My Name's Katie and I Hate Icebreakers

It's not by the way. But I do. First day back at uni and you've got a wild eyed psychopath who would eat her own eyes to make a good impression on the first people she's been allowed to talk to in three years. Here's a tip: if you ever find yourself in this situation, please don't go around the room asking people their names and hobbies. It's icky. People don't like it.

I mean, what is the point of icebreakers anyway? They don't break the ice. They don't even thaw the tension. You don't know me and I don't know you. Nice and simple. The only function of breaking this unspoken agreement is to make everyone feel so awkward that they feel obliged to retreat into their own private inner well of despair. 'What are your hobbies?' she shrieks in cackling fits of madness. 'I haven't got any hobbies' you scream silently to yourself while those who have gone before you lie foaming on the floor.


Or maybe icebreakers are little chunks of necessary evil for our own good, disguised as awkward time wasting rituals . Perhaps subliminally they help us delve into the deep set hidden emotions of our co-students. Perhaps by talking about crap that nobody really cares about (good preparation for a literature module) we're simply learning to open ourselves up to the group. Perhaps it's 'rapport.' Perhaps it's just a good way for our demented overmistress to learn names.

Bull, bull, bull and bull. Nobody's listening to anything anyone else is saying. We don't care that Paul can ride a motorbike or that Jelly-Legs-Jimbo is doing a PGCE next year. We're too busy either bricking ourselves over what we're going to say next or regretting what we've already said. As if anyone could learn anything from a person's hobbies. 'I sew uncooked brussel sprouts into the eyes of dead animals so that the stalks look like pupils...' Nobody cares.


It's not rapport either and it's certainly not a good way of learning names. Rapport is when you say something and someone says something back. Icebreakers are when you say something and your words are swallowed into a void of ambivalence. As for name-learning, it's not as if you can look at someone and immediately associate them with whatever self-commending toss they've spouted earlier in the year. You've got your own little prejudices for that haven't you? It's not Jeremy the fun loving rascal who spends his time at the hospital singing to terminally ill puppies, it's Jeremy the blatant ket addict who pours jugs of peanut oil over himself for twenty minutes every day in an attempt to get it up. That's you Jeremy and don't you forget it.


My point (I think) is that people shouldn't be pressured into formulating a public image for themselves when they don't really want one. Don't be fooled, this is exactly the sort of brainwashing that icebreakers foster. If you don't have a hobby besides drinking and reading (again prerequisites for an English degree) you had better get one soon. And you can't choose horse riding because that's already taken.


The same goes for blogging. It's apparently impossible to create and maintain a blog without some sort of public image manifesting. Which is why I want to take this moment to apologise. I'm sorry world but this isn't me. This is merely a reflection of me mediated through the distorting lens of the written word. In real life I'm actually quite a nice person. Except when I'm drunk. Then I'm a tyrant.


You'll forgive me then (I'm sure) for criticising Seth Rogan's Zak and Miri Make a Porno because I actually quite like it.

If you haven't seen it, here's the craic. Zak and Miri are flatmates who always forget to pay their bills. They're grown up together around a completely platonic relationship with seemingly zero tension, giving an impression of the ideal no strings friendship. When they finally run out of money however, Zak's zany scheme to make a porno flick forces the pair's repressed emotions to surface, culminating in bizarre romance all round.

So far so good. The strengths of the comedy lie in pornography's innate inability to depict meaningful sex. That, some metacommentary about Rogan directing himself acting directing himself acting, and some good old fashioned poo humour. Hilarious.


There are some weak parts though. Don't get me wrong, I respect Seth Rogan. I respect the way he takes hard hitting contemporary issues and deals with them as delicately as a baboon with a jackhammer. I'm not being sarcastic, I think it's integral not only to the comedy but to dispelling all those nasty little taboos that any upstanding film producer wouldn't dare talk about. My problem with Zak and Miri isn't its disregard of taboo, it's that it doesn't go far enough. All the pornstars are depicted as happy-go-lucky scamps who seem genuinely interested in creating a work of art. I don't want that, I want soulless whores who participate only to fuel their hunger for cocaine. I suppose that would make for some pretty dreary comedy, but still, it's slightly more realistic than them all clubbing together to pay the bills at the flat.


Feeling reletively jolly all of a sudden, I also took it upon myself to read Shakespeare's The Merry Wives of Winsor. Yes, Shakespeare, yawn.
Actually, it's pretty hilarious, if not in language, certainly in plot. The trick to reading Shakespeare of course, is to replace the character's names with those of family members or celebrities, especially when said character is a fat, arrogrant, sweaty lecher with about as much chance of seducing a woman as an anthropomorphic dog turd. The entire play consists of two women playing tricks on poor old Falstaff, including burying him in dirty clothes and hitting him. Hilarious. Needless to say I was picturing Gordon Brown at the butt end of all this, failing miserably to bed Michelle Obama behind wacky old Barrack's back.

Perhaps that's unfair. I mean, Brown's a largely annoying political abomination, but he's probably not a First Lady stealer. Maybe you should have told us this in the icebreaker Gordon. Then we'd all be your friend.