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The Dark Brandon Rises

By Jason Olaru-Hagen

The United States of America is in danger. The forces of chaos and QAnon are taking over, Jack. But, I believe that America will meet its moment. A fire will rise. A president will meet his destiny.

For a long time, I’ve been feeling down about the state of the world. War and strife are devastating countries from Ukraine to Yemen. Economic inequality is growing, and everything at the grocery store is more expensive than it used to be. The UN says climate change will lead to unprecedented catastrophe if we don’t start curbing global emissions by 2025. I am still terrified to talk to that cute girl who sits across from me in Intermediate Spanish II – Section A (CRN: 10431). But for the first time in a long time, I’m starting to feel hope. 

I hated having President Trump in office. I am privileged enough to be in the dominant category of basically every demographic. It was nice when Obama was president, and I didn’t have to think about politics that much. But then the orange guy was so bad, and everyone got so mad that I started to think there might be something fundamentally wrong with our nation’s economic system and political order. But then Biden won, and he said he’d restore the soul of our nation! That sounded nice, so I felt better.

For a while though, it seemed like Biden wouldn’t do the things he promised. I worried that maybe Democratic politicians don’t actually want to pass some of the policies they put on their own platform. But I watched more MSNBC and figured out that if anything bad happened it was because of the Republicans, and that Brandon is trying as hard as he can. And after weeks of scheming in the darkest caves of the Deep State, our president has unleashed his new campaign of national rejuvenation.

THE INFLATION REDUCTION ACT! Through means-tested consumer subsidies and tax rebates, The United States of America will conquer its interminable foes of impending climate change and pharmaceutical price gouging. Critics may say it’s a mere drop in the bucket towards addressing systemic inequalities and a warming atmosphere, but those people aren’t on the TV as much! Any logical citizen understands the choices presented to you as an American: you can become a Tucker Carlson fan or a Wolf Blitzer enjoyer. Anything outside of that spectrum is communist gobbledygook.

Brandon has now reached his final form. Although he entered the Oval Office as a fading geriatric with fond memories of Strom Thurmond, our president has become the laser-eyed superhero that our moment requires. Here’s to hoping Joe has a long and fruitful reign, and that he may live to pass on the Mandate of Heaven to Hunter, the rightful heir.

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First-Years “Completely Changed” after Spending Fall Break in Boston

by Spencer Sussman Oct. 12, 2022

Over fall break, many first-year students took a personality defining trip on the Amtrak to explore Boston. There was nothing but anticipation as eight first-year floor mates from Appleton 3rd floor eagerly boarded the Amtrak Downeaster and headed to the big city. After getting immediately rejected and brutally insulted at the door of a MIT frat, losing their 150 dollar fake ID at the first bar in sight, and crashing on the natty light soaked floor of their high school friends cramped double, one first year boldly declared, “This city just feels right for me.” 

This sentiment was shared by other misguided members of their group. “You just gotta love the surprises of a big city!” gloomily remarked an emotional Appleton 3rd resident, who caught his “pretty serious” long distance girlfriend entangled with a BC frat dude who looked at least 26. 

Despite discovering his crippling allergy to shellfish after suffering a violent anaphylactic reaction to a $26 bowl of clam chowder at Quincy Market, another first year reflected positively about his weekend in Boston; “They’re just something about this city man. It speaks to you. It called for me. And I answered.”

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President Biden: “I Was Actually Looking for Jackie Kennedy”

by Alex Wiseman | October 3rd, 2022

President Joe Biden clarified his comments from earlier this week today at a press conference explaining that he was not looking for late lawmaker Jakie Walorski when asking “Where’s Jackie” at the White House Conference on Hunger, Nutrition, & Health, but rather Jackie Kennedy.

When speaking to reporters about the incident, Biden said that “he wanted to be absolutely clear” that he was looking for Jackie Kennedy. “Folks, I was looking to speak to former first lady Jackie Kennedy after our successful landing on the moon. I know her former husband would be very proud of our American Astronauts as much as I am,” said Biden to reporters.

When asked by the press what he thought Jackie Kennedy meant to the nation, he replied by saying, “Nancy Reagan’s work on the ‘Just Say No’ campaign to stop youth drug use was what made her so influential to the youth of our nation.” When questioned further about whether he was suffering from memory loss problems and if he was fit for office, Biden told reporters that he is “mentally and physically fit to continue to serve as a United States Senator for Delaware.” The President then refused to take further questions as he needed to get back to “ending the Vietnam War.”

White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre later told reporters that the President remains committed to investigating the Watergate hotel break-in and that he sends his congratulations to Nelson Mandela on his victory in the recent South African Election.

