Connect with Douches You've Never Met

Another preposterously unbelievable scenario, brought to you by The Yale Club (if I recall correctly, in the pages of the Yale alumni magazine): You stop by the Yale Club, and there you "connect" with "friends you've never met."  First of all, something about the phrase "friends you've never met" sounds very ominous to me.  It sounds like something out of The Grudge.  But more importantly, these un-friends I'm going to connect with are a bunch of deeply douche-y multicultural drunks in head-to-toe Brooks Brothers?  Sign me up!?

The photo is so awkward.  Whoever staged it has created a sort of mobius strip or M.C. Escher cartoon of an impossible social moment: Black guy is making a hilarious point to Asian guy, but Asian guy is not laughing as much as Black guy is at his own joke (maybe because Black guy is so tipsy he's about to spill his beer?  his expression certainly suggests he's had a few too many); possibly-Latina girl is smiling at Asian guy, even though he's not saying anything; the people actually in closest proximity to Black guy--Black girl and White guy--are laughing at Black guy, but he is ignoring them.  And in the midst of it all, the two women (who must have been told to look more "sexy") are weirdly flaunting their bodies in a way that seems inappropriate to the situation and additionally would never happen inside the sexless atmosphere of the actual Yale Club.

Finally, I love that everyone is DRINKING.  That seems to be the most important subtext of the ad: belong to the Yale Club so you can come have a big fat DRINK.  Every single one of these people seems to be clinging to his/her cocktail for dear life.  Adding to the palpable sense of social awkwardness and desperation, the shot is so brightly lit that it looks like they're closing the place down and the bartender has turned the lights on on them.

Then finally, the tagline down at the bottom-right revives the pall of ominousness: "The Yale Club of New York City: It's Where You Belong."  Though this is meant to be a sort-of-playing-on-words way of saying, "it's a place where you'll experience a sense of belonging," it actually comes across as more like an insult/threat, like, "you have earned and deserve the terrible fate of being locked inside the Yale Club with the rest of the d-bags."

Nice going, Yale Club of New York.  This creepy, alchoholic, stilted ad is amazing.