By PENELOPE SHEPERD
Contributing Writer
[email protected]
Last week, two seniors made a music video spoof of “I Just Had Sex” that commemorates their four years on campus. With over 8,400 views, if you haven’t seen this video yet, you’re probably not at Allegheny.
The video with lyrics by Christian Plourd and directed by Matthew Fernandez titled “I’m at Allegheny” uses the Lonely Island tune with lyrics describing the life of students on campus.
“We didn’t have an idea for a video at first. I was just making a song and Matt was like ‘We need to make a video,’” said Plourd, who wrote the song in September.
They began shooting in November and on Jan. 23, they finished their masterpiece. Neither one of them thought the video would be so successful so quickly.
The video “dropped” on Jan. 27.
“We only posted it on like ten people’s Facebook walls and it pretty much took care of itself,” said Fernandez.
Within a day the video had more than 4,500 views. The Office of Admissions posted a link to the video on the Allegheny Facebook page, writing, “When you see students hovering around a laptop with giant grins on their faces, you have to ask what they’re watching. Here’s what surfaced today (it’s officially unofficial) and just made us laugh.”
Various students said they could relate to the video and that they found it entertaining.
“I like the choice of the song. It’s catchy. I thought they did a good job with the lyrics,” said Mary Eddins, ‘14.
The casting of students in familiar settings around campus, as well as the incorporation of class details unique to Allegheny, also helped to make the video more relatable.
“Seeing people I recognized made it funny,” said Kasey Hinkle, ‘14. “And I like it when they say, ‘I just had yoga…still counts!’”
Student Teresa Bensel, ‘12, is featured in the video mouthing along to the lyric, “To have a college let me know I’m not good enough.” She said she finds the lyric to be a clever, not necessarily negative reflection on the College.
“I think you can put a positive spin on that [lyric] because I feel like a liberal arts education kind of challenges your comfortable modes of thinking, which can be a bit discouraging at times,” she said.
President Mullen has seen the video, although due to scheduling issues he was unable to be featured in the video.
“I think the video is wonderfully creative and genuine […] The students involved clearly love their college and that comes through,” Mullen remarked in an e-mail. “That they made the effort to make the video and that they did so with such passion is testimony both to how talented our students are and how deeply they feel about Allegheny.”
On the day the video was posted Plourd was already receiving feedback.
“Two or three of my professors emailed me and everybody had it on their laptops. I was blown away because I didn’t even know it was out yet!” he said.
The coolest thing is seeing what the alumni say,” said Fernandez.
Many comments on the video have been left from past Allegheny students. An alumnus from the class of 1994 posted, “Makes me miss the alma mater.”
Fernandez said he and Plourd created the video “to represent how we felt about the school,” and even waited for sunny days to shoot to show off the campus’s landscape.
“I was trying to encapsulate all of the different people around the campus,” Fernandez said. “This isn’t just a video for Christian or myself. It’s a video for Allegheny.”
