Style over substance

So if you are at a university and the weekly email newsletter has a link to the bookstore's "MAC-over" you probably assume it's some kind of Apple promotion. After all, most university campuses seem to have a deal with Apple computers for educational discounts. Sure, it's commercialization of the university, but an argument can be made that it is related to academics/education by virtue of the ubiquitousness of computers in modern education. And further to that, the student body does get an educational discount on their purchases, so at the very least there is some return to the students.

Well, it turns out my impression of what the "MAC-over" was missed the mark by just a bit... ok, by a whole hell of a lot. The article explained how the bookstore was happy to have their "first choice" of MAC cosmetics offer a fully stocked cosmetics counter with "technicians"; taking up space in the already tiny bookstore.

Now I understand the the need and utility of cosmetics; but when your university is always in Playboy's top five party schools, this kind of action just makes it seems like the school is giving up on the hard things, like books and learning, and taking up the challenge of finding the right concealer. I wonder if this is a sign that I should just look better for my lectures and forget about actually teaching things. Hell, the way the budget and furlough plans are going maybe I'll start being a corporate shill too.