In light of this whole Mifflin-versus-Revelry fiasco—and I think it is, at this point, fair to objectively refer to it as a fiasco—I’ve never more been distraught over the status of the Madison community. I’ve been hearing left and right, “It’s an essential part of Madison! Mifflin’s part of our culture!” And it’s just been burning my ears. This is our culture? This is what we base our identity as a school around?
What I’m most offended by is how vacant it makes our whole community seem. I have no problem with drinking, at all (guess what I’ll be doing on Saturday with all of you? That’s right, studying), but I do take tremendous issue when Madison students insist on it being the predominate culture of Madison. Or, the “party” scene, I guess; in the end it all comes down to listening to shitty music and binge drinking, no matter how you tinsel it up. That’s not a culture. That’s not a reason to be proud of your school. It’s something that happens at virtually every social junction at every college all around the country. Why can’t our culture be our music scene? Our arts scene? Our film scene? Or any combination of the above?
If we’re going to try to defend a block party, let’s not resort to exuberant and exhaustive buzz words—Mifflin is by and far the most embarrassingly childish and hedonistic part of our communal history. It’s a fun time, but to pretend it’s anything really important is erroneous—and if it’s really our culture, it’s a grimy one that at the end of the day produces nothing of value. It’s the losing end of an obscenity trial. Fun for fun’s sake. I hate to think I go to a school where our party scene—basically the disco culture of the ’70s reupholstered for the 21st century—is going to be what I think back to 30 years down the road.
There’s also been a lot of aggression addressed at, astoundingly, Revelry. This stuns me. To expound, we have been offered an impromptu festival comprised of both fantastic local talent (CRASHprez, Julian Lynch, Phox, etc) and impressive national acts (Delta Spirit, Toro y Moi, Chance the Rapper and, uh, Hoodie Allen) at the most reasonable rate of any festival in the area, and what was the reaction from the most vocal of Mifflin supporters? To spit in the face of their benefactors.
I don’t think anyone’s arguing the city wants Revelry to be an alternative to Mifflin; that’s pretty obvious. Why anyone feels this demeans the event and Madison in general is baffling to me, though. Here we have an event assembled by students, for students, featuring a plethora of killer Madison musicians where you can, on top of everything, DRINK HEAVILY. Just because the school sponsored it as an anti-Mifflin event it’s suddenly toxic?
Revelry has literally all the benefits of Mifflin, plus live music and minus heavy police presence (which, let’s be honest, would be present at the block party regardless of Revelry, if last year was any indication). Why hate? Best of all, this is an opportunity for Madison students to get in touch with the real, tangible culture of Madison which doubles as a showcase of rising stars. And worse comes to worst, why not just go to Mifflin for an hour or two and then swing by Revelry at two to catch CRASHprez and Chance? You can, you know, do both.
Everyone’s got their own thing, to be sure. I’ll admit, I’d rather stay in and drink with friends on a Saturday night (coincidentally, spinning a favorite record) than march out, rank and file, to a crowded house party where I’ll drink until I can’t remember it’s too loud to talk to anyone. So maybe I’m not the ideal devil’s advocate, but I stand by my opinion. Mifflin’s fun, but it’s not what makes Madison great, and the sooner we stop pretending that the better.
