The latest Yale video (coming on the heels of Sam Tsui-madness and the much-discussed Admissions video) has quickly gained the attention of Gawker and IvyGate — both of which obviously took the opportunity to mock Yale kids mercilessly. And sure, having students donate to a university that doesn’t need the extra income is ridiculous — especially before the students have even graduated. Isn’t tuition donation enough? Of all the things to make a video for, the Senior Class Gift isn’t a particularly worthy cause (or a worthy cause at all).

I think everyone who made the video understands that, and everyone who comments on Gawker does not. Most of the kids involved in the video aren’t members of the senior class — actor Henry Gottfried is a freshman, and actor Isabel Siragusa is a junior, as are the Director of Photography Max Barbakow and composer Stephen Feigenbaum, to name a few of the non-graduating participants. I don’t think any of them — correct me if you know otherwise — are really devoted to the senior class gift effort. What you will notice about all the Yale student-produced videos, however, is that the production value is really high. The videos don’t represent any true fly-on-the-wall perspective of Yale daily life — a cappella may be an oppressive presence during the few weeks of rush early on in the year, but I’ve never seen kids spontaneously burst into song and dance on Cross Campus. They do, however, show that students are ambitious and reasonably talented. Knowing that sites like Gawker and IvyGate will pick up on pretty much every video that sheds light on the freaks/geeks of Yale campus — if only to mock them — it makes sense to keep making these videos, if only to get your name — as producer, composer, actor, etc. — out there. All press is good press, after all.