Small Talk about the Weather Skyrockets to an All-Time High

Student researchers in the Anthropology department involved in a decades-old project called “Chitchat on the Hill” report that the number of mentions of the weather in casual conversation among acquaintances in the undergraduate body has peaked impressively in the past week, with an average of eleven conversations about the weather per person per day. This average marks an all-time record high for weather small talk, just barely edging out the surge of small talk about the weather following the Blizzard of ‘78. Though the social prowess of most Dartmouth students has never been particularly noteworthy, the trend of painfully boring small talk topics indicates that each year the student body becomes more and more noticeably crippled from social anxiety and general total ignorance of how to schmooze properly. Students who attended boarding schools are notable exceptions, but only to each other.

The project, which follows trends in conversation topics among Dartmouth undergrads, first began in 1957 as part of an effort to weed out secret communists, undercover blasphemers, closeted homosexuals, and nefarious underground supporters of coeducation at Dartmouth. The project continues to this day probably for similar reasons, but allegedly in order to maintain a record of the changing concerns of Dartmouth students throughout the generations. Though the weather has always been a popular topic of conversation among drunken one-night stands the morning after as well as prospective students at Dimensions, statistics show that never has it had sustained facetime comparable to its moment of glory in the past week. Several days of ceaseless rain followed by forty-eight solid hours of skin-soaking sunshine that felt like it was exuding straight out of James Wright’s smile dominated every conversation around campus.

The rapid rise in weather as a go-to awkward pause-filler is thought to be due to a confluence of a number of factors. The researchers determined the primary cause to be the epidemic of Facebook-stalking and general gossip-mongering that has taken over the campus in recent years, leading many to be uncertain of exactly how much they are “supposed” to know about other people’s lives or even how to have a conversation without moving their fingers in a typing motion.

Hannah Richards ’10, one of the student researchers involved in the project, explains other factors they pinpointed. “Well, obviously a lot of people are graduating this spring, so they want to make that last-ditch effort to polish up their GPA’s. Which means sooo many awkward office hours with literally nothing to bullshit about since we can’t actually bring ourselves to do any of the reading.” Another contributing factor is the high number of 09X hookups who had successive off-terms in the fall and winter, and now have no idea what the deal is exactly, as well as “the shockingly beautiful fucking glorious weather,” says Richards.

Other popular conversation topics included easy third classes, how hot girls look in dresses, secret societies, the unfortunately-named “Oink and Cluck soup” (what the fuck Collis?), and Matt Scott’s hair.