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Men’s Lacrosse Generously Offers to Host Free-the-Nipple Campaign Event at Off-Campus Residence

by STAFF WRITER | April 9th, 2022

In an incredibly selfless and charitable move, Bowdoin’s Men’s lacrosse team has offered to host an event for the Free-the-Nipple campaign at their off-campus residence. One team representative stated, “As a team we thought about what issues were important to us. We heavily considered the American Red Cross and St. Jude’s Children’s Hospital. At the end of the day, the Free-the-Nipple campaign is something that is near and dear to our hearts.” The goal of the event is to raise awareness for the campaign by inviting Free-the-Nipple activists from around the Brunswick area to celebrate their liberation. 

A recent poll of the Bowdoin community shows that the Free-the-Nipple campaign has unprecedented support from one half of the student body. The poll found that nearly 98% of Bowdoin men were in favor of women freeing the nipple. This support crossed political lines, with both radical feminists and toxically masculine conservative men supporting the movement. “In such divided times, it is great to see an issue like freeing the nipple bringing people together,” another team representative stated. The event is running into some logistical issues, however, as the unwavering support from Bowdoin men has caused a gender imbalance in the RSVP list. 

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Ten Ways to Avoid Hookup Culture

by JACOB TRACHTENBERG, November 2021

You can’t fucking stand hookup culture. The walk of shame, the day-after awkwardness, the ruined friendships. Bragging about the night before, about treating classmates like objects. The copious amounts of alcohol and questionable methods of consent. Hookups leave you feeling hopeless and empty. You just can’t stomach the meaninglessness of it all. Well, have I got a solution for you! Just don’t do it. But that can be harder than it sounds. To get you started, I’ve crafted a list of the top ten ways to avoid hooking up at Bowdoin:

  1. Get yourself canceled.
    You don’t have to be openly racist, sexist, or homophobic! Instead, here are other red flags sure to make you celibate:
    “I’m a moderate Democrat!”
    “The Astros won the World Series legitimately, but Tom Brady cheated!”
    “J-Lo = my favorite dean”
    “Gelato Fiasco’s just an 8/10” (You’ll probably be fine here, but I’ll cancel you.)
    “I lowkey like the cum jokes on YikYak”
  2. Try The YikYak Strategy.
    Everyone would know if it worked. Everyone does know that it won’t.
  3. Ask them out.
    Go back to my dorm? Lol, nah. You and me, Little Tokyo, tomorrow at 7 PM. Wear some nice clothes. That’s a date. We’ll be dating now. Boyfriend, Girlfriend. Still interested?
  4. Wear a MAGA hat.
    No one will ever want anything to do with you. You can wear a Bernie shirt too if it makes you feel better.
  5. Transfer to Bates.
    They don’t have “hookups” there. They just talk about trees and stuff.
  6. Attend parties virtually.
    After 10-30 minutes of making out with your computer screen, you’ll realize it’s not the same.
  7. Join the Orient.
    If this doesn’t work on its own, steal some Orient merchandise so everyone knows.
  8. Quit your sports team.
    If this doesn’t apply to you, you’re well on your way to success! Don’t bother if you play squash.
  9. Start a lasting relationship.
    I don’t know how to do this but I bet it works.
  10. Unanimously win a Peucinian Disputation.
    Wait, nevermind. You’d totally hook up after that.
All, Bowdoin

In the Wake of FreeCycle, Students Left Shocked and Disappointed by the Quality of Their Peers’ Garbage 

BY: Emma Kilbride September 25th, 2021

Last week, Bowdoin students gathered at the Office of Sustainability to participate in this year’s FreeCycle, a yearly event flocked to by students seeking to absolve themselves of environmental guilt and to hoard their peers’ garbage. Many students, however, found themselves unimpressed with the offerings at 10 Cleveland Street, which apparently ranged from mildly underwhelming to downright hazardous.

One student reports having been delighted to pick up a seemingly brand-new microwave before transporting it home, opening it, and being greeted by an unwelcome surprise: the fermenting remains of what appeared to be a grab-and-go Lumbo Basswich Wrapini. According to the student, who wishes to remain anonymous, “shit was low key rancid as fuck.”

This rotten bass mishap seems relatively tame compared to the FreeCycle misfortunes of some other students, one of which resulted in a medical emergency. On Tuesday night, sophomore Kyle Higgenbottom was rushed to Maine Medical Center after being anally impaled by the leg of a defective lawn chair he had acquired at the Office of Sustainability just days prior.

Brandon Allen ‘23, a FreeCycler who had hoped to outfit the kitchen in his new apartment, found that his experience was marred by the unlikely presence of a recently cancelled celebrity. “I found this Chrissy Teigen for Target meat cleaver, but then I read on Buzzfeed News that she told someone to take a dirt nap, which is like, super messed up,” Allen recalls. “I’ll probably just use it as a poop knife or something.”

