5 Ways Northwestern Can Become More Popular Than Harvard

We 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?

• A rating system that would allow you to estimate the level of collective inebriation in photo albums
• The ability to give someone a 3-day timeout if they’re either being too atrocious (sorry Sir Edward Twattingworth III) or inviting you to play Farmville
• A “Shut the fuck up you obnoxious angsty slutbitch” button
• A regulation system that only allows your relatives to send you a friend request if they are guaranteed to make inappropriate and/or oblivious comments on what you post

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:

• Hire Michele Bachmann to teach a course on Global Warming
• Hire Michele Bachmann to teach a course on anything
• Hire Christine O’Donnell to teach a Religious Studies class
• Hire John Kerry to teach an Acting class
• Hire John McCain to teach Human Sexuality
• Hire Dick Cheney to teach a course on Gun Safety
• Hire Nancy Pelosi and/or John Edwards to teach a course on Not Being Heinous
• Hire Ron Paul to teach a political science class

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.

Guess Who’s Back?

To be fair though, there were also a lot of overweight women wearing nothing but pasties.

Hello, Sherman Ave readers. Now, I know what you’re thinking: “Why hasn’t Sherman Ave written any articles in the past three months? How have I even made it this long without any new articles from Sherman Ave? Where did this maimed goat come from?” Well, fear not; our ever-victorious writing team is back for the summer of 2011 with more style and fervor than Lady Gaga at a gay pride parade (disclaimer: There were at least 80 or 90 Lady Gagas at Chicago’s gay pride parade). Yes, it was painful for us to take our hiatus, but spring quarter at Northwestern is a grueling journey, and the endless hours we spent studying and upholding Northwestern’s proud academic integrity made it kind of hard for us to be kick-ass journalists on the side.

But there’s no point in dwelling on the past. What matters is that we’re here now to thrust into you with our journalistic prowess. We’re more than prepared to insert our firm, powerful take on current events into your docile, yearning hands. So get ready, dearest audience, because in the words of the immortal pop culture icon Ke$ha, this summer “we goin’ hard, hard, hard, hard, hard, hard.”

Evanston in April

I think we can agree that you all deserve a recap of spring quarter at Northwestern University. Did I say spring quarter? What I meant was SWEET MOTHER OF ASS, WHY HASN’T IT WARMED UP YET quarter. Yes, the sultry skank of a temptress that is Chicago’s climate certainly slipped us a Rohypnol this year, keeping the weather consistently below 60°F. Oh, and in case you were wondering, that “F” doesn’t stand for “Fahrenheit”, it stands for “Fuck everyone and everything.” (Note: NOAA is currently trying to determine if there is a correlation between the cool climate and the absence of new Sherman Ave articles.) Fortunately, the weather did eventually warm up; Memorial Day was a gorgeous, sunny day with temperatures in the mid 80’s, and practically every single student spent the day enjoying the weather. If I had a nickel for every brutally awkward sunburn I saw the next day, I would be well on my way to paying for a single class at this unjustifiably expensive university.

I didn't fight a goddamn war for nothing, you know.

Speaking of classes at this unjustifiably expensive university, another hot topic of spring quarter was the cancellation of the Human Sexuality course for its use of a fucksaw (a word that should be making its way into the Oxford English Dictionary before too long) in a post-lecture demonstration. This puts me in a difficult place, because I really don’t like disagreeing with His Royal Highness Morton O. Schapiro (you may think I use the word “royal” sarcastically, but damn, the man loves his purple). However, I really don’t support the censorship of educational materials, and neither does the majority of the Northwestern student body. I don’t want to blow this out of proportion, but I know that our founding fathers would not have stood for the censorship of an entire field of study based solely on the use of a motorized dildo. Granted, they didn’t have motorized dildos back then, but they certainly had steam-powered ones.

Pre-gaming breakfast with a keg full of mimosa

As much as I’d like to picture Abigail Adams pleasuring herself with a sexual contraption, it’s more important to recount the highlight of spring quarter: Dillo Day. Dillo Day is a music festival at Northwestern that started in 1972, when six students from Texas decided it was necessary to honor the armadillo – an animal widely known for its keg stands, public urination, and drunken hook-ups. Waking up on the morning of Dillo is like waking up on Christmas; you know from the moment you open your eyes that your day will instantly be riddled with little treasures. Except on Christmas morning, those little treasures are wrapped gifts, whereas on Dillo, those little treasures are shots of Smirnoff that you’ll likely chase with a BK Breakfast Muffin. But that’s only the beginning of the day! The great thing about Dillo Day is that when you’re already drunkenly belting The Script at 8:45am, you have an entire day of unforeseeable events awaiting you. This year, we were lucky enough to have such musical artists as New Pornographers (a group I vaguely remember enjoying), Peter Bjorn and John (I don’t know, just Google them), and B.O.B. – a hip-hop artist whose talent is surpassed only by his douchebaggery, and most other people’s talent.

It’s difficult to give a valid account of Dillo Day, because Dillo Day experiences are like snowflakes; they are all unique in their own various ways, but ultimately, they all come together to form one giant clusterfuck that deeply frustrates the Evanston community.

After Dillo Day, we had ahead of us only a measly two weeks. That being said, it was a two weeks of final papers, final exams, final projects, final straws with TAs (I mean really, why the hell would a grad student studying political science be the TA for a Russian literature class?), and final goodbyes for the summer. And that was it! Now it’s time for a summer full of serenading you, our readers, with our brilliance. Prepare yourselves, because Sherman Ave is putting on its skin-tight leather pants and blasting Katy Perry’s “Firework”, and when that happens, God knows what will follow.

–Ross Packingham