Duke Students Don’t Make Sense

Every day I like to check the “most popular” section of the Yahoo! Sports’ photo section. It’s a quick way to check to see if there’s any particularly funny photos. And I’m nothing if not a populist. So there I was, checking out some photos of Drew Gooden driving past a hapless Kevin Garnett and a huge plane with “Go Navy – Beat Army” painted on it. (The Army-Navy game always has the most expensive trash talk.) Then I stumbled across this gem from the Big Ten – ACC Challenge:

Now, I’m pro-Wisconsin mockery. Who isn’t in favor of mocking Wisconsin and its inhabitants? But this attempt misses on many, many, many levels. Firstly, the Urkel reference isn’t quite a timely allusion. And even if this were 1995, really, Urkel is your dork archetype? All this notwithstanding, I’m not sure Wisconsin is known for being dorks. As a midwesterner, I’m familiar with most of the midwestern stereotypes, and I’ve never heard any of us described as nerds. Especially not Wisconsin. Now, Albino, that makes sense. There’s a whole lot of white people in Wisconsin. So maybe it’s a half-truth. Even then, it’s really not a very good insult.

Do you, anonymous Duke student, really want to draw attention to your opponents whiteness and nerdiness? Look at yourself, then look at your surroundings. In the top left corner there appears to be someone with a little darker skin, although it might just be a white guy with a tan. There is one African-American in the picture, but he’s wearing white face. Other than that, it’s pretty bleached. And these Caucasians, they don’t appear to be the hippest people out there. Indeed, it looks like they would be the type of people who would anger this man:

Shit, even if they didn’t look like it, they go to Duke: of course they’re nerds. So, in summation, a white nerd is mocking Wisconsin for being white nerds. I don’t think he gets it. I mean, if this guy really needed to come up with a Wisconsin insult, he could just call them beer-swilling dullards. Or he could just point out the superiority of his basketball team.