PSU Commonplaces Pt. II

Time to riff on another set of commonplaces that I have noticed in Happy Valley. As I have noted countless times in my blogs, Penn State is a school noted for its strong sense of tradition. Here are three more of these traditional views/commonplaces that I have noticed throughout my short time here:

1. BIGGER is better
This one is huge (no pun intended) on our campus. This may be a commonplace of American culture in general, but I feel that it especially holds true here in State College. Here are some examples of typical conversation at Penn State :

"Bro, that party that we threw last night was HUGE"

"Dude, I drank, like, about a million beers last night haha"

"Oh my god, bruh, I hooked up with so many girls this weekend, they could fill a LECTURE HALL"

"Yo Dylan, you'll never believe how much I just squatted....wait, how did you know it was 700 pounds? Were you watching me, bro?.......... You were at the gym with me? Oh well I drank an entire handle of Jack right before so I was probably too WASTED to remember huhuhu"

"Our frat house is bigger than yours"

You probably get my point by now. This extra-large commonplace is especially common among males, where every dude feels like he has to out-dude all of his bros in order to gain acceptance within his group of dude-bros. Even our university supports this cause. We have one of the biggest stadiums in the entire country, as well as one of the largest student bodies. Overall, this is one of the most prominent commonplaces out there.

2. Don't be a try-hard, but make sure you try hard

I remember getting called a try-hard in middle school. Back then, it was the worst insult anyone could throw your way. Nobody wanted to seem like they cared about anything; apparently the ideal human being to these middle-school pseudo-bullies was an unresponsive sack of meat. I was surprised when I found this commonplace here at Penn State as well, but now it comes with a new clause: don't ever become a try-hard, but make sure you get all of your work done. succeed, get good grades and land internships every summer, plus a job in your field of choice after school. This Catch-22 of a commonplace leaves most people no choice but to be ridiculed by at least someone. Some people can find great success without doing any work, however, and to those people I say, "I admire you very much as a human being. Do you want to get married". For the rest of us mortals, we need to subject ourselves to a little stigmatization in order to get what we want.

Again, if you have any ideas, if you disagree with me, or if you want to comment on the style of this disconnected rant, hit me up in the comment section.