Graphic by Mariko Kuroda/TheGazelle

The recent Student Government vs. Lingliang Zhang debacle took place in stages for me:

I’d like to focus on the fifth stage. Is this really what Student Government looks like?

A little about myself: apathy is my forte, and admitting I care about Student Government would be my moral equivalent of admitting I think women have little walnut brains that explode if you make them count higher than 12. I have not taken and will never take much interest in the operations of Student Government, so of course it may come as a surprise that I am offering advice to that same organization whose significance I so fully reject.

“Why should we listen to you, Juliana, when not only do you clearly not care about our success or our failure, but also you are kind of rude?” those of Student Government allegiance might ask. To them I say: because I have leverage. I know your numbers are down and attendance isn’t what it used to be. I am the solution. Not me personally, but anyone who doesn’t bother to show up to General Assemblies or run for office because it just seems so silly.

We are the people you need to convince it’s worthwhile, and you cannot do that if you continue to conduct official matters on Facebook and, what’s worse, the Room of Requirement page.

Yes, I know it’s petty, but it just looks so bad. When Student Government officials respond to hecklers that decide to lodge complaints in the form of RoR comments, it looks bad. When Student Government officials decide to heckle hecklers in return, it looks worse. And when students post formal, well-documented rallies for support on RoR and Student Government officials respond not with a formal document of their own but rather with sporadic replies in the comments thread, then I just lose it. I know it’s hard — there are like eight of us, the small size of our community does nothing to encourage formality and professionalism.

But when you choose formality over informality, it tells me you care enough to put on the little show of decorum and leads me to believe you’re here to get things done.

I’d like to add that the same is true for those who engage in Student Government while not necessarily acting in an official capacity. Your frivolous Facebook posting makes me just as wary of those who attend GAs as I am of those who conduct them. Factual information is provided in posts that aren’t even proofread well enough to get that information across, chaos ensues and while I’m laughing on the outside, I’m really crying on the inside.

You might be waiting for me to offer a solution to this craziness, since I’m so full of complaints — Well, do you have a better idea? you’re probably asking. The answer is no, I don’t. Maybe you need a Facebook page exclusively for the internal workings of Student Government; maybe commenters should be restricted to posting documents that formally voice their opinions in a certain structure; maybe officials should be required to respond to student inquiries in a specified amount of time; and maybe we need to give anarchy a try. It’s up to you guys. Please don’t take this as an attack, it’s just the way I talk. I just wanted to let you know that people like me exist and the Facebook shenanigans are doing nothing to get me psyched about democracy.

Let’s make a deal: If you guys clean up your act, I will attend every GA in the 2015-2016 school year. Deal?