It's fairly obvious that Dartmouth students have made "being social" a competition. It's the reason so many students are disenchanted with the social scene. All Dartmouth students are uber-competitive, and for many, one outlet is just not enough. And so, the competitiveness spills over to all facets of their life including partying.
After all, what would basketball be without Michael Jordan? Physics without Albert Einstein? Music without The Beatles? Friday night without yours truly? Kidding, but you see my point every field needs a superstar, and raging is no different.
Now I'm not saying that a night out on frat row brings out the competitive drive of a heated playoff game for the athletically inclined or a final examination for the academically apt. Dartmouth's social scene is, however, uniquely structured to promote competition. Instead of bars, clubs, beirut, concerts and other "typical college social activities," Dartmouth has pong.
What's the difference between pong and other inebriated pastimes? Pong is one of the rare drinking games in which the "game" element is taken more seriously than the "drinking" element. Introducing such an activity to a college campus full of driven and ambitious students enables a new ranking system. Distinguishing those who hang out the most, pong skillz have become tangible representation of how outgoing and social students are.
Pong skill comparisons are ubiquitous among underclassmen. After sophomore Summer, everyone else basically plateaus. For this reason, it's much rarer to find an unseasoned senior playing pong than it is to find a truly awful sophomore doing so. Those seniors still playing pong are the ones who have won it, "it" being the Crown of the Hard Guyz or the Sword of the Sweet Dude. When Wednesday, Friday, Saturday, Monday and even Tuesday/Thursday rolls around, they get after it. They haven't yet become disillusioned by Dartmouth's social scene. Instead, they flourish in its competitive structure and maybe they even played M@sters.
The problem with competition, however, is that by its very nature there must be a way to win. But the Dartmouth social scene is so ingrained in students' lives that there is no original way to "win." Thus, students are forced to drink as much as they can, stay out as late as they can and rage as hard as they can just to play the game.
Because no one likes to lose especially not us.
