Point/Counterpoint is a recurring feature on BDCwire which explores the pros and cons of various parts of life in Boston. These arguments may, or may not, break any new ground, but are meant as a starting point for you too to make an argument. What do you think? Are you pro-students in Boston or anti-students in Boston?
[UPDATE: The video has since been removed, but you can check out the audio of Costa’s lecture right here courtesy of WROR]
Perry Eaton, arguing in favor of Kim Costa’s rant
If you weren’t aware by her accent, Kim Costa is a Boston native, and she’s damn proud of it. While Kim here may seem like a curmudgeon– the type of curmudgeon who would dump a drink on your girlfriend at a Bruins game if your girlfriend asked what a Boychuk is– she makes some pretty significant points in her now infamous Facebook rant. The Medford native comes off a bit harsh in her blunt delivery of, “no need fo’ya,” but anyone who has spent a great number of (full calendar) years in Boston knows that the culture significantly changes once the students return. And in the post-Zuckerberg years, many of these young wealthy thinkers have carried with them an even greater false sense of accomplishment, viewing Boston as no more that a cute stepping stone on their way to “the top.” Sure, many of these kids will be running our country someday, but it doesn’t mean they have to be assholes about it now. The same kids who join the “Recycling Matters” club on campus but then litter the backyards of their apartments on weekends with overstuffed trash bags of Natty Ice cans, the same kids who constantly complain about bike safety but walk cluelessly in front of cars because checking Snapchat is more important than looking both ways, the same kids who believe that their homemade t-shirt line will be the golden ticket to their post-grad Brooklyn apartment– those are the ones she speaks so sternly to. Not all college students suck, but having been a college student not long ago who kind of sucked, I’m well aware that they exist. Boston will respect you if you respect it. And if you don’t, be prepared to run in with a few folks like Kim.
Jerard Fagerberg, arguing against Kim Costa’s rant
Listen lady, we all know college is the period where people become the worst versions of themselves. But the sad fact is that the Universe is a spectrum, and you get back what you put in. Guess where I learned that? The deal goes like this – you get to go to college and act at the behest of your Id for four years, and you get to do so with impunity and your dad’s Am Ex for “emergencies,” but you incur a lot of debt in that process. No, not like Sallie Mae shit (but, yes), I’m talking about karma. Now, as an adult, you have to pay for these four years of societal abandon with the rest of your life. Even if you didn’t go to college, you were once college-aged and you sucked — even more than you do now, and you suck intolerably — now you have to reset the cosmic balance by being normal forever while the younger generation gets into fistfights over beirut dunks at 4 a.m. in the apartment next door. Also, no one in college wears pink polos with the collars popped, not even at Harvard. That’s absurd. I know Boston is a particularly crowded incubator for the solipsistic alcoholics that populate our nation’s universities, but that’s the deal with this city. Maybe tuck in your trumped-up accent and take a look around. This shit ain’t new. So like, maybe try going to a square that isn’t named after a school that’s been around since 300 years before you were born? Maybe try moving out of a town that’s situated around one of the country’s most well-known universities? Maybe just go to bed. Yeah, have a chamomile and take a nap, Kim, you’re embarrassing a lot of people.
