It’s officially ok for me to start dating Hilary Duff. In case you haven’t heard, she’s a college girl now, cramming in a few online classes in her free time through the Harvard Extension School. Unfortunately, when she made this announcement on her Web site a month ago, she chose to omit the word “Extension” and in doing so implied that she went to the “real” Harvard. And let me tell you, the Harvard kids were wicked pissed.
Within days, the editorial staff of “The Crimson,” Harvard’s school newspaper, published an “Oh no you didn’t, girl” editorial calling Duff a “loser and a chicken” because she wouldn’t man-up and “live la vida Harvard” like the rest of the students. There was more to the letter, and there were parentheses all over the place, but I decided to respond by inviting Hilary to take classes at the University of Massachusetts instead.
Dear Hilary,
The Crimson Editorial Staff has spoken. You – chicken. Them – cool. It’s really that simple. Withdraw from your (online) classes and pack your (virtual) bags, because everyone should care what their (substantially less famous) classmates think. Look, telling your fans you take classes at Harvard may not be a crime, but to these hardworking future pricks of America, it’s pretty damn close. This may not make sense to an innocent (amazingly talented) girl like yourself, so I’ll put this in terms you can understand.
Let’s say your boyfriend, 26-year-old Joel Madden of Good (luck convincing the Duffs you aren’t a pervert) Charlotte, decides to buy you some Louis Vuitton underwear. Later on you come to find out he bought them from a dude named Ray Ray manning a folding table in New York City who loves rainy days because “them umbrellas sell quicker than crack rock.”
Now, not only do you feel stupid for telling your friends that the Louis Vuitton bras all over your breasts were real, but you’ve alienated the owners of real Louis merchandise all over the country in the process. Just imagine how poor little Daisy (Jessica Simpson’s lapdog) feels when she takes a dump in her own personal LV carrier after your callous desecration of the brand name she trusts most. Now you know how the Harvard kids feel. I hope you’re proud of yourself.
It’s pretty evident that the Harvard student body doesn’t want you. Who cares? Welcome to the club. It’s called “Everybody,” and we meet at the bar (blatant Drew Carey rip-off).
Let’s not make a mountain out of a molehill. Almost 23,000 little dorks applied to Harvard this year. In terms of demographics, this crop includes a 28.3 percent increase in applications from African Americans, along with a 15.5 percent rise in applications from Hispanic Americans, and a shocking 47 percent increase in applications from National Spelling Bee participants with nervous ticks. Overall, 51 percent checked off the “Female” box (of these, 78 percent prefer Star Trek: Voyager over Star Trek: Deep Space Nine), and 49 percent checked off the “Male” box (of these, 91 percent have never touched a boob).
So what does this mean for the overwhelming majority of Harvard hopefuls? Over 20,000 of them received the dreaded thin envelope on March 31. Not that this is anything new. Each and every year, thousands of potential Harvard students are rejected (by members of the opposite sex), despite possessing numerous attributes that many (mathletes and present-day Urkels) would find attractive. This leaves you with one possible solution: screw Harvard and enroll at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.
Face it, Harvard is so yesterday. UMass is so today. Sure, we may not have newfangled video lecture technology, but that’s nothing a few autographed Lizzie McGuire posters couldn’t fix. Besides, we could care less if you endure the authentic ZooMass experience. It’s probably not in the best interests of your career to flash the crowd at Red Sox riots or get Taser’d by UMass Police at the annual Hobart Hoedown, anyway.
We (safety school rejects) are humble enough to appreciate each and every component of the Hilary Duff experience. Plus, you wouldn’t have to play fourteenth celebrity fiddle to lesser talents like Mira Sorvino and Tatyana Ali, who have Ivy League street creds merely because they kicked it on campus with the commoners. At UMass, you’d immediately vault Bill Cosby (did his undergrad at Temple anyway) and Kina from MTV’s “Road Rules” (much shorter in person) to become our primary celebrity spokesperson on all school-related matters.
You see, (blatant “Good Will Hunting” rip-off segue) the sad thing about a girl like you is in 50 years, you’re going to start doing some thinking on your own and you’re going to come up with the fact that there are two certainties in life: 1) You didn’t need to go to Harvard, and 2) You dropped way-too-many grand on an education you could have gotten for the price of an internet connection, an affordable rate-per-credit, and a few Busch Light 30-packs (standard for each student).
So that leaves just one question to be asked: What size hoodie do you wear?
Hope to see you soon,
Matt Brochu.
Matt Brochu is a Collegian columnist.