hangovers, is how to be decent human beings. Stapling your used condoms to the community bulletin board for all to see doesn’t constitute decent human behavior.
A version of this editorial ran on page 6 on 10/23/2013 under the headline "Re: Broward Hall — Pranksters are no ‘Animal House’"
