At dinner after the Facebook Lunch 2.0, a bunch of us at the table were trying to guess people’s ethnicity. Being in California, the correct answer might be like “part Paraguayan, part Uzbek” and shit like that. Half the people I know probably fucked up the scantrons when they applied to college and had to fill in the ethnicity bubbles.
Which got me thinking that colleges should just ask the same questions they do on your social networking profile. That way, when you get accepted, you can save yourself the work of making a Facebook profile.
Ethnicity? How many times did you looked at it and said to yourself: What!? The have a box for Eskimo and not for _____? Relationship status is a hell lot more useful in the real world. It’s going to tell me if I’m going to get a message from my friend that reads, “Are the food and drinks free?” (In a Relationship, Looking for Friendship) or “Are there any girls there?” (Single, Looking for Women). (Married? When was the last time you got a text from a married person? BTW, they should add a “With children” box to the Married profile to increase its utility.)
And with all the strange grade inflation going on, really, you can find a lot more about a person from the music they listen to, the books they rea… “Hello? Hey man. Are they hot? Hold on for a minute.”
And hotness can cross any ethnic line.
[tags]The Daily Show, social networking, ethnicity, college applications, Facebook, MySpace, Lunch 2.0, profiles[/tags]
xkcd shows us another use:
http://xkcd.com/300/