The article, “GFC: ‘Unwelcoming’ for some members of the campus community,” asserted that the majority of the campus community did not feel comfortable in the coffee shop on campus. Why doesn’t the general campus populace feel safe stopping in for a hot cup of joe at the GFC? Well, according to writer PJ Aurora, because the “socially offbeat hipsters” that inhabit the space are an intimidating group of individuals who will glare at you until you evacuate the premises. Supposedly, these skinny, “socially offbeat hipsters” are so intimidating that they actually scared away one of his football-playing friends. Apparently the physical prowess of the coffee-sipping, skinny jean wearing individuals was too much for the muscle bound, football-playing jock.

Aurora then asserted that, due to the homogeneous nature of the coffee shop, there is some kind of issue with interaction across racial and social boundaries on campus. The only evidence that Aurora provided for this assumption was that he found the exact type of people that you would expect to find in a coffee shop, believe it or not, dominating our coffee shop.

Aurora used several ambiguous statements to connect the homogeneity of the GFC with a social issue on campus. Somehow, a correlation between a hipster-dominated coffee shop and the lack of social interaction between different groups in our college exists. What he doesn’t seem to realize is that when you have a diverse group of students with a diverse set of interests and preferences, social niches are bound to form. I don’t see anyone writing any articles about how the gym is overrun by jocks. People go to where they feel most comfortable and to where the environment best fits their preferences. That doesn’t mean that there is some kind of social issue that needs to be resolved; it merely means that the intrinsic nature of certain areas on campus is going to attract certain groups of individuals. I personally think that this is a beautiful thing.