Opinion
We should celebrate our WiGo victory
By Sophie Gaulkin ’17
April 17, 2015
In what WiGo executives called an “improbable victory,” Hamilton College beat Suffolk University 122-94 in the final round of the WiGo Madness Tournament on April 13. This means that we had more attendees, invites, pictures, new users and up-votes than Suffolk, earning us the most points. In the second-to-last round against Quinnipiac University, almost 1,400 Hamilton students joined the WiGo event and 93 percent of our user base was in attendance. All of our hard work and unity paid off—WiGo will be hosting a party for us on May 2 with a value of $8,000.
It is hard to remember another time when so many Hamilton students rallied around a single cause. Even those who did not necessarily want a huge party still downloaded the app and joined the event to support their fellow students who did have that desire. With WiGo, students broke out of their comfort zones to approach strangers and convince them to join the app, ensuring a Hamilton victory. Some students stayed up all night during the least secure round of the competition, against Quinnipiac University. Sadove sponsored the “Campus WiGo Championship Extravaganza” with snacks and coffee for the last two hours of WiGo Madness. To rack up points, students posted thousands of pictures that could be seen by the over a thousand Hamilton attendees, which further connected the student body.
But amid the energy and the collaboration surrounding the competition, a common criticism has risen: why Hamilton students showed such solidarity about something as inconsequential as an expensive party rather than a more substantial cause, like the fight against hunger or any kind of injustice in the world. And while it would be great for stronger cohesion in the student body when it comes to the plethora of fundraisers we are exposed to each week, the fact is that we all have our individual priorities for what we believe in and what we spend our time fighting against. For some, environmental issues merit more attention and action than preventing the spread of AIDS, and because of these preferences, it is difficult—if not impossible—for the vast majority of students to spend their time and efforts on one particular cause in the nearly infinite amount of causes that could use some support.
Convenience and self-indulgence are the two reasons why WiGo has been the exception to this improbability of overwhelming student solidarity to achieve a single cause. There are no meaningful causes that are as easy to support as getting more peers to download an app to defeat a rival school. The competition required so little effort that there was hardly any reason to abstain from participating—it poses no risk and was absolutely free. Moreover, this cause directly impacts each of us, instead of indirectly helping others through a charity. Our unity and time actually had perceptible effects we can all experience first-hand. Our own lives nearly always take priority, and as long as nobody is hurt in the process, there is not anything wrong with that. Just because we all had this common goal does not mean that we do not feel the same sense of urgency for selfless and globally important causes—we are just specializing and focusing on the issues that we care about the most, which only makes sense. We naturally divide and conquer.
There is quite literally no reason to complain about the inspirational levels of solidarity and cooperation exhibited on our campus through a silly app and the reward of a party.