College Rant: Epidemic of Shirtless Guys Plague American Campuses

Springtime is upon us and summer is around the corner. The weather is getting nicer and people seem to be happier simply because it is sunny outside. As with everything, however, there is a dark side to this; a dark side in the form of an incalculable amount of college guys who apparently do not own shirts.

It starts out simple enough. In a dorm without air condition, it is understandable why someone would want to wear as little as possible. Men are fortunate enough to dispose of the entire upper layer without exposing any genitalia or questionable apparatuses (mammary glands, etc.). Taking your shirt off is not something to be ashamed of; we all have days when our shirts contain enough armpit sweat to drown a small animal.

But what began as a one-time, leisurely experiment can very quickly turn into a dangerous addiction. Victims create a habit out of their newfound half-nakedness. On days when students used to ask, "How many layers should I wear today?" they instead ask, "Is it warm enough that I could wear nothing and still not freeze my nipples off?"

Men quickly become attached to divulging their upper bodies to anyone and everyone who passes by. An incentive is formed inside these individuals' minds that being shirtless equates to more people looking at them. What they seem to forget is that most people are only looking at them because they are thinking themselves, "Why the hell are you not wearing a shirt?"

I wanted to get to the bottom of why these populations exist. On the way home from class one day, I decided to follow a random shirtless guy in order to find out what makes him tick. While my peers dismissed the experiment as "kinda gay," I was quickly rewarded for my effort. About ten minutes after I had began following him, my subject dropped a small black book into the street. It was the shirtless guy's journal.

While some may think that broadcasting such questionable media left behind by a college student madman would be a bad thing, I think it is imperative in the sense of ethical journalism to post Shirtless Guy's Journal:

4/13/07: Today I got another tatoo (sic). It's big and black and covers my shoulders and looks sweet. But I'm not the only one who'll think it's sweet. Because everyone is going to see my bare back for the rest of my college career.

4/16/07: Hung out with the guys today. Had a Halo tournament and drank a case of Natty Lites. Something was missing though. Then we realized we were still wearing our shirts. To prove our firm manliness, we spent the rest of the night shirtless together while grunting to ourselves.

4/20/07: Haha. Four-twenty, lol.

4/22/07: Today in my dorm I kept leaving my room to get drinks from the water fountain even though I wasn't thirsty. There's some hotties down the hall from me and I want them to see my oddly shaped muscles. One time a group of girls saw me and smiled to themselves and sorta giggled. They must've thought I was hot. When I left, they started laughing. But they weren't laughing at me, they were laughing with me.

While the journal does go into much greater detail, I only intend to post this excerpt for the sake of your endangered brain cells. Judging from the text, I was able to form a hypothesis on how the addiction works.

If men do not wear shirts, more blood must be pumped to the chest region to keep it warm. In order for this to happen, the blood flow to the brain must be decreased at a devastating rate. The result is a group of men who are able to stay warm without clothes but who are completely oblivious to why everyone is laughing at them.

I have some quick advice to anyone who finds shirtless college guys generally unpleasant to look at. If you see one out of the corner of your eye, your instinct would be to look at them and consider optimistically that maybe they are just kidding. You cannot look at them. Casual glances are like food to these creatures. You must stop acknowledging their existence altogether. If you do not feed them, they will die.