Not a lot of people on campus really get what it’s like to be HoyaLink. Legally speaking, I am the third-oldest website in existence, right behind SovietSingles.com and AztecSwipe.gov. Oldies like me like to take it slow, you know? We move at a pace that makes us feel comfortable. Back in the day, you could send an email to a guy 100 miles away, drive to his house, take him out to dinner, develop a deep friendship with him, and open up a small business together before he received that email. Slow and steady. That’s just how I jive.
However, this week saw a serious threat to my way of life. Despite my contract with the administration explicitly stating that I can spend my remaining days rotting away in idleness, an insurmountable surge of student activism has destroyed any and all prospects of future indolence. This surge, my friends, is the opening of applications to serve in cabinet and staff positions in the Luther-Rohan GUSA administration.
Ever since Joe and Connor’s cabinet/staff application was released on me Tuesday, I’ve been racked with anxiety. A torpid digital pariah like myself can’t withstand such a burst of energy, and when people catch wind of this application’s release, it’s gonna blow up. I fear that Joe and Connor’s promise to make GUSA more inclusive and available to students will prove to be irresistible to the masses, and that the rare opportunity to become an active part of GUSA in a capacity that allows for autonomy and personal growth is going to push me to my limits. It’s like when a human works out vigorously for the first time in years and the chances of pulling something are really, really, really high. When you apply that logic to a website, well, who knows what’ll happen. Probably a puff of smoke and a blue screen of death—my death. Bottom line, this application’s going to crash my servers. You overeager Madeleine Albrights are going to hunt me down and gut me like a goddamn houndshark.
I know I’m a computer program and all, but I can’t even count the number of positions that Connor and Joe are offering. There are so many ways to get involved that just thinking about it is making me overheat. Throw me on the nearest funeral pyre, because my chip’s going to be fried! But really, things have changed a lot since I began hosting GUSA on me. Up until 15 years ago, the “Director of Social Media” was just Michael Dukakis with a flare gun. In fact, back when ol’ HoyaLink was your age, there was only one student association, GUSLA: The Georgetown University Society of Lincoln Assassinators. But now GUSA is breaking into exciting new territory, and Joe and Connor want you all to be a part of it.
Plain and simple, Joe and Connor are changing GUSA faster than HoyaLink can keep up. For the first time since secession, they’re making students realize that they can take student government into their own hands. Average students can take charge of the decisions that affect them, wrestle with important issues, and bring about measurable change.
This Luther-Rohan administration has got everyone on campus in a real tizzy. With all this talk of “engaging” the student body and upending politics as usual over the next year, my servers are filled with dread that students from all corners of campus might line up to work in their administration. This duo’s idyllic vision for a student body invested in the future of university just doesn’t sit well with my ramshackle hard drives. Please, Luther-Rohan, hear this old webpage’s plea: stop trying to establish a bottom-up approach to advocacy, stop encouraging every student at Georgetown to apply for a position on your staff and cabinet, and stop giving people who are passionate about specific issue areas the opportunity to represent the student body in an official capacity. And to students, whatever you do, don’t apply to the Luther-Rohan administration before the deadline of Tuesday, March 17 at 11:59 p.m. Don’t rise to the occasion and reach your fullest potential. Don’t crash me in this zero-sum game. Just let me decompose in peace.
Joe and Connor are juniors in the College.
