sand box

Dear Duke Student Government, Coach David Cutcliffe and Duke Football,

You just got rickrolled.

Urban Dictionary, recess' reference material of choice, defines being rickrolled thusly: "To be tricked by a forum troll into clicking on a Rick Astley music video." What's a forum troll, you ask? Excellent question; fortunately, it doesn't matter. There are no such things in real life, and real life is the wonderful forum in which Duke's own rickrolling took place. You see, DSG decided to allow students to pick the football team's theme song for the year, a method of decision-making so frightening that the country's founding fathers went through a great deal of trouble to make sure it could never be used to pick the chief executive.

Moral of this story: If the president were elected by popular vote, Rick Astley would win. Every time.

But I digress. DSG compiled a list of student favorites, populated by such old-school gems as "Don't Stop Believing," "Runnin' with the Devil" and a Petey Pablo song (which received 12 votes, further casting doubt on the viability of this process). And "Never Gonna Give You Up," Rick Astley's classic paean to not makin' you cry and not sayin' goodbye, came out on top. This isn't the first instance of rickrolling on a grand scale, however: Radiohead rickrolled millions last year with a fake countdown to information concerning their new album, and CNN was rickrolled by wily sign-holding Washington University students this year during their live broadcast of the presidential debate. But really, this takes the art to a whole new level.

Further analysis of the list of song nominees reveals even more surprises. If the vote distribution were to accurately reflect the popularity of certain songs on campus, one would expect 117 percent of votes to have been cast for T.I., spread out evenly between "Live Your Life" and "Whatever You Like." Soulja Boy wasn't even an option, which is a little bit like a Clinton not being a candidate. Katy Perry's absence is irrefutable evidence of God's existence, and a strong majority of the songs are from the '80s or earlier, which is just lame. Unfortunately, DSG's failure to at least give Kanye West some votes is certain proof that this contest was actually a farce. Without proper representation for Kanye, recess cannot possibly condone this contest as fair and balanced, and no doubt there are investigations already ongoing as to the deceit that went into this "election."

Duke will be reminded of the rickrolling at every home game, every time this absurd (yet, strangely brilliant) song blares through Wallace Wade's speakers. While Coach Cutcliffe has taken large strides towards building a program that's never gonna give you up and never gonna let you down, it remains to be seen how having a theme song sung by an individual who wears 100-percent denim outfits may affect the team's play.

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