Other reported FreeCycle disappointments include a collection of (used) Sonicare toothbrush heads, a single Wii nunchuk, and an iCarly beach towel with “some sort of funky crust on it”. The Office of Sustainability declined our request for comment.

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Harpoon Pro-Tips: For Social Success and Campus-Wide Glory

By THE BOWDOIN HARPOON EXECUTIVE TEAM (MOSTLY BLAINE STEVENS)

Are you new here? Yes, we are talking to you too, Class of 2024. Find social and academic success and avoid being shoved into the dumpsters behind Chambo by the old-timers (who know the REAL Bowdoin) with these fast tips!

  1. Dodge Delta and make the most of this year. But also if you don’t,you get your own hotel room in Freeport with a queen bed, so keep your options open, to be honest.
  2. If you order a “latté with no milk” at the cafe, you’re in for a treat and I’m not talking about coffee. That request is actually a secret code for “I’m here to fuck” and you can expect to be railed by the barista in the gender neutral bathroom on the second floor of Smith shortly.
  3. If you order a “macchiato with no milk” at the cafe, watch out! That spicy little order gives the barista legal permission to kill you and you will be summarily executed immediately.
  4. Use a vacuum to create space for restoration, renewal and rebuilding. A mop might clean up that mixie you spilled on the floor last night but it won’t help with the path to reviving student culture, reframing your mindset, or alliteration.
  5. Be careful in picking who you hook up with! If you get with an uggo, you’re gonna be really embarrassed when the town crier reads your names together from his official hook up scroll to everyone in Thorne the next morning.
  6. Randy who? We have a new favorite middle-aged campus icon these days! On this campus, we are ALL friends with that one guy who stands around Brunswick with poster boards saying that all women are whores who deserve to go to Hell. He is fun and cool and we approach him to tell him that we love his work every time we see him.
  7. On nights when you have a ton of work, tell everyone within earshot that you are just SO swamped and tell them repeatedly. It’s not annoying at all and everyone will think you’re really brave for being the first student to ever have homework.
  8. Hey, Baxter! What the fuck is that smell? Is that… air freshener? Seriously, what the hell are you guys doing? You literally had one job! Now, I want that basement to smell like the liver of a 55 year old former coke-addict alcoholic rockstar. Chop chop!
  9. If you order the banana bread at the cafe and then grab it and run, let me know how it goes. I ‘ve always thought about doing that but I wanted to see what would happen first.
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50ish Essential Things to Do Before You Graduate

By THE BOWDOIN HARPOON EXECUTIVE TEAM

  1. Single-handedly heal the athlete/non-athlete divide.
  2. Join the underground fraternity.
  3. Build a stable relationship with your parents.
  4. Become a Sociology major.
  5. Disappoint your parents. 
  6. Get circumcised.
  7. Further disappoint your parents. 
  8. Lose yourself in the music, the moment.
  9. Pee in the mouth of every college house member.
  10. Join a club! Make it your entire personality. Become super fucking annoying about it. Call yourself Kierkegaard. 
  11. Watch a townie watch a movie from outside their window. If so moved, break in and sit down next to them. 
  12. Say your prayers!
  13. Heckle Bowdoin Hockey in the Moulton dark room.
  14. Commit voter fraud in the BSG elections. 
  15. Advocate for stricter voter ID laws in BSG elections.
  16. Have an extremely public and visceral religious awakening in the middle of the Chapel.
  17. See Football win. (Still waiting)
  18. Start your own Asian restaurant on Maine Street. 
  19. Complete the Senior Seven: hook up with seven seniors from the Thornton Oaks retirement community. 
  20. Complete the Bowdoin four: make-out with the four unvaccinated employees on campus. 
  21. Get uncircumcised.
  22. Regain your parents’ love. 
  23. Awkwardly touch feet with your professor under the bathroom stall.
  24. Pee on the Orient House.
  25. Start a small fire with potential next to the Orient House.
  26. Enjoy an a cappella concert.
  27. Realize 20 minutes later that you actually didn’t enjoy the a capella concert.
  28. Remind a 2024 and a 2025 that the College was better before they got here. Tell them that it’s their fault.
  29. Attend the Brunswick High Spring Gala.
  30. Get a stick and poke tattoo of a reallllllly cute flower 🙂
  31. Get your booster with the same needle. 
  32. Try to spend your Polar Points at the Bangor Cracker Barrel.
  33. Run to Simpson’s Point. Get tired. Call your friend to pick you up from Simpson’s Point. 
  34. Convince everyone that Mikey drowning on that two-man BOC canoeing trip was a freak accident. Bring that secret with you to the grave.
  35. Pull an all-nighter watching your roommates sleep.
  36. Fight the good fight: Fight against Big Poultry.
  37.  Sell out and get an internship with Big Poultry.
  38. Get dinner with your professor, then breakfast the next day.
  39. Take a nude with Randy at Ivies.
  40. Join Frisbee for two days.
  41. Join the Orient haha.
  42. Miss class. Have your mom write to your professor. 
  43. Get in a fight in the comments of a Bowdoin instagram post. 
  44. Get canceled on Twitter. 
  45. Get stung by a wasp in line at the Lobster Bake. 😦
  46. Swim in the biowaste at Bath Iron Works. 
  47. Figure out who Mike Ranen is. 
  48. Play spikeball on the quad. 
  49. Hate yourself for playing spikeball on the quad. 
  50. Go on a journey with a farm elf in the Bowdoin Commons. Discover the nuclear waste swamp. Drain it. Have the elf reveal his childhood secrets. Diddle the elf. 
  51. Go to the Health Center for a concussion, get told you might be pregnant.
  52. Join the Harpoon.
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College Changes Mascot to “Bi-Polar Bears” for Mental Health Awareness Month

