Awww, costumes used to be so cute...
Halloween at Northwestern is a magical experience, when the female undergrad population is magically transformed from Harvard rejects into sexy cheerleaders, sexy members of the Greek pantheon, sexy animals — even sexy Abraham Lincoln and John Wilkes Booth — while the guys are left to dress up as “writers” and try to get sexy Hilary Clinton’s phone number. But considering Northwestern’s proud tradition of outlandishly offensive Halloween costumes, it seemed necessary to take a brief moment to warn the student body of ten potential costumes that might not fit with the spirit of the holiday.*
10. Tim Pawlenty’s Presidential Campaign
The reanimated dead have always held a special place in American culture. That’s why zombies and Barbara Walters are still so popular today. But as cool as a zombie costume can be for Halloween, Tim Pawlenty’s presidential aspirations just aren’t such a good idea to bring back to life in costume form. Besides, nobody would even know your name.
Sir Twattingworth and Ross Packingham on a typical Wednesday night
Unless you’re going to a party with a “heinous” theme, you should probably avoid dressing up as Sir Edward Twattingworth III. As much as we’d love to see our fans don Twattingworth’s characteristic Ed Hardy t-shirt, camouflage parachute pants, gold chains, and bowler hat, we don’t want anybody to get mistaken for an ETHS sophomore and thrown out of a frat basement. If you want to show your support for Sir Twattingworth, we suggest dressing up as his betrothed to be, Pippa Middleton.
8. Dan Persa’s Achilles Tendon
Too soon, asshole. That broken tendon was more heartbreaking to the NU student population than the closing of Pomegranate, and more disappointing than watching a Northwestern secondary in pass protection. Somebody’s going to sack you for a loss like Kain Colter facing the blitz.
The good thing about the Qaddafi regime: nobody was bold enough to make the mistake of offering Almond Joys for Halloween
This should be a pretty easy costume to cobble together. All you really need is to grow out some poor facial hair (easy enough for most Northwestern students), borrow your grandpa’s old sunglasses, and commit numerous crimes against humanity (start by playing Nickelback at every party you attend). The only drawback: that hipster in the Mubarak costume insisting that he was into Arab regimes before it was cool.
6. Fucksaw
Hilarious as this might still be, nobody wants to party with a dude wearing a dildo on his head. Alternative costume idea: dress as Professor J. Michael Bailey. All this requires is making incendiary comments about the basis of homosexuality, violating numerous ethical standards about psychology research, and showing everybody you meet foot fetish videos.
AHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!
For somebody who already looked like a cross between a zombified Helena Bonham Carter and a New Orleans streetwalker while she was living, Ms. Winehouse might not be the best choice for this Halloween. Something about “insensitivity” might come up throughout the course of the night. Unless, of course, you use her death from alcohol poisoning as a public service announcement about the danger of imbibing, in which case your costume might be ill-advised for other reasons.
4. Chet Haze
This might seem brilliant at first, but upon further examination, dressing up as a talentless self-obsessed douche might not be a great idea. Especially as the odds of both you and Chet wearing the same black dago-t to a party are much higher on Halloween.
3. The 1%
This one just hits a little close to home. Seeing as many Northwestern students actually occupy the 1%, it can be kind of hard to protest inequality at an elite institution. Besides, it’s much easier and enjoyable to occupy The Keg than it is to stand outside of Kellogg in the Chicago fall to protest the future I-bankers of America.
2. Herman Cain
Side-stepping the whole potential “blackface” thing, this costume would probably involve a “9-9-9” Plan (i.e. doing 9 shots, getting 9 orders of chicken fries from BK, and urinating on nine university buildings), wearing a Godfather’s Pizza box instead of pants, and running for positions you are under-qualified for.
Partner costume: Casey Anthony before and after
Tempting, but don’t. Just don’t.
Sherman Ave 
5 Ways Northwestern Can Become More Popular Than Harvard
5 SepWe can take these fuckers
According to Yahoo, Northwestern University is the second-most discussed university on the Internet, behind Harvard. First of all, I think that I speak on behalf of most Americans when I proclaim: “Fuck Harvard.” More importantly, however, WE NEED TO PASS THEM AND BECOME THE MOST POPULAR SCHOOL. This year, we managed a fair amount of publicity – when there weren’t exhibitionists fucksawing each other in an after-class demonstration, our university’s president was in Libya trying to capture Qaddafi. Who does Willie the Wildcat have to blow for us to be more discussed than Harvard? The following list presents some steps that can be taken to make Northwestern the collegiate Regina George.
He's just sitting out to lure our opponents into a false sense of security
5. Persa for Heisman
Northwestern quarterback and pimp-daddy Dan Persa, who will be a senior this year, is in the running for the Heisman Trophy. If he were to magically win, it would be a huge boost to our school’s publicity, but unfortunately, the odds are stacked against him. For one thing, he didn’t play in the season opener. So…yeah. Heisman winners generally need to have strong Achilles tendons, and as every morally devastated Northwestern sports fan knows, Persa injured his Achilles late last season when he was celebrating the incalculable cockslap he had just personally administered to the University of Iowa. But hopefully by our next game, PersaStrong will be back in to replace ColterMeh, thus reestablishing his claim to Heisman glory. Additionally, it would be ideal if the Cardiac Cats didn’t choke at the end of the season and then get demolished in the fucking TicketCity Bowl.
If we can beat BC in football, sporcle should be easy
4. Boost Sporcle Rankings
As of the week of May 8-14, 2011, Northwestern sits at a mediocre 8th place in the Sporcle college rankings, falling behind such shitpillows as Notre Dame and University of Illinois. It goes without saying that climbing the ranks of nerdiness would certainly get our name out there on the Internet. So I implore you, dear Wildcats, to Sporcle like no one’s watching. If this means staying up an extra half-hour every night to brush up on the Top 200 Harry Potter characters, then go for it. If this means studying Battles A to Z between classes, then go for it. If this means going for a new time record in Flags of the World every time you are flagrantly intoxicated, then contact me immediately, because we are probably soulmates.
Luckily for us, most kids here are already as awkward as Jesse Eisenburg
3. Start a Social Network
Presumably, one of the reasons Harvard was so popular this year was because of their recent publicity in “The Social Network,” the movie that recounts the story of Facebook founder and Harvard dropout Mark Zuckerberg. If a similar episode could transpire at Northwestern, our popularity would skyrocket, which begs the question: What could a new social network offer to distinguish itself from Facebook?
Bachmann lecturing on "money things"
2. Hire a Questionable Politician to Teach a Questionable Class
A surefire way to become more discussed on the Internet is to hire a famous politician as a lecturer. Ideally, this person will create lots of controversy on the interwebz, so the class they teach should be something that isn’t necessarily an area of expertise to maximize ironic effect. Here are some ideas:
It packs one hell of a discharge
1. Something Greater Than The Fucksaw
One event that did score international publicity for Northwestern this year was the fucksaw – a motorized dildo used in an after-class demonstration for a Human Sexuality course. So how do we top the fucksaw? We make something stronger. What I propose is a contraption I call the “No-Mercy Nuclear Vibrating Device,” or the “Nukevibe” for short. Developed in collaboration with Northwestern’s nuclear science department, the Nukevibe uses the splitting of atoms to create astronomical amounts of energy – energy that is channeled directly to the G-spot. The device has been tested at FermiLab, and all test subjects thus far have died instantly from a pleasure overdose. However, once the device is perfected, there is no doubt that scientific notation will be needed to indicate the rate of orgasms per minute. Some after-class demonstration that’ll be.
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