At 9 p.m. on Friday, April 22, students assembled on Mertz field for an annual culminating celebration of Earth Day. This event encouraged members of the student body to honor the natural world and all things in nature by stripping down to their most natural state: bare-butt naked.
The organizer of this event asked to remain anonymous for liability reasons and refused to comment for this Phoenix article. However, we have on good standing that they are quoted saying, “A wise man once said, ‘We love the earth, it is our planet’. And that was Lil’ Dicky, and his point stands. And, of course, whenever I want to show my appreciation for anything, I strip down.”
“The college is committed to doing everything possible to save the Earth,” said a representative of the administration. “Except for divesting fully from fossil fuels, of course. Nude Day is just another demonstration of our complete dedication to the environment.”
According to Anay Ked, an intern working on the event who did agree to talk with us, there was no free food offered for stragglers because of low turnout to other Earth Week events. Students were randomly selected to participate in the final part of the event called The Ceremony.
“These students were gently removed from their respective residences at approximately 8 p.m. with no forewarning and no opportunity to opt out, stripped from their clothes, and made to sing and dance around Mertz Field — nude of course,” Ked said.
Due to staff shortages, we were not able to get live coverage of the event (aka no one wanted to see all that). With some heavy investigative reporting, however, The Phoenix is able to provide a small insight into what the event looked like.
The Ceremony began with singing and chanting, nude, around the original Earth Day Proclamation, which can be found in the Swarthmore archives. (It’s from 1970 and is probably the last time Swarthmore did anything important for the Earth.) Students erected a naked statue of Gaia to honor Mother Earth. The Ceremony ended in a group fertilizer event; we’ll let you figure out what that means.
Students around campus were chafing with excitement. One junior who had never experienced Nude Day, due to the global pandemic, was particularly excited to participate.
“Personally, I love the idea of Nude Day. I think it opens a lot of doors. It gives me the opportunity to work on leadership skills, eye diversion, explore creative passions, and, honestly, I just want to show off my perky titties,” said Jane Doe ’23. “Virtual Nude Day just wasn’t the same. The in-person event felt a lot more intimate, and I really appreciated that.”
Senior Rachel Pido came to the event to make a statement about how you can’t cleave mother Earth from nudity.
“I painted ‘I’d fuck mother Earth’ across my bare chest and ran around making out with everyone with a pulse,” said Pido. “It was part of my form of expression. I’m very against eco-fascism; I think we DO need to overpopulate, and I’m just trying to do my part.”
In years past, there have been several variations of The Ceremony, including but not limited to, free bleeding in Sharples Dining Hall, skinny dipping in Crum Creek and Ware Pool, and hide and go seek.
Some students took Nude Day an extra step, for the Earth of course, and went to class nude. Not only did they not wear their protective gear to their chem lab, they wore nothing at all.
Critics have expressed concern with this event. Not about the public exposure, but about the greenhouse gas emissions from the event. Carbon Atmos, a representative for the Roadmap to Zero Carbon, crunched the numbers.
“We calculated that one hot exposed buttcrack contributes heavily to the emissions we would have to offset in our campus zero efforts,” Atmos said. “Then you add the methane from the group fertilization … we’re really pushing that 2 degrees global temperature increase already, and this is not helping.”
Overall the event was a smashing success, proof that the student body is dedicated to the Earth. A lot more than the Board, clearly, which can’t even disclose where our endowment is invested. The students, however, have no barriers to disclosing their most intimate parts.
