Everyone who was just accepted into Duke is probably very interested in learning more about it so they can decide if this is the place for them. Particularly, they might be interested in the social scene. As these individuals will be receiving their acceptance letters in the coming days, I thought I would provide the THEODORE HUXTABLE'S PROTEGE's guide to partying at Duke. While Duke has a diverse social scene, with some events Sy-(Snootles)-and-the-Ramblin-(Root-Beer)-Gnome finds stimulating, it remains dominated by two types of parties. The first are a little bit unimaginative, a bit plain, a little bit vanilla, so let's call them the white parties. The other kind, well, for some reason everyone there has black hair, it seems, so we'll call those the black parties. The two sorts are markedly different, so it's important to delineate the two genres...
LOCATION
WP: The white parties are located in fraternity sections on "West Campus." This is important because there will be frat parties all over, so people can enter one, realize it sucks, then head off to another. Then, when you get on the bus to go back, someone from your dorm, who normally thinks they are too cool to talk to you, will be so drunk off his or her respective ass that they will talk to you, asking you the ubiquitous question, "So, where'd you go tonight?" in as "cool" a voice as possible. To which you can then answer, "Sigma Nu, Delta Sig, went to Pika for a little while," as if you were really cool because you went to multiple parties.
BP: The black parties are located in an actual Duke location like a gym or cafeteria, including the ever-hip Brodie Gymnasium. They will charge for entry, but fortunately, they will invariably bribe you to go in early, perhaps to combat the famous factor of CP time, so it really won't be a big problem.
POLICE PRESENCE
WP: Due to the staggering amount of lawbreaking at these events in the form of underage binge drinking, police will be nowhere in sight, as otherwise they might actually have to do something instead of just standing there with their arms folded, attempting to look like they know what they're doing.
BP: Because these parties reach the "Black Person Threshold," an obscure section of the police code takes effect, whereby cops must be on the scene with metal detectors whenever 30 or more black people are in the same general vicinity. I'm not exactly sure why, but don't try to get in one of these things with one of those old-school metal Pez dispensers. They're just waiting for hoods like you.
PARTYGOERS
WP: The party will be packed with members of the fraternity, friends of the fraternity and freshmen. Well, basically just freshmen. Whether trying to look cool by drinking a ton to make some early rush headway, or trying to look like a piece of meat to coerce some free alcohol, all freshmen have an agenda. Or else there's just nothing else to do at Duke and they're bored off their asses. The fraternity members, meanwhile, have no problem getting the said freshman drunk or treating the other said freshman like a piece of meat. So it works out well.
BP: While everyone's follicles may be the same, their residence certainly is not. Some of these individuals look none too familiar. Who are these people? Where the hell did they come form? Are they from Durham? Raleigh? Greensboro? What the f---? Why are they wearing clothes with names of other colleges on them? Are we invited to their school's parties too? Or are they just here because the Black Person Threshold affects both police conduct and gravity, attracting others of like hair color as well as police?
MUSIC
WP: One word: junior high. They might as well record the music from Hillside Intermediate's recent big 7th grade-only dance. Hell, why not just bring in Carson Daly to play the tunes? Maybe everyone will ogle over him like they do vacuums N*Sync and Britney Spears. The only songs that aren't on TRL everyday are the old social dance standbys, the songs you liked for the first 120 times you heard them, then lost affection for through the next 90. And then heard again 150 more times. "Brown-Eyed Girl," anyone? Anyone?
BP: DJs will play anything--as long as every single person heard in the song has ancestors from Africa. Oh, and the guitar has been banished for the night along with every Caucasian in the world. But who needs a guitar when you have that offensive synthesizer filling in? Fortunately, the overly loud bass and drums drown out the tasteless and outdated instrument. Sure, the melodies are all trash, but at least the speakers are big. And every once in a while they'll play a song about someone's ass, which is kind of cool, I guess.
ALCOHOL
WP: Those in attendance drink plenty of it, presumably so they don't realize what awful dancers they are. Apparently, buying twelvers of Bud wouldn't be worth avoiding the mere effort of finding rhythm, but buying twelvers of Natty Light to forgo itâ... that's a bargain!
BP: There's none anywhere at the parties themselves. Otherwise, the police might have to do something about the underage drinking, which would distract them from their real job--searching black people for concealed weapons.
AFTERMATH
WP: All the freshmen pile on the bus and act like obnoxious jerks. There is some spewing, but you can't blame the freshmen for all of it. Some of it is from the bus drivers, after they think how much they wish their kids could go to a place like Duke and then see a bunch of spoiled brats abusively piss away their opportunity.
BP: If you drive home instead of using the vomited Via Bus, you can go the whole night without seeing a single white person! Wow!
So there you go, I hope it's helpful. If it sounds like the Duke social scene really sucks... well, at least our basketball teams have been to five Final Fours in the last five years, huh? But really, it ain't too bad, and there's always the coffeehouse, as well as plenty of other cool gigs going on that don't get quite as much attention, plus there are plenty of fab scenes in the city of Durham, if you can dig the tough vibes of our temporary home city. Or, better yet, work to make social life at Duke more thrilling and more integrated by getting involved and starting your own whole new thing. And after all, after all, where it's at ain't really where you are, it's whom you're with. So come to Duke--we've got the Gross Chemistry Building.
THEODORE HUXTABLE'S PROTEGE would like to clarify that, yes, the photo is David the Gnome... He wanted it to be a gnome from the 1994 Anthony Michael Hall vehicle The Adventures of a Gnome Named Gnorm, in which Hall plays a studly cop, but his editors couldn't find one since nobody's ever heard of that stupid movie.
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