Emory University President James Wagner took the Internet by storm yesterday after his musings on the subject of compromise went viral. Spreading across social media faster than a speeding Harlem shake video, Wagner has already appeared on the likes of Gawker and Salon. Still, his meteoric rise has showed no signs of slowing down as he continues to climb the ranks of Twitter’s trending topics. Already, his comments have supplanted the Pope’s resignation, Justin Bieber, and decency itself as topics of social media conversation.
In just the past twelve hours, thousands of young adults from around the world have posted videos of themselves “J Wagging” on YouTube. This fad involves video subjects dressing up as a wealthy, white, school administrator and throwing monopoly dollars into the air while they spout intentionally ignorant statements.
In one of the most popular videos, a “J-Wagging” enthusiast proudly exclaims, “The government should look towards the child labor policies of the U.S. around 1900 as a pragmatic solution to our looming labor shortage,” before letting forth a burst of monopoly money and chortling heartily.
Comedian Daniel Tosh, the host of Comedy Central’s viral video show, Tosh.0 has already reached out to Wagner to participate in a “Web Redemption” segment, the first time a top-20 university administrator has ever been offered the honor. As of press time, however, Wagner had not yet accepted the invitation. The Internet community waits with bated breath.
This year has proved to be a historic one for Emory’s already sterling reputation. Just this year, the university has appeared in countless educational journals for its trailblazing department cuts and the New York Times for its innovation in the statistical analysis of SAT scores. Now, with Wagner’s sudden, well-deserved recognition, the university has taken its mission “to create, preserve, teach and apply knowledge in the service of humanity,” to the social media world.
Many of the students who were initially offended by Wagner’s remarks had a change of heart after seeing the beneficial publicity that Emory is receiving. “At first, I was kind of disappointed that our president held up the Three-Fifths Compromise, a short-sighted, morally-depraved bargain that later led to the Civil War and which still invokes strong racial sensitivities, as the best example of compromise in U.S. history,” said Jenny Michaels, a college junior from Michigan, “But now all my friends from back home are talking about my school!”
“Any publicity is good publicity,” said college freshman Jon Wu, “If it worked for Paris Hilton, why couldn’t it work for a highly ranked, private research institution?”
“Personally,” he continued, “I’m just really excited to see the administration’s next move – another racist letter? A sexist one? A homophobic tweet? I don’t know, they’ve just been on fire this year.”
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