Yale's "We Suck" Prank
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On November 20, 2004, at The Game, Yale students, using a card stunt, tricked more than 1,800 Harvard fans into holding up placards that spelled "WE SUCK."
Michael Kai and David Aulicino, two Yale students from the Class of 2005, created and coordinated the plan. Disguised as the "Harvard Pep Squad," they and twenty classmates handed white and crimson placards to fans in the central area of the Harvard side of the stadium, which comprised primarily Harvard alumni, as well as a few faculty, students, and other fans. The group told the crowd that by lifting the placards they would spell "GO HARVARD." The placards were actually arranged to spell "WE SUCK."
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[edit] Execution
There is no "Harvard Pep Squad"; Kai and Aulicino invented it for the prank, which they set in Boston on the assumption that Harvard fans would more easily be caught off guard at home.
Kai and Aulicino designed and ordered placards, megaphones, war paint and "Harvard Pep Squad" T-shirts, and forged Harvard student IDs for "Pep Squad" members. Weeks before the prank, they traveled to Harvard for the Cornell game to map the seat layout of the stands.
The two planners kept the prank among a trusted few and only revealed the prank to the Yale participants on the last day to avoid leaks. Participants were chosen because they were unknown at Harvard, but as an extra precaution, they had each participant paint his/her face in Harvard-red war paint.
On game day, the Yale Band smuggled the placards onto the Harvard side, along with recycle bins labeled "Discard Placards Here." With IDs in hand, the "Harvard Pep Squad" infiltrated the stands and quickly endeared themselves to Harvard fans.
The prank went off as planned. When the Yale side saw "WE SUCK", they roared elatedly. Harvard interpreted the roar as Yale anger, so up went the placards again. Yale roared louder. Even more delighted, Harvard lifted the placards again. To perfect the "WE SUCK" image, "image observers" on the Yale side cell-phoned the "Harvard Pep Squad" with instructions to refine the image.
Most of the Harvard student section, sitting to the placards' left, did not see the placards at all. Many Harvard fans left the stands not knowing what had taken place, excited after having won 35–3. Unable to see what the placards spelled, many Harvard fans did not know they had been duped until days later.
But the Harvard Football Team, to its dismay, witnessed the entire disaster and soon began spreading the upsetting news.[1]
[edit] The aftermath
[edit] Harvard responds
Initially, many at Harvard maligned the incident, while others denied it happened [2]. In response, Kai and Aulicino registered the domain name "harvardsucks.org" (as well as "yalesucks.org" in a preemptive move) and posted the video [2]. A New York Sun article quoted Harvard's director of athletic communications, Chuck Sullivan saying, "Harvard officially reacted to the prank with tolerance. It was 'all in good fun.'" [3]
Some Harvard partisans criticized the pranksters because most of the 1,800 placard lifters were older, more gullible alumni. Afterwards, in an interview with Harvard, Kai and Aulicino said members of the Harvard Band were complicit with the Yale pranksters. Harvard published the preposterous remark. The Yale duo responded, "Now, who is gullible?"[4]
[edit] Profits
The cost of the prank in time and money were minimal because of classmate cooperation and support. The group recouped their expenses by selling posters of the "We Suck" photo on their site. Many of Yale's famous political figures purchased the posters, framed them and gloatingly gave them to their Harvard colleagues.[5] A $3,000 profit was given to the Tsunami Fund through Yale's Pierson College's donation.[6] (The press sometimes refers to Kai and Aulicino as "The Poster Kids.")
[edit] Media and Internet coverage
"We Suck" has received much national and international attention. Many magazines have listed Yale's "We Suck" among the greatest pranks in college history.[7][8][9][10][11] The Maxim article states, "... [Yale perpetrated] the greatest prank this side of the Mason-Dixon line since the Boston Tea Party... to the eternal pride of rival Yalies ...and caused dozens of stoic, blue-blooded Harvard men to spit port wine all over their smoking jackets." Sports Illustrated featured the prank with "some of the best attempts to get the other guy's goat". In addition to the magazine coverage, ESPN and ESPN2 ran a 15 minute documentary on the rivalry, featuring "We Suck". Jimmy Kimmel Live, MSNBC, and several other TV shows ran the prank along with radio programs and newspapers across the globe. On the Internet, many blogs worldwide soon linked to the site. iFilm showed the video for months.
Apparently, the phrase "We suck" initially deterred some coverage. Even now, many sources use names such as "The Yale-Harvard Game Prank of 2004" to avoid the words "We suck".
[edit] Comparisons to the Great Rose Bowl Hoax of 1961
This prank is reminiscent of the Great Rose Bowl Hoax of 1961, although the Yale pranksters created their own cards instead of forging instruction sheets, and did not, as did the Caltech perpetrators, break into a hotel room to carry it out. Also, the prank was between rival schools at their annual football game, while the Hoax did not involve Caltech. A somber difference that the Houston Chronicle article "Pranks for the memories", by Eyder Peralta, pointed out is that "We Suck" was performed post 9/11. The article states that "...these are different times. To pull a prank now, [one must] consider ...the whole terrorism thing."[12]
[edit] References
- ^ ESPN documentary on the Harvard-Yale Rivalry, featuring the "We Suck" prank, December, 2005.
- ^ The Harvard Crimson, [1]
- ^ New York Sun, Dec. 1, 2004
- ^ New Haven Register
- ^ ESPN documentary on the Harvard-Yale Rivalry, featuring the "We Suck" prank, December, 2005.
- ^ New Haven Register, Poster kids: Yalies' prank the buzz of '04 Game by Scott Cacciola, 11/18/2005
- ^ The Economist, "From Hermes to bonsai kittens", pp.82–83, 12/24/05–1/6/06
- ^ Sports Illustrated, "Pranks for the Memories", p. 36, 12/12/05
- ^ Maxim, "Ivy Beleaguered, pp.20–21, 2/05
- ^ FHM, 'Havard Gets Pranked!", p. 30, 3/05
- ^ PCFormat, "Sportsmanship HARVARD SUCKS", p. 30, 3/05
- ^ Houston Chronicle
