Allstu Wars

For anyone who has spent time at Kenyon during the Era of E-mail, the term "allstu" needs no explanation. For others, let's start by noting that this phenomenon, although a product of modern technology, fits perfectly into the age-old Kenyon culture of insularity breeding community spiced with verbal virtuosity resulting at times in communal lunacy.

At Kenyon, you see, unlike almost every other college in the world, the e-mail network is all but wide open. If you have a College network account, you can blanket the campus with ads for upcoming speakers, pleas for the return of lost scarves, or diatribes about absolutely anything. All you have to do is send to "allstu" (for all students) and/or "allemp" (for all employees). You can send as many messages as you want. There's no censorship, no screening, no limits.

It's true that people can opt out of those mass e-mails. But the realm of the allstu remains a teeming marketplace of ideas, or at least utterances. And it's a free-for-all, where, at any hour of the day or (especially) night, students not only announce, inform, and urge, but also beseech, cavort (linguistically), debate, declaim, free-associate, poke, prod, rhapsodize, tease, and vent.

The debate sometimes escalates, with one message or exchange setting off a chain of responses that can run for days. Civility usually makes a few appearances during these "allstu wars." Wit and humor flavor many postings. Some are hilarious. But the tone can also degenerate into insult, poor taste, sarcasm, and vulgarity: Kenyon students at not quite their finest.

Some of the most virulent allstu wars involve gender and sexual-orientation issues, and questions of political correctness. But any topic can spark a skirmish. One Wednesday in November, for example, students sparred over the virtues of the band Radiohead, responding to an initial post titled "The Radiohead Myth." Comments ranged from "Their soul is unmusical and I find their disciples sadly uncritical," to "So tell us your point or get over yourself," to "You're stupid."

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