Made a merry-go round out of cans, call that A-merry-can.
Shoot me.
So what was the point of asking for advice if you didn’t actually want it?
Askhole (n):
A person who repeatedly asks for advice from multiple individuals, only to ignore aforementioned advice completely. The askhole will choose the least logical option (usually their own), skipping merrily down the path into unbridled oblivion, blissfully and willingly oblivious throughout the entire ordeal.
Why’d you ask for input if you didn’t want any?
OP, your question was “whether adcoms will realize that it is just harmless humor, or may some take offense to it?”.
Most people have given you an appropriate answer: some adcoms MAY not take it as “harmless humor”, as your “play on words” rings of an old racist joke.
I understand that you are looking for reassurance - I would be too if I had done such a thing in my essay, however, the reality is that you don’t know how the adcoms at these schools will react, as you don’t know their values or their sense of humor. That is why in most essay advice resources (idk if you consulted any), humor is relentlessly cautioned against. Also, considering both the historical and current racial climate in the US… who knows where the line is drawn in terms of what is offensive.
You have gotten into some other great schools that you seem excited about, which is great! So in regards to the schools you are still waiting for, if I were you, I would sit tight - maybe it won’t mean anything to them. Nevertheless this is a lesson; even though you didn’t mean any harm, you may have unintentionally inflicted some. Hopefully you’ll learn to tread more carefully in the future.
@fizzy110 only some people said that it may remind them of the racial joke, a lot have said that my comment IS racist, which i have a problem with.
If you didn’t want other opinions, which you were likely to disagree with, shouldn’t have asked.
@manas1997, by definition, your joke was not racist. HOWEVER the fact that some people did see your comment as racist just corroborates what I, and many others have said - you never know how people/the adcoms will interpret your joke!!! In America race is a sensitive topic. Especially in something as important as your college essay, it would have been wise to err on the side of caution.
The thing is, I asked a totally different question… I didn’t ask if it was racist in the original post.
To which people responded yes, because they themselves thought it was racist… the exact title of your thread.
Well you did ask if some people would take offense to the joke, and the only way this joke could be offensive is if the viewer saw it as racist. How else could it be considered offensive?
Can someone just close this thread…
OP, just be lucky if an adcom doesn’t see your joke as racist.
I will chime in only to say that - should the OP get rejected from some of the colleges she applied to - she will never know whether the questionable judgment of incorporating the joke into her essay tilted the scale against her. Perhaps some readers would be charmed, but others are likelier to have been puzzled than offended. If the OP presented the quote verbatim, furthermore, I think she should be more concerned about errors in grammar, syntax, and capitalization. Those can and will kill an application for college just as they can kill a job application. Anyone who reads it will automatically infer that you didn’t care enough to review the essay and run it by someone else (e.g. parent, teacher, adviser, et al) before submitting. I have occasionally advised young students on this site to craft their posts more carefully as a matter of practice.
Wow, @manas1997 , I would go ahead and quit commenting before you dig yourself into a deeper hole. You put this on CC to get advice and when people gave you their honest input, you were overly-defensive and disrespectful. I would simply accept that you screwed up (it’s not that your joke is racist, it was just used inappropriately in an essay that could heavily affect your life) and just see where you get in. Congrats on UToronto and Purdue though, those are both very good schools.
It is Stew-Pad to joke about Chia-Knees, Moose-Limbs, Eye-Rush or any other community of people on an essay in which you are trying to impress.
Here’s the thing:
The vast majority of Adcoms are not 17 or 18 years old. They’re adults.
Look at the comments from the people in this thread with either “mom” or “dad” as part of their user name. What do you notice? Pretty much universal agreement that the joke was, at best, an unwise choice.
If it appeals to your 17 year old sense of humor, marvelous. If your friends laugh themselves silly, wonderful.
But the target age group you were writing for is the same as all of us “mom” or “dad” readers. And, as a group, we feel you made a mistake.
None of us read your essay. We read the thread in an attempt to answer the question you asked. I’m sorry the answer isn’t the one you were hoping for. Getting… let’s call it “annoyed”… with people who answer your question isn’t going to change anything.
What .__.
??? Why did you even apply then? Yeesh.
Ok, seriously though - Someone close this thread PLEASE.
Consider your word choice regarding Lil Wayne. You mock him not emulate him. Mock as in ridicule in your essay with a race punch line joke. Doesn’t make you sound like a fan.
But it doesn’t matter if the essay is racist in addition to having other issues. It 's not what you want in an essay for a top school.
Closing this thread because of popular demand, and for the obvious reason that the OP seems tone-deaf to all the valid reasons given that his “joke” was a pretty bad idea.