This is one of the more self-aware ads I've seen on CL. The author starts by "just putting himself out there" which he then does quite literally: he's putting himself on display by Columbia University for people to see and hopefully sleep with.
Maybe the author needs help understanding what a panopticon is because he misspelled it, but he has the general idea right: the city will be able to see him but he won't be able to see who out there knows about his sexual desperation.
The ad takes a turn when the author starts imagining that there will be a crowded mass of, not only women, but of imitators (guys so scared of women that they not only need this experiment to get women but they can't even post on the internet to set up the experiment, they need to hijack someone else's desperate moves). This pipe dream comes off more sad than witty because we all know nobody is showing up.
The sadness train keeps on chugging when our university student starts waxing theoretical about "the shifting of identity that occurs because of changing intent and changing levels of spectatorship" and other bullshit that I find on college syllabi trying to mask a simple and usually stupid idea behind a veneer of "oh look I'm so brilliant." I swear if he tries to consider such cliches as "the city as protagonist," I'll go to Columbia myself and show him "the unimpressed blogger as antagonist." That'll show him.
Columbia University - m4w - 24 (Harlem / Morningside)
Reply to: pers-244678314@craigslist.org
Date: 2006-12-05, 7:43PM EST
Im just going to put myself out there. Im good looking, tall, slim, intellectually curious, slightly weird and funny. I will be smoking a cigarette at the Columbia main gate. It will be a variant of the panoptican. Maybe you can explain to me what that really is. I will be there for five minutes between 8 and 830. So, the trade off is my sense of shame for your patience and warmth. Remember, though, that just as I will be on display, so will you--if you intend to make contact. Maybe other tall, slim, good-looking men will come to pose as the poster. If many show up--false posters and curious respondants both--it might become an actual event. All sorts of great idea-play can come of it too, for example: the various levels and degree of spectatorship; the shifting of identity that occurs because of changing intent and changing levels of spectatorship; the role of the auteur in the live and real-time event. In the end, though, I am not really a theorist and I dont really want to be one. I just want to meet a cutie because its cold and Im lonely.
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