Stuff Dartmouth People Like #8: Giving Facebook Albums Titles that Start with the Term Name, and then Involve No Spaces Between the Following Words

Nobody knows how it started. Scholars maintain that the original founding of the trend has been lost to the sands of time. However it started, though, it’s something that Dartmouth people (read: girls) like. You know what I’m talking about. You take the name of the term (currently 11W) and then you give the Facebook album a title that starts with that letter, and then involves no spaces. For example, “11WhydidIleavemyflaskonthebus?” or “09(se)Xualfantasy”.

For the love of God, please make it stop. Every time I read one of those album titles, I want to rip the space bar off of my keyboard and then beat a few sorority sisters with it. Your space bar isn’t broken. Don’t make jokes that it is. Believe it or not, putting spaces between your words helps the reader to understand what you’re saying. And it doesn’t make what you’re saying any funnier. It really doesn’t. Stop.

But Dartmouth people do seem to love it. This trend has gone past Facebook album titles and also involves sign-offs on blitz, which seem to follow the same ridiculous logic. It somehow got started as a social norm that you shouldn’t put spaces between the words when you decide to sign off with something witty on a blitz, like “itbutireallyneedthreeforpong”. Fine, I understand that you don’t want to sign with your actual name. That would definitely be too weird. But you can’t put spaces between the words? Really?

I’m convinced that there’s a special afterlife reserved for people who name their Facebook albums like this. It’s not in Hell, and it’s not exactly in Purgatory, either. But it involves elements of both. There’s the punishment of Hell and the agonizing boredom of Purgatory, which makes you want to claw through your eyeballs, which is coincidentally exactly how I feel when I read an album title like that.

Present in this special afterlife are the following cast of characters:

First, there is the sophomore girl who has just finished her first term in a sorority. Things that you will find in this album, titled something like “10Finally”: pictures of scavenger hunts in wacky clothing, some sort of sisters-only night involving pong which is inexplicably different than every other night, and many pictures of people in nice outfits on a bus. Whoop dee doo, Basil.

Next up will be the sophomore summer album girl. This album will have many pictures at the Ledges, and certainly at least one or two of fraternity puppies (so cute!). Maybe we’ll even get some 4th of July pixxx, showing everybody all decked out in red, white, and blue. What’s that? There are some pictures of some crazy event that involves dressing up? Not sure if that was Wedding or formal or a trip to a music festival, but it looks pretty cool.

Last up is the nostalgic senior girl who still inexplicably uses this format for her album titles. Unfortunately, this album title format gives this girl many opportunities to wax nostalgic, with album titles like “11Whyisitalmostover” and, soon to come, “11Solittletimeleft”. Jeez, can’t wait. If a girl’s still doing this, then she’s a lost cause, and it’s probably time to leave her be.

No matter what you may think of it, though, using this format for album titles and sign-offs is here to stay, and it’s certainly Stuff Dartmouth People Like. Coming in hot, number eight for ya.