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An MIT Underwear Exposé (and Sorting Hat)

mitadmissions.org

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Re: An MIT Underwear Exposé (and Sorting Hat)

#21

Post by omginternets »

gyardley wrote: post #13
mfringel wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It does not appear that you are wondering. It appears that you are making assertions, while using the word 'wonder'.

No, I am wondering. Yes, it seems likely to me that talking about underwear color would prevent some students from using the list and those students would disproportionately be likely to be female, based on my own experiences in engineering school. But I posted what I did specifically because I wanted to see if my suspicions were correct.

The horror.

Re: An MIT Underwear Exposé (and Sorting Hat)

#24

Post by DanBC »

DanBC wrote: post #9
gyardley wrote: post #3

'Creepy' is right. I wonder how many people refrained from using an otherwise-useful mailing list because of someone they didn't want thinking about the color of their underwear. I further wonder if reluctance to talk about their underwear color publicly impacts different genders disproportionately.

It is creepy. But US colleges have done far far worse. http://www.nytimes.com/1995/01/15/magazine/the-great-ivy-lea... > ONE AFTERNOON IN THE LATE 1970's, deep in the labyrinthine interior of a massive Gothic tower in New Haven, an unsuspecting employee of Yale University opened a long-locked room in the Payne Whitney Gymnasium and stumbled upon something shocking and disturbing. > Shocking, because what he found was…

Not quite sure what's happening with the votes on this post, with some up and some down votes.

In case it wasn't clear: several US universities took nude "posture photographs" of most people who attended, and did so for decades. They took the photos in the name of science, but that science was probably junk.

That feels worse than an unofficial email list asking people what colour underwear they have on before accepting their post.

Re: An MIT Underwear Exposé (and Sorting Hat)

#25

Post by justinlardinois »

> Reasons for emailing all undergraduates include event announcements for student groups and departments, flame wars, and occasionally lost items. In contrast, the kinds of emails sent within a dorm mailing list include, at the top of my inbox right now, parties, house meetings, and foodmobs to restaurants in Boston; decisions about when to turn off the heating for spring, invitations to test food experiments, and a memo to the person who left their clothes in the middle washer; and requests for empty gallon jugs, superglue, cooking scales, male-to-male audio cables, MIDI cables, 120V twist lock connectors, funnels, and hairdryers.

I can only imagine the volume of email that entails; how do people deal with it? I would guess that these days the mailing lists are through Google Groups so you can at least turn off emails and use the list as a forum, but I doubt most would know or bother to do that and let themselves drown in email.

Re: An MIT Underwear Exposé (and Sorting Hat)

#27

Post by [deleted] »

GuiA wrote: post #4
gyardley wrote: post #3

'Creepy' is right. I wonder how many people refrained from using an otherwise-useful mailing list because of someone they didn't want thinking about the color of their underwear. I further wonder if reluctance to talk about their underwear color publicly impacts different genders disproportionately.

This tradition plays so lightly with a taboo so mundane and it is so easy to just send a one word email ("white") to the mailing list to pass the test that I have to wonder about the state of mind of anyone calling this "creepy".

[deleted]

Re: An MIT Underwear Exposé (and Sorting Hat)

#28

Post by maus42 »

dvt wrote: post #17
gyardley wrote: post #3

'Creepy' is right. I wonder how many people refrained from using an otherwise-useful mailing list because of someone they didn't want thinking about the color of their underwear. I further wonder if reluctance to talk about their underwear color publicly impacts different genders disproportionately.

Oh come on, it's not that creepy. At UCLA, we had yearly undie runs[1]. You sound repressed. Plus, underwear color could just've been made up. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HoaP9CdbvD4

You know, judging whether people are repressed or not, especially over internet, isn't very considerate.

I wonder why the top comment in this thread is being downvoted so hard. I could see it being a legitimate concern for some people.

Re: An MIT Underwear Exposé (and Sorting Hat)

#30

Post by maus42 »

lazaroclapp wrote: post #20
gyardley wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, I am wondering. Yes, it seems likely to me that talking about underwear color would prevent some students from using the list and those students would disproportionately be likely to be female, based on my own experiences in engineering school. But I posted what I did specifically because I wanted to see if my suspicions were correct.

I personally think this is probably intended to be just a funny tradition (and hopefully taken in that spirit by most students, of either gender). However, I think is fair to wonder about possible side-effects. The fact that the question gets downvoted here makes me, if anything, more likely to believe someone raising the issue within MIT, or choosing to send something like "unspecified"/"E_NO_ANSWER" to the mailing…

>unkind response

Some of responses in this comment thread look very much like blatant schoolyard bullying behaviour manifesting. "Why take things so seriously" "Spoilsport" et cetera ...

Partake in the hazing rituals, or else.

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