Wiz Reactions

Well, well, well... Another Scope concert and another overflow of negative (and a few positive) remarks thrown every which way... "it wasn't organized" "Scope sucks" "Scope blew it" "It wasn't Scope's fault, it was all the wasted kids" "what was the point of the wrist bands" blah blah blah... you complaints truly make a difference. (Not).

I did not go to the concert, but I talked to a fair amount of people who did. There was one pretty overlying response I got. (Well technically two). For the majority (but not on the whole) underclassmen tended to blame Scope while upperclassmen tended to blame overly drunk students. One email sent to me said "...people were wicked shitty, stoned/drunk/who the fuck knows. It was an overall a piss-poor ability from the student population to handle themselves when under the influence of whatever..." And it continued "We were both fairly intoxicated, but we know better. Plus we weren't puking in the bathrooms at the Whit like half the female population seemed to be. You paid money to go to a show, and you're so drunk you are puking and probably won't remember any of it. Yup, that's intelligent right there."


There is a common trend between all the complaints: Maturity. When I was younger I probably would have been all over Scope, but understanding what they have to deal with makes a big difference. Scope can't override what the Fire Chief says. I wouldn't want to have to deal with all that shitty shit, would you? Don't get me wrong, things can always be handled better, but I think that is it important to remember that Scope members are regular students like you and me. They are not professionals so it is not fair to assume that everything will go over smoothly. I think the bigger problem is with UNH and the local police. I heard a lot of cops being over physical and aggressive with the crowd, which is highly inappropriate. Most cops here aren't too bad, but there are a select few who abuse their powers.

Via Twitter I learned that by 10PM 14 people were already in protective custody at Strafford County. On the whole night 48 people were arrested (including Mac Miller's DJ). An undercover cop came "uncomfortably" close to arresting Wiz. 48 fucking people in one night! I set the over/under at 50!  It's things like this that give UNH a bad name (see: Daily Beast ranking UNH the worst drug school, which was based off arrests). In comparison, the same concert tour went to Rhode Island the night before and there were only 2 arrests.

College students drink. Underage college students drink. Zero tolerance policies do not work and only make things appear worse. It has become apparent that changes need to be made, but the current policy obviously isn't working. I'm not saying that law breakers shouldn't be punished, but there are other ways to go about this problem. Students need to learn to take responsibility for their actions and mistakes, but so does our administration and the police.

Stay classy, not UMassy.