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A recent study led by Brown graduate student Arvind Amernath on the chemistry of dollar bills in circulation on College Hill has revealed a frightening statistic about life at the university.
As Amernath explains, "We, um, borrowed a large sample of cash from various locations around campus and studied its chemical composition. We found a number of interesting characteristics about the bills, but the most notable was that nearly 95% of the bills we examined contained some amount of pretension."
Amernath found that this figure varied by location, with 112% of pretension-laced bills coming from independent coffee shops, a statistic that Amernath calls, "impossible, actually. But we checked the numbers a thousand times, and it always came out the same." When contacted by the Brown Noser, a few frequent visitors to these coffee shops only said that this disquieting statistic was "ironic," and refused to make any further comment.
On the other end of the spectrum, notes obtained from members of Brown's fraternity houses contained almost no evidence of pretension. When asked to comment on this disparity, Delta Tau president Chad Miller '10 responded, "Pretension? No way, man. We're all, like, totally down-to-earth dudes. We never pretent. We're so far from pretenting that we, like, posttent. It's intense."
Amernath's study showed that bills contained up to eighteen different pretension isotopes, from the molecule's simplest form ("Thanks, I found it at a thrift store") to its most complex ("I really think Derrida was right about the dissolution of the interior/exterior binary in textual criticism").
Director of Health Services Lynette Smith advised students who have handled infected bills to wash their hands before touching their chins to avoid spontaneous growth of soul patches.
Due to its extremely prevalent nature, there is little concerned students can do to avoid coming into contact with pretension. Smith's advice? "Avoid scarves, public radio, and anyone who calls the French city 'Pa-wee.' We're also looking into introducing a system where students can come into Health Services at any time to watch Flavor of Love and Pimp My Ride in order to reduce their pretension count. I encourage students to take advantage of that program once it becomes available, but for now, just go to lots of frat parties - I hear Delta Tau is having a posttension party on Saturday, whatever that means."