BY: PATRICK LYNOTT Oct. 27, 2020

In a characteristically suave announcement on Friday, Clayton Rose, President of Bowdoin College and an intensely passionate botanist, declared that for the duration of National Mental Health Week, the college would be amending its mascot to the “Bi-Polar Bears.” The decision comes as a response to renewed calls to update the oft bemoaned Counseling Services at the school. “I have decided to take substantial action in honor of Mental Health Awareness Month,” said Rose in the Friday statement, evidently filmed in front of the fireplace at Xanadu. “And effective immediately, I will be changing our mascot to the Bi-Polar Bears. Get it? Because Polar B- and – er. You had to be there, I guess. But I will also be cutting the Counseling budget by another 15%, so there’s that.”

The announcement was met with mostly humdrum murmurings and banal platitudes among the student body. As Arjun Mehta (‘21), a senior majoring in Sourdough Bread and Superfluous Geography, put it: “I would expect such a savvy PR move from the likes of Bates College located in Lewiston and Waterville’s own Colby College, but not from Bowdoin, which can be found in Brunswick, Maine.” 

This does not mark Bowdoin’s first mascot change. The school’s original mascot was the “Whispering Pines,” which was changed to the now defunct “Polar Bears” in 1913. And in 1994, swept up in “Mel-mania,” the college changed the mascot to the “Mavericks” in honor of the Mel Gibson film of the same name. The college of course reverted back to the “Polar Bears” upon revelations of Gibson’s views about semetic people. The Bowdoin administration swore off another impulsive mascot change, until the present one by Rose. “I just couldn’t help myself,” Rose told Harpoon reporters. “The pun was begging to be used. Plus, I needed pretense to announce those budget cuts to the Counseling Services. I think I got out in front of the narrative.” 

The new moniker will be a muzzled and straightjacketed version of the current Polar Bear with a little dialogue bubble that reads “Please help mnfomonfouBDN=jbifdonsqowphcibz.”

All, Bowdoin

Alcohol-Related Transports at Record Low; Peer Health Cites New Online Newsletter As Primary Cause

BY: WILL HAUSMANN Oct. 27, 2020

After six full weekends on campus, there has been a shockingly small number of transports to Mid Coast Hospital due to the over-imbibing of alcohol. Only four students have found themselves taking an unplanned ambulance ride, according to data the Harpoon obtained from the Office of Safety and Security. This represents a 71% decline in transports, compared to an average of 13.7 transports through six weekends in previous years.

Members of Peer Health are suggesting the decline can be attributed to their decision to introduce a virtual newsletter each week, starting in late March of last academic year. “We decided that Peer Health needed a messaging change, so we chose an email newsletter instead of posters because it’s a digital age and stuff,” Darren Shepherd ‘21 told the Harpoon. “After realizing the screenagers of today spend all of their time on the toilet staring at their phones instead of the Stall Street Journal, we realized we needed to go virtual to be successful.”

Susan Seuss ‘21 , a Biology major, aspiring research MD, and co-leader of Peer Health, said she is investigating this effect for her honors project this year. “I conducted a double-blind, peer-reviewed experiment comparing the transport rates of students who identify as ‘Active’ vs ‘Inactive’ readers of Peer Health content,” Seuss said. She went on to say that her data “absolutely guarantees” that the newsletter is preventing transports.

When asked whether COVID and social distancing guidelines could be attributed to the lower number of transports, Seuss and Shepherd said there was “weak causality at best.”

Still, not all students are ready to accept Peer Health’s explanation. According to Orson Digby Palmer V, self-described “beer maven” and third generation member of the lacrosse team, the sole reason for the decline is “this year’s crop of first years are simply not as cool as that of previous years,” and they lack the “100 kegs or bust” mentality exemplified by our newest Supreme Court justice,