Overheard during the Harvard Square Blackout of 2016

In case you’ve been living under a rock (or have been holed up in Starbucks for the evening), you’ll know that most of Harvard Yard and the River went dark sometime around midnight tonight. Students poured out into the pitch-black night, wandering listlessly now that their Thursday study plans were cut short, unsure of what to do.

Should we start drinking as if the world is ending? Wifi is down, so we can’t even Netflix and chill. Should we break out our clandestine scented candles to light our dorms?

We at Flyby, wondering what Harvard life was like pre-electricity, decided to venture out into the blackness. Here’s what we overheard during the Blackout of 2016:

“Is this how the purge starts out?”
Better toss your heaviest textbooks into your bag and grab a beer bottle or two…they’re the only weapons you’ll have to defend yourself with if this is the start of the purge.

“Don’t go to bed! We’re having too much fun!”
Oh, freshmen…

“Alright, I guess they’re going back in…”
Spoken by a resigned HUPD officer, about Matthews residents streaming back into a still-dark building. Kids these days.

**Soulja Boy playing**
Leave it to optimistic freshmen to try and turn a blackout into a rager. Unfortunately, fire trucks’ lights are not strobe lights, and some of us just want to find a place to write up our Stat 110 psets and to go to bed.

“Fuck this, should we go to this quad?”
Apparently the Quad is #lit tonight, in multiple senses of the word. Still doesn’t make it worth the trek.

“We’re going to the Kong.”
Fantastic call. We’ll meet you there.