The other day, I paid a visit to the library to celebrate a special part of my day I like to call “nap time.” And as I sat there in one of the chairs on the third floor waiting for my REM cycle to kick in, I started thinking about books. (I don’t know why, but the library sometimes has that effect on me.)
The one book in particular that came to mind was the old Mississippi State University yearbook, the Reveille. This was largely because I had been hearing so much about it during the SA election campaigns, with several of the candidates interested in bringing it back.
Most of the arguments I’ve heard for reinstating the Reveille have been something along the lines of, “It’s a book. And it has your picture in it. Don’t you want your picture in a book?”
That’s a compelling argument, but . no. Not at all.
I’ve seen pictures of me, and they don’t belong in print. If my editors would let me get away with it, I’d replace that picture of myself to the right with a picture of the brick wall behind me. It’s a lot more photogenic.
Still, I maintain a personal rule of never judging an idea without first pretending to hear it out, so I decided to seek out one of the people interested in resurrecting the Reveille.
One of the chief proponents is none other than our new Student Association president-elect Thomas Sellers, so I invited him to share his perspective on the matter. Fortunately, he has never read any of my articles, so he graciously agreed to speak with me.
According to Sellers, the main goal is to give students something to take with them that they don’t have now. I didn’t think to ask, but presumably “something” means a yearbook. (For the record, though, I’d also settle for one of those comfy chairs in the library.)
So why is it students don’t have a yearbook now? According to Sellers, it’s some combination of budgetary issues and Facebook.
Mostly Facebook, I’d say. It’s hard to talk yourself into spending money on a hard copy of a yearbook when Facebook does a pretty good job of documenting everything you did in college.
Unlike the Reveille, though, Facebook documents everything indiscriminately. This includes that one time when one of your friends took a picture of a sandwich and for some reason tagged you and 20 other friends. Or the time that one dude posted some incredibly vague, grammatically blasphemous status update like, “Billy is why do I keep doing this to myself,” which in 20 years will be as meaningless and incomprehensible to him as it is to all of his friends now.
This leads to one of the advantages Sellers points out the Reveille has over Facebook: The Reveille is more focused. It centers on MSU and the student experience.
So instead of having your name slapped on a computer-generated series of pictures with the caption “Billy’s #14 Stalker,” you can actually have your picture taken with a student organization and be remembered for your involvement to make MSU a better place. (Assuming you’re remotely involved – if not, you should probably quit stalking Billy and reevaluate your life decisions.)
Now don’t get me wrong; I don’t mean to imply there’s no room for tagging your friends in a collage of your top Facebook stalkers. I don’t mean to imply that because I’d rather outright say it. Facebook’s computer-generated collages are incredibly stupid, and there are no words to capture how irritating of a trend it is.
But back on topic, Facebook and a physical yearbook each have their pros and cons, and neither can adequately take the place of the other. As far as I’m concerned, it’s a travesty the Reveille is no longer with us, and I sincerely hope it someday gets restored, if only in part.
I graduate in May though, so it doesn’t really affect me either way. I guess that means I have no choice but to stick with Facebook. Maybe today’s the day I reach level 25 in Farmville.
McNeill Williford is a senior majoring in industrial engineering. He can be contacted at [email protected].