As a tool for reflection on the University of Wisconsin, “College Life” is a warped and spotty mirror. The MTV show rankled the UW administration, drew the scorn of wizened upperclassmen, provided fodder for campus gossip for the better part of two semesters, inflamed tempers, sparked debates and generally drew the attention of Madison observers of all stripes.
But for the matriculating class of 2008, that attention seemed tinged with an air of extra importance. Each of the four cast members originally chosen to appear on the air each week – Jordan Ellerman, Andrea Endries, Kevin Tracy and Alex Viser – belonged to that freshman class. When Alex left the show, she would be replaced by Lindsay Zadra, another freshman. Two more “webisode” cast members, Dan Ross and Anna Shoemaker, were in their first year of school as well. Only one regular on the show, Josh Hickson, was older, and he came on board uncast, having been handed a camera due to his ongoing connection with Andrea. These people were our dorm mates and project partners. We saw them in class and at house parties, in libraries and on State Street.
It would be unwise to judge the cast members themselves by their representation on their show; our generation more than any other has learned that lesson hundreds of times over, many of those times while watching MTV. But appropriately or not, their characterizations were by far the most public representation of our class. In many ways – namely, those typical, unavoidable, reality television ways – “College Life” is a broken lens for which to examine our class. Like any tiny, unrepresentative sample, similarities are as easy to manufacture as differences, it just depends on what you’re looking for.
Still, to some degree, the comparison works. Who among us doesn’t know a party animal that had a bit too much fun freshman year or a couple that just can’t quite seem to make a clean break? It was clear that the casting department of “College Life” was trying to cover its bases in terms of diversity, as one of our interviewees, an independently contracted casting director for the show, said: “You always want to have your archetypes.”
What, then, can we learn from “College Life”? When we – a small group of ArtsEtc.’s seniors – set out our goals for this project, we hoped to accomplish a few things. We wanted to know the impact of the show on the university, on the cast members and on our class. We wanted to catalogue the history of the show in a more comprehensive manner than had ever been done before. We wanted to figure out where to cast blame, if there was blame to be assigned, and where to give credit, if it was due. And we wanted to figure out what the cast members were up to now. If you’d made a wager in late 2008 that some members of the cast would no longer be at UW by this May, that bet would pay off. But if you picked Kevin, you’d be out a little cash.
Perhaps our curiosity was driven by a lingering, ingrained celebrity fascination, but we doubt it. Rather, we see “College Life” as the massive, landmark, pop-cultural event of our four years in school. Despite its problems, the show was an undeniably significant part of our Wisconsin experience, and we figured we’d accept the task of telling its story. Like “College Life,” we’ll tell the story through the first person with little to no editorializing. But like “College Life,” all information hereafter has been edited, condensed and arranged by topic to allow a coherent story to emerge.
– Sam Berg, Katie Foran-McHale, Holly Hartung, Joe Nistler and Lin Weeks
